March is the month we are focused on Selection and Retention of Top Talent.  However, many of you are in a position right now where you can’t add staff, and you need to increase profit without hiring. 

I have written a three-part series for smaller-sized businesses on how to grow your profit without growing your staff.  The three parts are focused on:

1. Strategy

2. Efficiency

3. Viability

Here is the first part. 

Strategy:

·        Have and Use a Simple, Dynamic Business Plan.  You already know this stuff, but truthfully, how much do you use it?  If you are not reviewing it every day, it wasn’t worth taking time to do. It needs to be “tweakable”. If you  are floating around without one because you couldn’t figure out how to plan this year in this weird economy, or worse yet, you were so busy putting out fires, you just never got around to it, or you did it, turned in the numbers for your department and don’t know them right off the top of your head, or if you don’t know where it is right now……RED FLAG! Every leader needs one.  I recommend the One-Page Business Plan by Jim Horan

      Your business plan is your road map for how you are going to get from

      where you were at the beginning of your year to where you told your board

      of  directors or your boss where you’d be at some certain points along the

      way.  Your business plan will make sure you stick to what you’re supposed to

       be doing and not get sidetracked. Also, you need to know everyone’s plan on  

      your team, so you are in synch with the existing company Vision, Mission,   

      Strategic Plan, and Goals.      

·        Understand the difference between strategy and tactics. Beware of seeing a “good idea” and copy-catting it, or putting something into place that isn’t in the plan already.  Take the “good idea” through a qualifying process: Is it in line with your vision?  Your mission?  Does it support your Strategic Plan?  Will it help you accomplish your goals?  Is it in the budget? Can it be handled easily and simply by you or your existing employees?  If yes, run it by a colleague and do it.  Otherwise, leave it in the “good ideas” box and move ahead with your plan.

·        Look for Leaks and Leverage: 

1.Leaks are often in the form of checks written due to Ego-driven decisions versus sound business decisions.  They are sometimes greed-induced rather than need-induced.

Profit Leaks can hide, just as plumbing leaks often do, in disengaged employees (latest numbers hover around 62% of US workers being disengaged), workplace stress, waste of company resources, small rationalized dishonesty, less than fabulous customer service, and so on.  When you are examining your expenses, be careful to know the distinction between an expense and investment.  For example, many companies have cut their training budgets in the last 2 years, and it is beginning to show on the front lines.  Watch any episode of “UnderCover Boss” on www.cbs.com and you will see examples of low morale and waste due to simple lack of training and professional development.

2.Leverage: What opportunities are you missing to make additional                              revenue with little effort? Affiliate Marketing on your website?  Doing something you do every day and making 2 products out of it instead of one? Videotaping an instructional series as you do what you already do?

Brainstorm ideas with your frontline people on a regular basis.  They are full of good ideas. Focus Groups are great at this, too, because they aren’t sitting in the middle of the forest, as you are.

Join me tomorrow to read part 2: Efficiency

Tags: Business Plan, E-Myth, Executive Coach, Growing Profit, Hiring, Mission, Profit, Retention, Selection, Strategy

This entry was posted on Monday, March 8th, 2010 at 3:05 pm and is filed under Business Coach, Business success, Coaching, Executive Coach, Executive Performance Coach, Executive pERFORMANCE cOACHING, Increasing Sales, Productivity, Sales, Sales increase, Success, Vision, business, executive coaching. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.