TURBO STRATEGY – BRIAN TRACY

Start Where You Are

“Do what you can, with what you have, right where you are.” (Theodore Roosevelt)

The starting point of strategic planning is for you to develop absolute clarity about your current situation. Look at your overall business and ask, “What’s working?” and “What’s not working?” in every area.

What is your current level of sales? Break them down by product, product line, service, market and distribution channel. What exactly are you selling, to which customers, at what prices and with what level of profitability?

Compare your current sales with your assumptions, your expectations and your projections. Are you on track? Compare your level of sales with last year. What are the trends? Are they up or down? Is this trend temporary or permanent? What do the trends suggest for the future of your business? What could you do to respond more effectively to them?

Cash Flow Is Everything

Look at your cash flow and levels of profitability from each product, service and area of activity. Are your profits going up or down? Are they on budget or going sideways? Look at the percentages. Analyze your return-on-equity, return-on-investment, and return-on-sales. Are they increasing or decreasing?

Jim Collins, in his best-selling book, Good To Great, says that you must be willing to ask the “brutal questions” about your business if you are going to solve your problems and achieve your goals. If your goal is to build a great company, why isn’t your company already great?

Which of your products or services is selling well today? Which of your products and services are the most profitable? Which ones are doing poorly? Which ones do you lose money on?

Is your current business situation, positive or negative, in any area, temporary or part of a long-term trend? How can you know for sure? How can you find out? What should you then do?

Clarity Is the Key

Perhaps the most important word in strategic planning is the word “clarity.” You must be absolutely clear about the answers to each of these questions. Vagueness or fuzziness in any area can lead to problems, difficulties and even disasters.

Why has your business been successful in the past? What have you done well in the past that has been responsible for your success to date? What are the most important skills and competencies that your company possesses today? What are the very best products and services that you offer right now?

Look at the people around you. Who are your most valuable people? Who are no longer as valuable as before, or who even represents a net loss or detriment to your business? Be prepared to ask and answer the brutal questions.

The Customer Is the King

Who are your best customers today? What and where are your best markets? What do your customers like the most about what you do for them? What do they compliment the most of what you offer or do for them? What is your number one area of customer satisfaction?

What do your customers like the least about what you do? What do they complain about the most? What is it that you sell that your customers and potential customers prefer to buy somewhere else, rather than from you?

Identify Your Personal Strengths

Look at yourself honestly. What are your own personal best skills, qualities and abilities? What are the most important things that you do at work, and for your company? What are the most valuable contributions you make personally to your business?

Imagine yourself as a doctor conducting a complete medical examination on your own body. Treat your business as though it were a body as well. Get accurate information on every critical detail of your company and use this as a baseline to determine your future actions. Be honest and objective at every step.

Harold Geneen, who built ITT into a major conglomerate, always said, “Get the facts. Get the real facts. Not the apparent facts, the hoped for facts or the obvious facts. Get the real facts, based on analysis. Facts don’t lie.”

Question Your Assumptions

Alex McKenzie once wrote, “Errant assumptions lie at the root of every failure.” Everything you do in your business is based on certain assumptions. Some of those assumptions could be wrong. The answers may have changed and what was correct in the past is not correct today. Check every assumption and ask, “What if this assumption were not true?”

If you found that you were operating on the basis of a false assumption, what changes would you have to make, especially with regard to your key people, key customers, key products and services, and key projections?

Strategic planning requires that you begin with a realistic and honest assessment of exactly where you are and what you are today. This becomes your starting point for strategic planning and strategic thinking. It becomes the foundation upon which all future decisions are made.

Start Where You Are:

1. What is working the very best in your business today? What parts of your business make you the happiest?

2. What’s not working in your business? What causes you the most aggravation and frustration?

3. What are your most important products and markets? What accounts for the largest portion of your revenues?

4. Who are your most important people? Who are the people who account for most of your results?

5. What are your special talents and skills? What is it you do that accounts for most of your success?

6. What are the major changes taking place in your market? What changes should you make to compensate for them?

7. What are your most treasured assumptions about your people, customers, markets, products, services and yourself? What if one of them wasn’t true? What would you do then?