Planning for success
This seems to be the time of the year that many of us sit back and reflect on our lives, our businesses, and our future. Although planning for the future would be more effective as a regular occurrence, we will take this opportunity to reflect and plan, and maybe even set in motion some regular planning.
One of the key elements of planning includes promotion, marketing, and sales planning. Unfortunately many businesses either never planned for getting new business or stopped planning during the years of abundance. As we all are acutely aware, the economic climate has changed significantly. Unfortunately those of you who never planned for these changes have some catching up to do.
First and foremost on many people’s minds recently has been concern about the economic climate and the “perceived” lack of work. The reason I say perceived is because it is just that, perceived. I have spoken to many contractors who are slow, but I have also been speaking to just as many that have plenty of work. The biggest difference between these two groups is that the busy ones continued to promote and refused to agree with the nay-sayers who suggested otherwise. The other difference is that they have been planning on a regular basis.
We sometimes wish we had crystal balls so we could predict our futures; however we all have at our disposal a tool far better than a crystal ball. That tool is the ability to establish goals and plans for ourselves and our businesses. Unfortunately many of us do not recognize the importance or simplicity of planning and so we do not take full advantage of these tools. Typically we set New Year’s resolutions or state a goal that we do nothing to fulfill.
The best way to ensure that your goals become a reality is not sitting back and wishing it to be so, but to create the plans and programs that will guarantee your success.