Ten Questions Owner/Managers Need to Ask About Their Business…Regularly!
By Damien Parker | November 3, 2014
If you want to avoid the most damaging mental state afflicting business owners and managers and its consequent effect of poor to mediocre performance…then read on.
That mental state to which I refer is complacency and laziness and it creeps up ever so slowly that most don’t know they are afflicted. They just know that every day they get up and go to work in a sour and soulless business!
As leaders, to stay sharp, enthusiastic and energetic you have to constantly think above the hum-drum daily grind and challenge your beliefs. Here are ten pertinent questions you should ask of yourself regularly.
1. Customer Base: If I just bought this company, how would I sell more to this customer base?
2. Cash: If I could invest extra cash in any one part of this business for the biggest cumulative return or profit over the next 5 years, where would I invest it?
3. Market Leadership: To remain or become a market leader in this industry where should I invest my time and the businesses resources right now?
4. Reputation & Perception: What can I do to significantly improve our current reputation, and have the marketplace recognize these improvements, within the next twelve months?
5. Momentum: What’s working well right now and how can I keep it working well?
6. Key Staff: Who are the key people in my business and what game/plan can I create with them so they’ll stick around for a long, long time?
7. Systems: Are all of our systems still appropriate for today’s way of doing business?
8. Responsiveness: How quickly and completely do we respond to changes in our customers, market, technology, staff needs or economic conditions?
9. Resources: Do we have or can we easily access all of the resources needed to give us a big edge over our competitors?
10. The X Factor: What do we have that’s very, very special and are we maximizing our X Factor advantage in the marketplace?
Suggestion: Why not create a template for yourself, whereby you and your key staff, consider these ten issues at the commencement of every month?
There is a bonus eleventh question and it should be asked of all staff at the commencement of each month and it’s this:
Last month,
what did we do right;
what did we do wrong;
what could we have done better;
what could we have done faster with more planning;
what shouldn’t we have done at all and
who did we let down or disappoint?
When staff members are required to submit written responses to these questions and they know their answers are welcomed and acted upon, you will be staggered at what tumbles out.
Here’s to more sales, profits and cash from your business,
Damien Parker
Business Improvement Specialist
www.salesprofitscash.com
Follow my Tweets: @salesprofitcash
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