Hope is the fuel of the human soul, the promise of a better future. Not only do we need hope as individuals, but our businesses need it as well. Our team needs a goal to rally around, a challenge of making next year better than the last. But in order to make 2019 a better year in your BSC, you need a plan. You need goals to achieve and a path to hit those goals. As you and your team make preparations for 2019, here are four areas a plan in necessary.
Culture
Company culture is the identity and moral fabric of the company. If you aren’t intentional about your culture, it will create itself. And this is not always a good thing. In 2019, find ways for you and your team to emphasize culture. A company newsletter, leadership time in the field, orientation, and host of other methods can be employed to push the cultural message. Remember, people may join your company for the pay and opportunity, but they stay because of culture.
People
Every 2019 business plan should have some plan to develop people. Future success depends on future leaders. At a bare minimum, you need succession plans in place for key positions and a training program for managers and supervisors. If you don’t have a training program, shoot me an email and I can point you in the right direction.
Sales
If you aren’t growing, you are likely dying as a company. So not only do you need new sales goals for 2019, but you need micro-goals to ensure you hit the big picture goals. Let me challenge you to have a total sales goal, a proposals delivered goal, a phone calls per week goal, and an in-person meetings goal. Having an annual revenue goal doesn’t help if you aren’t hitting the smaller goals throughout the year.
Operations
Finally, you need operations goals and plans for 2019. I would recommend a few things:
- Select several accounts that you want to reduce labor on
- Identify pieces of equipment you want to replace or upgrade
- Create a plan to increase applications and reduce employee turnover
- Identify contracts that need to be renegotiated and renewed
- Identify customers that need price increases
If you can put together a small plan and execute in 2019, you will have a better year. This will not only increase the bottom line, but it will create excitement and energy in your BSC. Remember, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.
