The Australian Small Business Blog

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Name: THE AUSTRALIAN SMALL BUSINESS BLOG

Location: Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

The Australian Small Business Blog has been created by Dr Greg Chapman, MBA, to provide education & support to Small Business Owners. If you would like to contribute to this blog, please email us. If you want to comment on an article, click on the speech bubble at the end of the article. If you want to see other comments, click on the hyperlinked time of post. Send a copy of the article by clicking on the envelope. Dr Greg Chapman is also the Director of Empower Business Solutions and The Australian Business Coaching Club, which provides business coaching and advice to small business owners. He is the publisher of The Small Business Achiever Dr Greg Chapman is The Business Brain Surgeon.

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

The Problem with Business Targets

by Dr Greg Chapman, MBA

We often hear about targets and deadlines being set by organisations and governments that are never met. Most recently, there have been targets set for CO2 emissions reduction. The initial target equates to 34% per person reduction, and yet others are demanding targets double that. Even the initial target is heroic. (For example, 90% of Victoria’s power generation is from brown coal.)

Before that, most of the developed world signed on to Kyoto targets, and most missed by miles.

What is the relevance of this to small business? When you have targets with no mechanism to reach them, it is meaningless. In the case of governments, they often set ambitious targets to appease their political constituency and the smart politician makes these targets big, but sets them a long time in the future, long after they expect to be out of office. It might help them win the next term which is where their focus generally is, but at some point, like the widely missed Kyoto targets, reality comes home to roost, and a price must be paid.

When we set targets without a plan, it is almost guaranteed that we will miss them. If the plan is to do research to discover the answer (the government’s plan) rather than rely on proven strategies, we need to expect that it will take much longer, and there is a chance that it won’t work at all. (Which is why the government just loves 2020!)

When we set targets in small business, they should be ambitious, but we must have a mechanism to achieve them. If our target is to increase sales by 30%, we must have a plan to achieve it. Do we have a plan to increase enquiries- maybe a new advertising channel, or an alliance? Is our intention to increase our conversion to sales by improving our sales pipeline, or providing sales training?

If we don’t know how to achieve the target, the strategy would be to go get advice from someone who knows what strategies work. (For the government, this is not an option as on-one knows!)

So for each of your key targets, write down where you are today, and where you want to be in 12 months. For each gap, create a strategy and for each strategy write a plan to implement the strategy.

If you find this difficult, please use my free Mission Statement Tool on the Resources page of www.FivePillarsBusinessSuccess.com Now is the time to set your targets for the next year, but make sure you have a plan to back it up!

May Your Business Be – As You Plan It!

Dr Greg Chapman

Over to You. What do You Think? Post Your Comments Below.

Dr Greg Chapman is the Director of Empower Business Solutions and The Australian Business Coaching Club and is Australia's Leading Advisor on Emerging Businesses and provides Coaching and Consulting advice to Australian Small Business Owners in Marketing & Business Strategies Planning & Systems. He is also the author of The Five Pillars of Guaranteed Business Success.

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Labels: Mission Statement, small business advice, small business plans planning, small business strategy planning

Sunday, August 31, 2008

A Vision for Success

by Dr Greg Chapman, MBA

Many small business owners go into business by accident. They saw an opportunity and grabbed it. The original excitement of the opportunity and even some early success may have sustained them for a while, but sooner or later, the need for hard slog becomes necessary. What happens next can make a huge difference to your business.

When the hard slog starts, most business owners just keep slogging a way in the direction they started, using brute force to build their business. Long hours, lots of money spent on advertising, and sheer persistence. Then after a number of years, they find out what they have is not what they want. Only then do they step back and do what their smart colleagues do right from the start.

The smart business owner creates a vision for their business. This will be in alignment with their own personal objectives. It could be to retire in 10 years with a million dollars. It could that it will generate enough income so they need only work 3 days a week and can take 3 months off overseas each year. To achieve these personal goals, the business must meet certain goals – to produce the income required and to operate in a way that allows the lifestyle desired.

This vision for the business then must become more specific and describe what the business does, who it does it for and how it does it. The business must be built upon the strengths of the owners and the opportunities they see. At this stage, the vision may still be cloudy, but you must start somewhere. Only once this vision for the business has been created, can goals and plans be developed.

Creating such a vision can be difficult for many people, but there is a simple free tool that owners can use to develop their vision. The Mission Statements Made Easy Tool steps you through a process to create your own vision, and then enables you to produce a certificate that you print, frame, and place where you can see it everyday, so you will have a constant reminder of why you started your business, and where you are going with it.

With a vision clearly defined, when the slogging gets tough, the owner can step back, re-affirm their vision: that they are on the right track, or whether there is a better path to take to achieve their objective. With a vision, you have a compass for the business, so that the owner does not spend years building something that they don’t want.