nomadjanet
Contributor
We worked in the slow lane in our S business for 15 years before we finally made the moves to change our business.
1. Joined a best practice group through a professional organization to get more information on benchmarking our business and systems specific for our industry.
2. Implemented the steps they presented to us that made sense for our business
3. Took the ready made policy manuals and changed them to fit our business.
4. Wrote an organizational chart with job titles, descriptions & procedures for each aspect of our business.
5. Wrote another one for what we wanted our organizational chart to look like in 5 years.
6. Wrote our sales plan of what we needed to do to implement the existing goals.
7. Wrote an incremental sales plan for the next 5 years, what we need to achieve those goal.
8. Develop a marketing plan and calendar to allow us to achieve those sales goals
9. Delegate the day to day tasks required to implement the goals
10. Empower our team and give them the guidelines they will need to follow to meet their goals.
11. Hold our team responsible for meeting the goals & help them with any planning or changes needed to make sure it happens.
The hardest thing is #10 empowering your people and not hand holding or second-guessing or micro managing every little detail. Even after you get your systems in place if you go back into the office for any length of time you can find yourself wanting to micro manage if you have that tendency as my DH does.
Now my job is to meet with my team one hour twice a week to see if the goals are being met and make adjustments if needed.
If I am not there because I am traveling, my next level manager holds the meeting & emails me the result/concerns that need decisions beyond her scope.
There are times when I am in town that I go to the office 20 hours a week, but not because I have to. I go because I have a T1 line there and it is not available at the ranch. I spend my time there researching on the Internet or working on our real estate stuff.
Last month we spent 10 days in DC doing the tourist stuff & meeting with political types. We also spent 10 days in Reno at Hot August night’s car show. We spent 4 days at our Beach house. While we enjoy our life, our little service company made 24% net profit on sales and sold 10% more than last August.
Janet
1. Joined a best practice group through a professional organization to get more information on benchmarking our business and systems specific for our industry.
2. Implemented the steps they presented to us that made sense for our business
3. Took the ready made policy manuals and changed them to fit our business.
4. Wrote an organizational chart with job titles, descriptions & procedures for each aspect of our business.
5. Wrote another one for what we wanted our organizational chart to look like in 5 years.
6. Wrote our sales plan of what we needed to do to implement the existing goals.
7. Wrote an incremental sales plan for the next 5 years, what we need to achieve those goal.
8. Develop a marketing plan and calendar to allow us to achieve those sales goals
9. Delegate the day to day tasks required to implement the goals
10. Empower our team and give them the guidelines they will need to follow to meet their goals.
11. Hold our team responsible for meeting the goals & help them with any planning or changes needed to make sure it happens.
The hardest thing is #10 empowering your people and not hand holding or second-guessing or micro managing every little detail. Even after you get your systems in place if you go back into the office for any length of time you can find yourself wanting to micro manage if you have that tendency as my DH does.
Now my job is to meet with my team one hour twice a week to see if the goals are being met and make adjustments if needed.
If I am not there because I am traveling, my next level manager holds the meeting & emails me the result/concerns that need decisions beyond her scope.
There are times when I am in town that I go to the office 20 hours a week, but not because I have to. I go because I have a T1 line there and it is not available at the ranch. I spend my time there researching on the Internet or working on our real estate stuff.
Last month we spent 10 days in DC doing the tourist stuff & meeting with political types. We also spent 10 days in Reno at Hot August night’s car show. We spent 4 days at our Beach house. While we enjoy our life, our little service company made 24% net profit on sales and sold 10% more than last August.
Janet