A new year brings new hope, new beginnings, and new plans for success. Is your business ready for a new year? As we talk with hundreds of business leaders throughout the year, we know there are two keys to business success - an effective business model, and the right talent to bring it to life. 2020 placed significant challenges on many business models. Did yours thrive? If so, how will you maximize it for 2021? Where else you can add value and meet your customer's needs? If you're not sure that you did, or if a little checkup would be helpful, then this is the first article you should read for 2021!

GETTING STARTED

John* is a local business owner who's been in business for nearly two years. He started his business as a life coach, as a side business, helping clients to understand and overcome their challenges, and build healthy sustainable habits. He achieved a coaching certification, knew the fit was right for him personally, and was ready to help clients. His coaching course covered a bit of the business model, focused on 45-minute coaching sessions over multiple sessions. Beyond that framework, John didn't know how much he could generate as a life coach, where to find his best clients, or how to develop and modify his business model, to evolve this into a full-time career. Let's explore through John's story how you can develop and build a sustainable business.

CUSTOMERS FIRST

John's first challenge was to identify who were his best prospects, what their pain points were, and where to find them. He began with a conversation with another life coach, to get a sense of what they saw in the market as needed, and what they delivered. This may seem odd, however it is actually a great strategy in the service sector, because everyone has some unique skills and characteristics that fit best with some needs, and not exactly with others. For the ones that don't fit well, simply refer those individuals to a colleague, and they will likely reciprocate. He learned the biggest pain points in his prospects, and it sparked some ideas of how he could differentiate his services from others in the market. He was getting excited! He also decided to ask his first initial clients a few questions at the end of their sessions with him, to learn where he could add more value, and potentially have them return in the future.

GETTING PAID

One of John's next decisions was how to offer his services, and the value respectively. While his coaching program gave him some general ideas, he also reviewed the websites of other coaches in the area, to learn what they were offering in packages and pricing. He wanted to be solidly positioned in the market, and not appear as the 'bargain-basement' option. He knew that he could bring great value to his clients, and he deserved to be compensated fairly for that value. He created three packages for the key services that he believed would be needed by his clients. He projected how many clients he would likely acquire in each category, and the associated revenue. He tiered his projections for growth over the first three years. He wasn't ready to move to this full-time yet, but as he added repeat clients who saw great value, he could see it happening soon. 

UNIQUE VALUE PROPOSITION

John was thrilled. He knew what he could offer, to whom, and how he would get paid. His dream of being a successful business owner, and doing the work that he loved was coming together. He could hardly believe it was possible!

As he was beginning to develop some marketing for the key services that he knew were needed, he paused to make sure that he could clearly differentiate his services from others in his local market. Then he thought, I'm not limited to the local market. I can deliver services anywhere through technology, and advance my reach and reputation faster and further! He migrated his virtual coach concept into his logo, business name, website, and service graphics. His brand was coming together, and he could see that this would help him be more memorable, and stand out from others. Flexible times, access, and locations were not the norm for others, yet he believed they would be better for client needs. He would integrate this flexibility into his service schedule and pricing.

BUSINESS EXPENSES

In John's business, he was fortunate that there was little overhead cost - largely his time and expertise. He established a marketing budget to build client awareness, a website, some social media campaigns, and participation in a local business network. He identified each of these as overhead expenses in his business model, knowing that they would not generate revenue, yet they were essential parts of his business design. He deducted these costs, both ongoing and fixed, from his projected revenues. He made sure to manage these expenses as a fixed percentage of his projected revenue. 

READY, SET GO!

John now had a great plan, knew what he needed to do, and how he would track his progress. He decided that he would track his progress monthly, and re-evaluate his business model quarterly for intended client volume and revenues. As he began to reach out to prospects, his first five clients materialized. True to his plan, he asked them what they liked most about his services, and what one thing might make it particularly valuable for them. One thing he learned was to show measurable results. When his clients saw measurable results on their goals, they were incentivized to not only continue on the program, but to share John's services with others. He thanked them with a referral incentive. John was on his way to living his dream career, and loving it!

Access a Business Model Canvas to build your 2021 plan here

ARE YOU READY?

John learned how to get his business ready to go as a relatively new business, but what about established businesses that have hit a rut? The same principles work. Start with a clear understanding of your customers needs, pains, and current options. This usually identifies gaps in the market that you can leverage. We often hear from clients who have thrown spaghetti against the wall without a solid plan. Results suffer. Then, they need a resource to restructure their business model, and overcome these mistakes. The good news is that an early fix can be a great learning experience. If you are facing customer demand challenges, pricing, talent or overhead challenges, take the time to have a conversation with a business consultant, and get the right fix now. Wasting time may cost you the business, and your dreams for the future. A conversation may create an even better dream! Here's to your dreams!

Dawn Garcia is Principal and Founder of Pursuit of Excellence LLC, an independent business management consulting firm specializing in service-based businesses; delivering leadership, business and talent strategy, and performance execution. Experience the Excellence Driven® System and The Predictive Index® for your business, and achieve the results you need! Every business needs help sometime; great leaders get help early, realizing greater returns.

When you need help, consult the experts. We're here for you and your business! Click the button below and let's connect.              

Your Success is Our Success

*John is an alias to protect the privacy of the business owner. 

 Let's face it, life at work over the past six weeks has been challenging for most of us. Whether you've been working from home, not working, or are considered an essential business, you've had to make many changes in your day-to-day role. Many of us have engaged in virtual meetings to lead our teams, to connect with current and prospective customers, and to engage in training programs. Meanwhile, the freedom of attire, time and commute savings are appealing too, especially to introverts. As a result, about 40 percent of our team members probably don't want to come back to the office, even to better work. Now, you're thrilled to bring people back to work amidst this, right? We're here to help you make this picture brighter by leveraging five key areas of opportunity for a better work environment upon return. Check these off before you re-open the door, and your customers and team members will thank you.

Take Inventory

Every change in your business impacts your work team, your customers, and your business model to some level. Take inventory on what changes have actually transpired that have helped you deliver your services or products to your customers, and which ones are practices that you had to do in the short term, that should naturally end. It sounds obvious, but get your team involved in this as well. This is the first part of successful change management - realize what has changed, and evaluate the impact. We recommend that you use a simple and proven tool: Start - Continue - Stop. Take a sheet of paper, and write on the top Start; in the middle write Continue; and at the bottom write Stop. Jot your thoughts on which practices should you start upon return, which new practices should continue, and which ones should stop. Then send it to some or all of your team. Get their input to what should be kept, tweaked or dropped. This is a huge benefit to not miss insights that are not under your radar, and it builds incredible buy-in and respect from your team. Even better, share your findings with the team for validation and modification before proceeding to make the changes. Creating better work also saves time and stress. 

Evaluate the Impact

Next, consider the impact of each identified change to your customers, stakeholders and team members. First, start with an impact to measures of importance to your customers, like time to respond, the quality rating of a service, and perhaps new sales or repeat sales. Then consider the impact to your stakeholders, or those that have a vested interest in your ongoing success as a business. These may include things like your financial position, support to the community, brand reputation, and other key measures. We include in this item an impact to your mission and vision. Lastly, consider the measurable impact to your team. Have you seen increases in employee engagement, retention, productivity, or volunteerism? If so, it's critically important to evaluate the practices that contributed to those changes, and preserve some of them for continued benefit. We recommend using an objective weighted matrix, like a Pugh Matrix to limit the inherent bias. If you're new to these tools, and would like to get more information, reach out to us below.  

Design the New Reality

Now it's time to revisit your business strategy or plan, and consider both a short and long-term new reality. What is substantially different both in your business and in your industry because of economic or market changes? Chances are you will need to revisit your business strategy at least in the short term. Perhaps, you will need to reduce your product or service offerings, adjust your pricing structure, or adjust the structure of your organization with different roles or a more flattened leadership. Perhaps you'll need to dial back on the proposed expansion to another site. We recommend creating a few different scenarios for short term modifications that each support the long-term strategy for sustainability, on track to your mission and vision. Once you're comfortable with the right short-term changes, then consider the impact on your long-term strategy. For many of us, it's tempting to think we know these pieces from our gut. Take the time to consider, plan, and project the impact of each change to business results. It will benefit the next steps.

Develop the Plan

You've designed a short and long-term return to your business. Now, how will you make that happen smoothly and effectively? In this step, you'll need to break down each change into implementation steps, to ensure a smooth progression. For example, if you're reducing the product or service options, how will you ensure that you have the right talent in place for the ones that you keep and promote? Do you need to shift your marketing materials to promote this service? Do you need to make any changes in your delivery or pricing? Does your team need additional training to achieve higher performance levels as you promote this service at a higher level? Is your competition in this space? What is your unique value proposition? All of the steps of evaluating a new product or service should be considered when promoting or changing an offering. This step ensures that you've planned for that successful implementation. 

Execute the Plan

Once you've reached this step, you have confidence in your analysis of the change, and have a clear plan to proceed toward a return to operations. As a leader, a key facet of executing any plan is a communication to those involved and affected. Translate your plan into key messages for the different groups affected, in language that is easily understood, and that matches their experience through the change. Be respectful, authentic, and transparent, as much as possible. Some messages will be in writing. Others that are more sensitive need to be in person, and still others may be in video to key stakeholders. Map each change to a communication strategy, and then determine the content and timing. We recommend developing this communication with your key leaders, to ensure sensitivity and alignment of the message across the organization. We also recommend that you use a tiered communication process to provide the most sensitive communications personally and first, and then systematically deploy the more general communication of the changes. Remind your team members of your social media policy. Reinforce messages in several different forms to reduce the potential for misinterpretation, recognizing that any sensitive message may get to the media. Build and reinforce trusted relationships through your communications. 

The second key aspect of execution is leadership alignment, support and accountability. Ensure that the plan is clearly understood by leadership, and that lines of accountability to specific activities and groups are known and accepted. Recognize that the work of leaders in this shift will be harder, and some will not be able to make the transition. While this should have been a consideration in developing the plan, if there are unforeseen impacts, recognize that this aspect is probably the greatest risk to your revised plan, and your employee retention and productivity. We recommend a high level engagement of your leaders to their teams, whether virtual or in person, with at least biweekly group check-ins, and weekly check-ins for key individuals. Depending on the span of control, there may be challenges to implement this level of support and engagement, however high level interaction is key to a successful transition. 

Evaluation - Talent Challenges? 

You may identify as you complete your plan, and return to a better new reality in your business, that you have some significant talent gaps. That's not uncommon, especially when you're creating conscious changes from former roles, with new competencies, skills and behaviors. As a senior or company leader, your role is to evaluate where your mid-level leaders are well-positioned, and where there may need to be additional training, or even a shift of roles to maximize natural wiring and preferences. It's much better to recognize this early in the process, to retain the team working with that leader. We recommend having weekly connections with your leaders, and to also connect with their teams informally to keep the lines of feedback open, boosting early awareness. 

If you find issues of leader misfit to the role, we recommend using a data-analytic tool to evaluate objectively the needs, drives and behaviors of the leader, to move them to a better fit, and to find a replacement that is better suited to the role required. The difference in performance results from this process is incredible, and worth the process to save key talent! If you'd like to discover more, select the link below to get more information.

Dawn Garcia is Principal and Founder of Pursuit of Excellence LLC, an independent business management consulting firm specializing in service-based businesses; delivering leadership, business and talent strategy, and execution expertise. Experience the Excellence Driven® System and The Predictive Index® for your business, and achieve the results you need! Every business needs help at some point; great business leaders actually get help when needed, realizing greater returns. See the difference in your business, when you work with a trusted business advisor, delivering just what you need.

When you need help, consult the experts. Our success is your success! 

Now, more than ever, business leaders must deliver services with streamlined resources, yet still meet customer expectations. Smart systems can get more done with less. Use technology to automate the routine aspects of your business, for better reliability and value! Enterprise resource planning (ERP) platforms were designed years ago to meet this very need. Now, they are essential tools for business efficiency. Using an integrated set of software programs helps to minimize tedious steps in the process, by having the software seamlessly sending information to carry out specific functions automatically. Sound terrific? It really is. Automating and integrating back end functions save time, money and headaches, while actually growing your business!

How it Works

What kind of activities can be automated through an ERP? Routine functions where information is passed from one individual or system to another are great ERP uses, either in a message, document, invoice, or other means, triggering an action. Here's an example: managing a sales lead through a sale. 

1 - Prospective customer lands on a facebook post, and is interested in connecting for more information. They click on the link, taking them to the website. 

2 - Once on the website, the prospect is welcomed by a chat box with a bot, who is able to reply and route answers to the top 5 questions from most prospects. The prospect clicks an area of interest, and a lead form opens. The prospect enters a couple pieces of info, and sends. 

3 - An automated email is sent to the prospect, thanking them for their interest, and offering to download the answer to their question. When the form is accepted, the prospect is added to the CRM, and is routed to a sales associate for a follow-up call on the next business day. 

4 - An automated thank you message is sent once the prospect downloads the document. Included in the message is a special offer to receive a 20% discount on a related service, available for a low monthly fee. The prospect is interested, and clicks "learn more."

5 - Selecting the "learn more" option opens a next message that offers the discounted service, at the referenced rate. The prospect only has to select yes, enter payment information, and can begin right away. It's a great offer. The prospect engages, and submits payment.

6 - Completing the payment window triggers the service subscription for the prospect, referencing the information in the CRM. Additional fields or information are populated based upon the payment form completion, and the subscription service is activated. An order confirmation email is sent to the customer.

7 - A monthly recurring invoice is established automatically, with routing of revenues realized to the business bank account. Invoicing is auto-generated, and sent based upon order criteria (monthly on a set date, or other selection). Your sales are seamlessly recorded on your business financials. 

8 - An update to the customer account is now posted for the sales associate with a task for their follow-up call on their daily task list, for the next business day. Your customer is amazed with the efficiency and value of your services and team, and offers a raving testimonial on your site!

Realize, the first payment has been ordered and received without any human contact, with services delivered when and how the customer wanted, with all related documentation retained in the systems involved, for easy report generation. This is how easy it is to provide some services to customers through technology, reliably, and efficiently. Your business operates like a large business, at a fraction of the cost. That's smart business operations!

Getting Started

There are some essential background and setup pieces to make the system work exactly as you need it. First, you need to have systems that are capable of integration across types of functionality. Second, you need to have the specific processes set up within each program, and connected by rules and automation. Third, you need to test each of the processes, and likely build some content in specific messages for prospective customers, to make it all make sense on the customer side. That said, an ERP system typically includes at least: 1) a sales/CRM cluster, 2) financial management & bookkeeping cluster, 3) communication/task/project cluster, and 4) people/human resource cluster. Often software systems can be integrated through APIs, where the systems are programmed to talk to each other. If this sounds amazing, but you're not a tech guru, then you'll need to work with a professional to set this up, or plan on spending months learning how to do it yourself. Either can work, depending on your time, skills, and patience, however your customer will get a better experience when you use experts, and it helps you leverage the benefits a lot faster. 

Systems & Resources 

Like most professionals in this space, we have preferred systems that allow us to set up workflow functionality reliably and efficiently, using systems that are easy to integrate, or are already built for this purpose. If you're interested in finding out how this could work for your business, click the ERP Evaluation form on the link below, and we'll evaluate your business for a software system fit for greater efficiency. There's no cost to check it out...Why not? 

ERP Evaluation - Find Out More

Change can be hard, and yet staying on the same path may be dangerous if the world around us continues to change. In the midst of major work flow and talent disruption, explore how you may be able to maintain high levels of work quality using technology supports. When you use technology supports for the backend work, you free your team from the tedium, and allow them to expand their skills along with business growth. Most businesses find that they can automate as much as 30% of the routine tasks. That's a huge competitive advantage. Let's connect on the link below and explore your next steps! 

Your Success is Our Success

Dawn Garcia is Principal and Founder of Pursuit of Excellence LLC, an independent business management consulting firm specializing in service-based businesses; delivering leadership, business and talent strategy, and execution expertise. Experience the Excellence Driven® System and The Predictive Index® for your business, and achieve the results you need! Every business needs help sometime; great business leaders get help early, realizing greater returns. 

When you need help, consult the experts. We're here for you and your business!