Planning for Profitable Growth – How do you make it all happen?

The final key to profitable growth is execution – making it all happen.[i] According to an old saying, inspiration (figuring out what to do) is 5% of success, and execution (doing the work) is the remaining 95%. To those two, I would add leadership and teamwork.

Effective business plan execution requires that the owner/CEO:

1. Engage the entire organization in the campaign,
2. Lead from the front, and
3. Hold everyone accountable for goals and actions plans.

Here are a few examples:

• A large data storage company is renowned for its get it done, make the numbers sales culture. No one from the CEO to the local sales reps lets up until the goal is achieved. Consequently, the company has grown into a multi-billion dollar enterprise.

• The owner of a mid-range computer systems dealer personally led the company’s sales team, weighing in with key customers and vendors to ensure that deals got done. The sales team functioned with the focus and frenzy of a brokerage house trading desk. The ultimate prize was the sale of the company to a larger dealer for over $24 million.

• The top sales representative for a large distributor was completely dedicated to her customers 24 hours a day, seven days a week. No customer problem was too small: calls were handled quickly, proposals rendered creatively, and nothing was left to chance when coordinating the work of other departments. As a result, her team generated many millions of dollars in sales, which were a multiple of the next highest producer.

In business as in football, nothing else matters if you cannot push the ball over the goal line.

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[i] This is the seventh and final article in a series illustrating techniques used in planning for profitable growth.

Comments

[Bill Warner]

I like your football analogy. All eleven players on the field, and the other 29 or more on the bench have to be playing the same game with the same game plan, all at 110% of their capacity.

You can have a wonderful looking business plan, but without the execution down on the field, nothing happens.

All the best...........Bill Warner