At the beginning of the year, we talked about coming up with a budget or some kind of plan for what we want to achieve this year. Our business’ New Year’s resolution, as it were. Well, three months have gone by, and how are we doing? On target?

Are these resolutions suffering the same malaise as our personal resolutions?  By now, we’re smoking again, we put back all that weight (and maybe a little more) and the rest of our resolutions are in that top drawer – to be trotted out again next January.

If we are not on target, so what? It was just an outline anyway. We’ll make it up next quarter. If we just keep plugging along, we’ll come around to meeting our target. Not a problem. Hmmm. Does this sound familiar or what?

Over the years, I have found a simple method for developing the plan, budget or target that helps to prepare the organization for achieving the goals I set. As I said in a past  article, when designing my budget, the “hows” sort of jump out at me. By using the following simple process, I prepare the questions. Once I have the questions, I can concentrate on finding solutions to problems that may throw me off track.

Step 1. Where do I want to be at the end of the year? (We did this step in January)
Step 2. Where am I today?
Step 3. What is the difference between today and my plan?
Step 4. What do I need to do to reach this goal?
Step 5. Do it.

An example for the start of this process would be looking at the sales goal. At the end of the year we want our sales to be $1 million. Let’s say that last year’s sales were $750,000. We compare today with the plan to see if it is realistic or not. Setting unrealistic goals is not much better than having no goals at all. Goals should be achievable, but challenging. In this case, $250,000 might sound easy in today’s dollars, but that’s a 33% increase over the previous year, and a hefty goal. But let’s go for it.

Step 4  –  Where are these additional sales going to come from? Are customers going to beat down our doors to give us more business? If yes, great, relax, this is easy. If not, do we need to hire a salesman to promote our company? Should we do some more advertising, or marketing? What/where are the best places to advertise? Do we have the money to invest in any of these?

This is a short list of some of the questions that flow from these simple steps. I have not listed all of the alternatives (or questions) that might come from sitting down and doing this exercise for your company. But I have found that with some thought, you can come up with all of the alternatives that would best suit your business.

The key to this process is to list all of the alternatives you can think of – a brainstorming session. Don’t be afraid to have a group of people openly share ideas, ensuring that none of the ideas is discounted until all possibilities are exhausted. Then, one by one, eliminate those that are not feasible or practical. Finally, prioritize or rank the remaining ideas so you can begin implementing the “best” ones first. The process should be kept relaxed and easy.

Finally, do it. Implement the best ideas and monitor them for their effectiveness. If one of the ideas is working well, push it. If one is not, stop and try the next one on the list. I know this all sounds simple – and it can be.

At a seminar I attended recently, one of the presenters, Mr. Tony Lucarelli, opened with: “It’s sales, stupid!” I sat up and listened, because his message was clear, simple and effective – everyone listened. Many of the management books I have read contain formal models to describe the processes I’ve written about here. But I have found that, if you keep the goal, the process, and the implementation process simple (easy for everyone in your organization to understand), you will have more success.

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