The theme of our newsletter this month is preparing for the new year. And most people will spend the end of the year preparing their New Years resolutions.
It is also a good time to do the same thing for your business. And, for me, I believe it should follow the same rules that I apply to myself when creating my resolutions - make them realistic and achieveable.
So many times we set goals that have no chance of being realized. The same thing applies for setting business goals. For example, if you say you are going to increase sales by 10% are you prepared for that happening? Will the market provide for that growth? Are your existing customers going to buy more the next year?
In previous posts, I have said it is easier to go after existing customers than it is to get new ones. That means if you set goals like increased revenues of 10% you probably expect a large chunk of that to come from existing customers.
Therefore, that goal may not be realistic. Examples of realistic goals are
- streamlining your business processes (which could actually help increase sales) - deciding on a new product line or service - putting in place a customer life cycle that ensures you reach out more frequently - develop some standard "how are you doing" emails to send out periodically - clean out clutter from desks, file cabinets, and computer files you no longer need.
All of the above are achievable and will help streamline the business. I do the last item every single end of year. There is a certain satisfaction with throwing things away.
Any goals or action items are good in improving business. Sticking to them is the hard part. Then, once you have accomplished them, first, pat yourself on the back, and then go back and measure the results.
In order to measure the results you will have to look at what currently happens in your business. Setting goals without knowing the current state of affairs is like driving blind.
If you have a CRM in use, go back and get reports of activities. Were certain times of the day more productive in landing a sale. Are customers buying more of a certain item - if so why. If they are not buying some products, do you still want to sell them? Do you have cities, counties, states where you do not have a presence? That could then become a goal for the new year - branch out to new areas.
The CRM has useful information to help guide you to developing a good set of goals and business resolutions. Your accounting system has them as well. Consider looking at Excel to pull in the CRM data and the accounting data and match them up. Are your prospecting calls landing the sales. It's amazing how comparing the two sets of data can show you data you probably were not aware of.
Simple steps. Easy goals. Good results. And that will lead to a happy New Business Year.
If you are interested in seeing what we have done for other customers generating the type of Excel report I mentioned above, contact us at