While it may be common knowledge that dogs age about seven years for each calendar year, for businesses, the pace is much quicker. Products that require application testing, your sales planning process is likely starting to focus on 2021 revenue opportunities and how to close them.
This is a process that cannot be left to fate. It requires a significant amount of advance planning and effort. A business can grow for a brief period with little to no advance planning, but unplanned growth typically is accompanied by a never-ending stream of problems to solve.
As the new year starts, now is a good time to do a little review of how your team is spending their time. If your team’s time is spent reacting to near term problems such as late shipments, broken promises by customer facing employees, and late product changes then it might be a good time to look at how well your strategy aligns your team on a common goal
Now is good time to look towards the future. Are you placing your newest and best growth products in your upcoming trade shows? Is your sales team focused and incentivized on the products needed for growth? Have your facilities and operations teams prepared themselves for growth on the new products or are they waiting until the products sell to worry about it?
For true sustained growth to occur, your sights must be focused in a singular direction that is communicated to the entire team. The message needs to be repeated often to everyone who will hear it. Most importantly, show no fear. Fear is best managed with a journal where you can look back closer to the end of the year to make next year’s plan even better.