Happy New Year?
Yes, that was a question – is your new year really going to be HAPPY?
As you close out each year and transition to the next, you have the opportunity to reevaluate and reflect upon your People, Systems, and Processes. It’s the perfect time to ask yourself:
- What’s working?
- What didn’t work?
- What do I want to take with me to start this new chapter of my business?
Often, leaders are so caught up with closing out the year that they forget to take the time to reflect and adjust to their business environment and end up going into another year with the same problems.
Sure, maybe they have come up with a slightly varied solution from the previous year for some things, but without investing the time and effort required to solve the root challenges of the business, they aren’t going to get herculean results. To expect any kind of dramatic change for the better would be living in “fantasyland”.
We’ve all done it before. We’ve hoped and wished so hard that “hope” became our strategy and then, we shut our eyes to any alternative (and realistic) outcome. Not effective at all.
Years ago, during Q4 I was reflecting on the year and asked myself some very simple questions.
- Ideally what would I like to see out of the business this year?
- What do I really think it’s going to take to get there?
Without setting any limitations, I started to map out ideally what success looked like in the new year and beyond. I imagined the possibilities of what our business could be. I drew up plans that reached for the stars and you know what? We got there.
How?
Simply by changing my mindset. I was honest with myself about my goals and what I really wanted for the business – without the confines of “the now”. I took a hard look at where my limitations were, and challenged myself to DO something about it.
I was hired to make things better. Acquire better customers, raise customer service scores, increase customer and employee retention, make more money – in short, better all around.
For the most part, we were doing that. We are pretty good. Not unbelievably great, and in my heart, I knew there was more to be had.
So, I started to look at People, Systems and Process.
From a People perspective, what was needed to reach my goals? Do I have the right people in the right positions? Do I have enough? Too many? Where do I need to beef up? Scale down?
From a Systems perspective, I looked at how much could my current system handle. How much manual work was being done? How many times did inconsistent data and human error play into late delivery and loss revenue? Could my system handle my dreams for growth?
Finally, I looked at Process. Did I have the right process to get things done? What was I missing?
I stayed up night after night answering all these questions and more. I realized that my lack of dreaming big, expecting more and demanding more was holding back the organization. I put us in a box and made us work within the confines of our current system, process and budge - never a recipe for success.
We quickly changed the platform on which we were doing business. We moved on the people piece, and we put process into place that was sustainable and scalable. We hit EBITDA positive in record time, and I went on to help other markets do the same thing.
Fast forward a few years to where I am today. I now am helping other companies dream big and achieve massive results by using the simple questions I asked myself years ago. Do I have the right System, People and Process in place? What do you want to see out of your business and what do we think it’s going to take to get there?
Getting out of your box can be difficult. I get it, I’ve been there. But once you open yourself up to it, the possibilities are endless.
If you can dream it, it can happen.
Let us help you make your business dreams a reality.
