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 12
Simple Questions To Help Make 2011 Your Best Year Ever
by
Donald Cooper
Now’s the time to plan and implement strategies to make 2011 your
best year ever.
Sit down with a few of the best minds and hearts in
your business, and invest an hour or so to answer these 12 simple
questions. If you’re a one-person operation, you’re “it,” so just sit
with yourself and go to it.
Note: These questions are simple, but coming up with
answers to some of them might not be. Where necessary, allocate homework
and research assignments to members of your staff to gather any
necessary information.
-
What
amount of profit must we generate in 2011 to keep us financially
healthy and reward us adequately for our time, effort and investment
in the business?
-
What
are the three most important things we need to do to improve or grow
our business in order to achieve our profit goal?
-
What
are three things we do (or three policies we have) that tick off our
customers, and what will we do to eliminate them?
-
What
additional products or services would make us more helpful and
valuable to our customers, and how can we profitably add them to our
existing offerings?
-
What
are three important things that any of our competitors do better
than us, and what can we do to make ourselves better than them?
-
What
are three extraordinary things that we could do to make doing
business with us not all about price? What functional or emotional
value could we create, or what extraordinary service could we add,
that would “grab” our customers and prospects, and fundamentally
change the game? What could we do that has never been done before by
a retail florist (or whatever kind of business you have) in our
community that would blow away our customers and prospects?
-
We
are what we communicate, so what three gutsy things will we do in
2011 to more effectively promote our business and communicate our
total value offering?
(Retailers, check out the Society of American Florists’ [SAF]
public-relations efforts in the “Industry Promotion” section at
www.safnow.org as well as the Flower
Promotion Organization’s [FPO] website,
www.flowerpossibilities.com,
especially the “For Retailers,” “Flowers at Work” and “Flowers in the
Classroom” sections, to find a variety of value messages about flowers
that you can communicate to consumers.)
-
What
are the three expense items on which we can save the most money in
2011, and how, specifically, will we achieve those savings?
-
What
are three things we can do to become “greener” in 2011 and beyond?
-
What
are three things we can do to improve internal communication and
improve clarity about our commitments to customers, each other and
the bottom line?
-
What
is the most important new technology we need to bring into our
business in 2011?
-
We
can’t grow our business without growing our people. What training,
development or mentoring does each person on our staff need to help
grow the business, serve customers more wonderfully and operate more
effectively?
There you
have it — 12 questions to get you thinking about how to make 2011 your
best year ever.
To make each idea you come up with happen, be clear
about 1) who will do what, 2) when each person must have it done by and
3) how progress will be measured.
Failure to implement effectively is one of the biggest
challenges in most businesses today. Remember: “Businesses do not die
from a single shot to the head; they die, slowly but surely, from a
thousand uncompleted tasks.”
Reprinted with permission from The Donald Cooper Corporation “Business
Management Newsletter,” November 2010.
Donald
Cooper is an internationally known business coach and speaker who works
with businesses on marketing, service and business excellence. Drawing
on his experience as an award-winning manufacturer and retailer, he has
helped thousands of companies in dozens of industries throughout the
world redefine and reinvent their businesses.
For information on how Mr. Cooper can help your business sell more;
manage smarter; grow your bottom line; and create, deliver and
communicate value, visit
www.donaldcooper.com, e-mail
info@donaldcooper.com or call (416) 252-3704.
To subscribe to Mr. Cooper’s free monthly e-mail “Business Management
Newsletter,” e-mail
newsletter@donaldcooper.com, or visit
www.donaldcooper.com.
To access free articles on marketing and management, visit
www.donaldcooper.com, and
click on the “Free Articles” button.
To book Mr. Cooper, contact Sharen Skene at (416) 252-3704, or e-mail
sharen@donaldcooper.com. |
