Get specific…the importance of quantifying your challenges and opportunities:

(Time to read this Blog is about 2 minutes)

Before we get to the main topic, here are a few things to get you thinking:

1. My biz quote of the week:
   “Don’t make your business your ‘neat fort’.  A neat fort is where we go to hide from reality.  Business is where we go to engage in reality.  If you’re going to work to hide from reality and to feel safe, comfortable and in control, you and the business are in big trouble.  I see it all the time.”
   …Donald Cooper  

2. How strong is your ‘Talent Pipeline’? Every business, regardless of size, needs a strong Talent Pipeline.  In sports, we call it ‘bench strength’.  Clients tell me that our Biz Tool #A-17, ‘Evaluate Your Talent Pipeline’ is most helpful in determining the current and future strength of their team.  I’ve just updated it to make it even more helpful. To download it, no charge, Click Here.
3. A special note for ‘partnerships and family businesses: Partnerships and family businesses often have unique challenges that cause a lot of grief for the people and families involved and hurt the business’s bottom line. Much of my Biz Coaching work is in sorting out these problems.
    
   To do a quick check-up on your partnership or family business, take a just a few minutes to download and complete (Click Here) our insightful Biz Tool #A-11, ‘The Partnership & Family Business Audit’.  If you’d like to chat about your partnership or family business challenges, simply email me at donald@donaldcooper.com.  

Now, to this week’s important topic:

Get specific…the importance of quantifying your challenges and opportunities:

To make real progress in your business it’s important to get specific.  There’s no clarity or accountability in saying, “We need to increase sales.”  or, “We need to reduce overhead.”  It’s simply not actionable.  But that’s what many businesses do.

Get specific!  For example, make a commitment to increase sales by at least $60,000 within 4 months, without eroding gross margins and without spending more than an additional $2,000 on advertising.

Or, make a commitment to ship all rush orders ‘same day’ within 2 months, without increasing Warehouse and Distribution Expense by more than 2%.  

Engage the appropriate members of your team in creating innovative solutions and an ‘Action Commitment’ to make it happen.  Be specific about what will be done, by whom, by when, at what expense and measured how.  And, remember, you’re looking for ‘commitments’, not goals, targets, aims or objectives.  These are weak and wishy-washy words that leave way too much room to not perform.  When we change our language, we change our culture.

Then, follow up, measure performance, celebrate success and deal appropriately with non-performance.  This simple but powerful shift in thinking to get much more specific will improve clarity, commitment, urgency, efficiency and accountability in every part of your business or department. 

We’d love to hear about your successes with this simple but powerful shift.        

That’s it for this week…

Stay safe…live brilliantly…and do at least 3 important or kind things each day!       

Donald Cooper 

Donald Cooper speaks and coaches internationally on management, marketing, and profitability.  He can be reached by email at donald@donaldcooper.com in Toronto, Canada.