Each fall, Americans experience the new car and truck models released by the automobile industry. Sometimes the changes are just minor updates and at other times the changes are dramatic redesigns.
Businesses also experience updates or major shifts from solutions to internal business operations. In the past, these changes did not appear with the frequency we see today.
For example, the journalism world has dramatically changed going from print to electronic media. Real estate has seen the increase in For Sale By Owner to flat fee MLS offerings. Solo entrepreneurs to small businesses are competing with much larger firms through education or content based marketing.
Yes, the small business world has changed. The question to ask yourself is your business model the status quo or is it evolving to meet the ever-changing business marketplace?
To answer that question requires returning to your strategic plan and updating the some of the following key information:
No. 1 – Why are you in business? Has the answer to this simple question changed? The answer is the vision for your small business.
No. 2 – External assessment including but not limited to market segment and opportunities; market analysis of competition; solution opportunities; defined market share; decision maker analysis; and customer value analysis
No. 3 – Solution analysis respective to competition
No. 4 – Organizational analysis (think workplace and sales culture)
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No. 5 – Market trend analysis
No. 6 – Internal assessment including but not limited to organizational structure and function; customer response analysis; internal resources analysis; and organizational communication analysis
No. 7 – SLOT analysis based on previous collected information. What are the strengths, limitations, opportunities and threats now within the marketplace?
After all this tedious work has been completed, then and only then can you determine the necessary and sufficient changes to be made to ensure your overall market competitiveness. To make changes without engaging in a complete and thorough strategic plan potentially guarantees an expensive failure to any changes to your day to day operations (business model).
For many the word plan, as a verb, is one of the four-letter dirty words in business. I can only reiterate the wisdom of President Dwight Eisenhower, an expert in logistics, who said “Plans (noun) are worthless; planning (verb) is everything.”
Leanne Hoagland-Smith is an author, speaker and executive coach. Her weekly column explores issues that impact the bottom line of firms with fewer than 100 employees. She can be reached at 219-508-2859.