|
Keeping Your
Business on the Right Track
A business plan is a roadmap that sets out your route for the development of
your business. It doesn’t tell you just about the current state of the business,
its strengths and its weaknesses, it will also show up the opportunities and
what needs to be done to stay ahead of the competition.
You might think you know all this now and don’t have to write it down. But what
if something happened to you and someone else had to take over the operation?
What would they need to know so it was still there and profitable when you
returned? This is the kind of information contained in your business plan and
its good insurance against the unknown.
It Clarifies Your Objectives
What are your goals? These will
be in your business plan, the original goals you had plus any additional
objectives that arise in the course of business. Your business plan spells out
the goals and shows the milestones along the way that tell you how close you are
to achieving them. Goals are flexible and can be as varied as achieving a
certain level of turnover or simply acquiring new customers. It’s important,
however, that each is presented in the same way – as a target with milestones or
indicators that will let you measure how near you are to achieving it.
It Contains Your Business Vision
A vision is your description of how the business will look at a specific date –
usually three or five years from the time the statement is written. This is
another part of a business plan that’s regularly updated and describes how the
business will look from the outside (to customers) and from the inside (to
management and staff) when it has achieved the goals that are presently set.
It Outlines Your Company’s Mission Statement
The mission statement is another expression of the businesses’ long term goals.
The mission of all businesses is to conduct profitable business of course, but
it should also have other intangible goals covering such issues as morality and
ethics. How do you want your business to treat its customers? How does your
business want to treat its team members? The mission statement is both long term
and ongoing - a statement of principles of business conduct and behavior that
rests above the metrics of commerce.
Cover all the Management Essentials
Businesses are organic in nature, changing constantly but always with growth in
mind. Your business plan is also organic – an ongoing record of the changes in
your business as well as a structure for the changes that will take place in the
future and their intended consequences. Here are just a few of the many possible
elements that can be incorporated into your business plan:
-
Your products – The present and planned range of
products you sell, together with any product development your firm
undertakes to create its own products
-
Your management structure – A statement of positions, responsibilities
and authorities
-
Your finances – How the business is funded and how it will repay its
loans, your company’s credit policy and how it will be enforced
-
Your marketing plan – How your business will be marketed, the
promotional budget, the target market, future plans for expansion; and,
-
Your succession plan – When you intend to leave the business and how you
will realize its maximum value
Every business should have an up-to-date and functional
business plan. It will tell you where the business is going and how it’s going
to get there. It will focus the efforts of you, your management and the rest of
your team on the drivers that will bring you what you want from the business.
It is, in other words, a map to the future of your enterprise.
Don't Hire Problems
 One
of management’s key responsibilities is selecting the right people to perform
the functions needed by the business to operate productively. Hiring the wrong
person can affect your business for years. Businesses have even been found
legally liable for damages to property and injury to customers as a result of
employee incompetence because they failed to uncover the candidate’s depth of
ignorance at the time of hiring.
Whether you’re about to hire your first team member or you’ve already hired
dozens, there are some basic steps to the process that you need to keep in mind.
Step 1. Know Exactly What You’re Looking
for Before You Start Looking
The first thing to do is to clearly define the person you’re looking for in
terms of their education, skills and competencies required to perform the job.
But it needs to go much further than that. You also need to clearly set out the
type of person you need to help you achieve the vision you have for your
business. Qualities like friendliness, integrity and enthusiasm are important in
a smaller enterprise.
Step 2. Consider how You’re Going to Find Them
How you go about getting the word out about your position goes a long way toward
determining the quality of the candidates you’ll get applications from. You can
advertise directly, which means you get to do all the qualifying and screening
yourself. Or, you can use an outside source such as a government placement
service or a fee-based recruitment agency. Don’t rush into this decision.
Identify your options and talk with someone from each agency you could use.
You’ll get a lot of good ideas doing this and eventually find the agency with
access to the biggest pool of quality prospects.
Step 3. Plan your Interview Process Carefully
The attributes you chose in step 1 will now become the basis of your interview
questions. Many of these issues are easily turned into questions, for example
about their education, background and work experience. Others, such as their
degree of enthusiasm, are subjective and require your own assessment.
Ask at least a few open ended questions to extract the candidate’s feelings on
particular subjects. Get their ‘take’ on important areas like their attitude
toward customer service and their relationship with co-workers and supervisors.
Give them some ‘what if’ questions to see how they might behave in certain
situations.
Step 4. Thoroughly Check their Resumes and References
Do thorough background checking on candidates you think might be worth hiring.
Even if they’ve made a terrific impression during the interview there may be
something lurking in their past that can cause you problems in the future.
A pre-employment investigation is easy to arrange and will quickly tell you if
they have any criminal convictions or a history of problems with employers.
Contact their former employers and ask them for a reference. They may not be
willing to say much, but even their guarded answers may tell you that there’s
been some sort of conflict in those previous positions.
You may even consider having an outside testing firm administer standard tests
for things like emotional stability and intelligence.
Step 5. Get Them Up To Speed Fast
After you’ve appointed the person, a well planned induction will get your
relationship off to a good start. This will introduce them to your business, to
its culture, and to their workmates. Arrange for any training needed, such as on
operating a particular piece of equipment or in the use of the software your
company uses, to be conducted soon after they start.
Hiring is really about people and not just a set of skills that any one of
several candidates may possess. Dedicate your hiring process to getting the
right person in every respect; the future of your company depends on it.
Give
Your Brand Identity Real Customer Appeal
Training is expensive,
and businesses need to ensure they receive the maximum benefit from the training
they pay for. The value of too many training sessions and seminars is lost
because of a lack of pre-training and post-training support, or because what is
learned during the training is never fully implemented or becomes unused.
Whether you’re
training a member of your clerical staff in the operation of a new computer
program or a factory worker in the use of safety equipment, there are several
principles that will help you obtain the maximum return on your training
investment. If the training you pay for doesn’t make a positive contribution to
your business, it’s usually because these principles aren’t being followed.
Training Must be Worth the Investment
Training
has a cost, and it should also have a value to the business. It should have a
measurable result that translates into a quantifiable outcome. Some typical
examples of training outcomes are: more efficient use of equipment, reduced risk
of accidents, better management practices and enhanced productivity.
What savings
will result from the equipment’s being used more efficiently? This should mean
time savings and/or more productive use of staff time, both of which can be
measured in financial terms. If the potential savings can’t be quantified the
training could represent a poor investment of the organization’s funds.
For Best Results Structure Your Training
It’s
insufficient to simply send someone off to a training course and expect them to
come back with magically improved performance. All training should be conducted
in a three-step process that prepares the person for the training, trains them,
and then supports the implementation of what’s been learned.
-
Preparation - The person being trained needs a
complete understanding of the purposes of their training and what it’s
expected to achieve. They should be given a clear picture of what
they’re being trained for and how the training will be conducted. They
should also be told the cost of the training to give them an
appreciation of the investment the business is making in their
development.
-
Training - It’s your responsibility to see that the
content of the course fully meets the needs of the business it is meant
to address. If, for example, the business plans to upgrade its credit
management software, personnel will have to be trained in the use of the
new program. The selected course must be specifically tailored for this
software and also must be compatible with the equipment in your office
on which it’s going to be installed.
-
Implementation support - When the person returns from
their training, review with them what they’ve learned. Be sure they have
all the support needed to implement their new knowledge and that they
can apply their newly acquired knowledge as soon as they return to their
workplace. This can mean some form of IT support, assistance from other
members of the team, or additional resources such as manuals or
equipment. Follow-up to ensure the learning is correctly applied and
that the anticipated value is received by the business.
Get Your Money’s Worth
It’s
important that you have an agreement with the employee that the training they
undergo will be used to benefit the business as much as possible. Some possible
elements of this agreement that can be summarized in your company’s policy and
procedures manual are:
Training is a management responsibility
Successful
training requires management to have all the necessary elements in place
including a way to identify the needs of the business and select the training
that best meets those needs. Training must also satisfy the needs of the
individual as well as the organization. Management must follow-up after the
training so that the knowledge is fully implemented and creates the intended
value for the business. Only when training is appropriate, conducted correctly,
and well-implemented will the ROI to the business be optimized.
What's in a (Domain) Name?
The next time you see an advertisement with a web address or internet address,
look at the part that comes just before the ‘.com’, ‘.org’ or ‘.biz’ at the end.
Some familiar examples are coca-cola.com and kelloggs.com, and the part that
you’ve recognized is called the domain name.
Not long ago domain names were hot property with popular names or names of large
organizations bringing big prices. Now, however, the situation is more stable
and you shouldn’t have too many problems finding a suitable domain name at a
reasonable price.
This doesn’t mean domain names aren’t as important as they once were. Many
start-up enterprises wait until they’ve secured a good domain name before they
settle on the name of their business. Any company, but especially one that
depends on the Internet to generate turnover, needs to give this aspect of their
trading name careful consideration. Here’s how to go about choosing the right
domain name for your business.
Start with Your Company Name
Your own name, or some variant of it, is always the best place to begin. A name
like Atomic Corporation can become ‘atomiccorporation.com’, ‘atomiccorp.com’, or
‘atomcorp.com’. Similarly, Smith and Jones can become ‘smithandjones.com’ or ‘smithjones.com’.
Stay as close as you can to your existing name and try to register that first.
A Product Name Might Work
Your company might have a popular product or service that could be used as a
domain name. Perhaps Ace Guttering could use ‘gutters.com’ or an aquarium could
use ‘fish.com’. If your firm is the national distributor for an imported product
you may be able to use the product’s name as your domain name, noting that you
should be sure your distributorship is secure for the next few years.
Keep it Short and Simple
If you’re starting from scratch or looking for a domain name that doesn’t
necessarily have to relate to your business name, keep it as short and simple as
possible. It’s easier for others to remember, less likely to be misspelled, and
more likely to fit in advertisements and on business cards.
Or Make it Memorable
Two of today’s best known domain names are Google and Yahoo! On their own they
don’t say much about the businesses they represent, but since their territory is
global and their main purpose is to be memorable, they succeed as domain names.
Other companies take an off-the-wall approach to their domain name which is why
we see ‘ToxicRat.com’ and ‘InYourFace.com’. Not pretty names, but definitely
memorable.
Be as Individual as Possible
With literally millions of domain names it’s hard to be unique, but the best way
to avoid confusion or conflict with similar domain names is to have one that’s
as far away from any other as possible. There are many databases of registered
domain names (not all registered names are in use so they won’t necessarily turn
up in a web search) and you should search through as many as you can find to
ensure your name isn’t too close to someone else’s.
Be Easy to Spell
Someone looking for a firm named Clarke and Walker at ‘clarkeandwalker.com’
could easily key in ‘clarkandwalker.com’ (did you notice the missing ‘e’?) and
miss you entirely. As well as being original, your domain name should also be
easy to spell - and hard to misspell.
Your domain name becomes your trading name and brand to anyone in the world who
doesn’t already know you by your business name. It’s worth putting a bit of time
into choosing a good one, and spending a bit of money to register it and keep it
safe from poachers. It becomes a part of your business, your online address, and
an element of your marketing, so be sure you get it right before you go ahead.
Memorable
Quotation
“More can be learned from
what works than from what fails.”
- Rene Dubois
How to
Make the Most of Your Newsletter
Be sure to read each article with the mindset "How could this apply to our business."
Take notes as you read and commit to having the ideas implemented by the time the next edition arrives. Also, make copies for team members. To really make sure something positive happens, work with your business development specialist to talk your team through the ideas and how to set a schedule for getting them implemented.
Cornerstone Business Solutions is here to help you get started.
An Important Message
While every effort has been made to provide valuable, useful information in this publication, this firm and any related suppliers or associated companies accept no responsibility or any form of liability from reliance upon or use of its contents. Any suggestions should be considered carefully within your own particular circumstances, as they are intended as general information only.
Terms of Use
All rights to the content in this publication are reserved by RAN ONE Inc. Any use of the content outside of this format must acknowledge RAN ONE Inc. as the original source.
© 2006 RAN ONE Inc. |
