Put Your Business on Autopilot Program
A uniquely refreshing business development approach Think of your business for a moment as an aircraft, whose purpose is to take you from A to B.Air travel gets you from A to B much faster than travelling by road, but involves a much more rigorous set of rules and procedures because the risks of making a fatal mistake are much higher. It also requires a much higher level of skill from the pilot and crew, who will always follow the same procedure to get from A to B.The essence of this approach is 3 steps; 1 Know the capabilities of your aircraft, how it responds to its environment, what you can expect of it, and that all systems are in working order (including the pilot & crew) 2 Create the flightplan to get you from A to B using the most economical route 3 Execute the plan while monitoring progress and making necessary re-adjustments. Business development is actually just as simple. It’s a matter of defining where you are now (including how the environment has changed, which systems you are using effectively and where you can make improvements) and where you want to get to (desired state), creating a plan, then executing it. Step 1 – Preflight Inspection – analysing what systems are in place and assessing the opportunities The first step is to discover how effectively your business operates, or how it works at the moment, what systems are in place, and the capabilities of the owner and the team in the context of the current environment. This initial consulting project is designed to discover both capabilities of the business vehicle and the managers, what’s working well and what’s not. The table below shows what areas we look at and what kind of issues we look for. In the initial consultation with the manager(s) we determine which of these we will investigate taking into account the size and complexity of the business. Typically this will involve up to 8 hours of the manager’s time. A similar amount of time will be spent interviewing a selection of employees, customers and suppliers. The output from this process is a report and a presentation with recommendations as to priorities and a broad plan of attack.
Having identified the current state, the next step is to identify the destination and to plan how to get there. Every situation is different – determined by the results of the Preflight Inspection, the main priorities that emerge, and the available resources of time energy and money that can be invested. The availability of resources will also determine the pace of development. Some elements of the planning involve several 4 hour discussion sessions with the managers and ideally with the senior team. Areas covered include the following;
1. Strategy fundamentals To define where you want to take the business, indentify the foundations, then the major initiatives to be undertaken. (This should be done with your senior team)
2. Create the plan To break down the major initiatives into specific goals, prioritise them, and create project plans
The outcomes from this process are documented in an The outcome of the Preflight Inspection and the Flightplan processes will include identification of a number of areas where improvements can be made. These will typically include the areas listed below, which then become part of the regular ongoing coaching and monitoring process (described next) and where tools, expertise, and ideas can be introduced. 1. Gaining control over your cash flow and mastering your finances: Objective – Ensure that financial disciplines and reporting are in place 2. Commissioning your people: Objective – Improve the effectiveness of the team, how they are managed, and how to improve productivity 3. Supercharging your marketing: Objective – Implement new programs to drive new customer attraction, commitment and retention processes. 4. Rocketing sales effectiveness: Objective – Review effectiveness of selling processes, activities, incentives and measurement in order to improve brand value, profit margins and conversion rates 5. Optimising systems and processes: Objective – To identify the main processes in your company, analyse how they work, establish measurements (operational KPI’s) and work out ways to improve them. Includes; 6. Taking care of your customers: Objective – Determine how products and services are delivered, quality management, production systems, customer service 7. Taking care of your team: Objective – Develop programs for enhancing skills, effectiveness, cooperation and internal leadership and succession options. Step 3 – Executing the plan: monitoring and coaching Jim Collins, author of the book Good to Great, asserts that 95% of business failure results from a failure to execute. In other words, it’s not enough to have a great plan, it has to be effectively executed. It’s easy to understand why plans get made but nothing happens. This is the failure of most traditional consultancy services – the project finishes when the plan is printed. The fact is we get buried under the deluge of daily operational things to do, we get sidetracked by interruptions, we do the easy stuff first and put off the hard stuff until later, or even avoid doing the hard stuff at all. Our minds become consumed with everyday busy-ness, which blunts our effectiveness as business leaders. Becoming a more effective leader is about what you focus your attention on and about how you habitually think and act, which means you need to become aware of how you are doing things now and then identify more effective ways of thinking and acting. Sporting professionals have known for many years that it’s not enough to just adhere to training regimes, have the right techniques, and so on. It’s also about actually practising the right things, being disciplined and changing ineffective habits. Even the very best sportspeople have coaches to help them stay on top. That’s because it’s very difficult to analyse your own performance, identify what needs to change, apply those changes and then consistently implement them until they are permanent. The best definition of coaching came from Tom Landry, legendary coach of the Dallas Cowboys; “ A coach makes you see what you don’t want to see, hear what you don’t want to hear, do what you don’t want to do so that you can be what you’ve always known you could be” Coaching in business is about effective execution of the plan. Coaching consists of regular meetings where the focus is on making progress towards the major initiatives defined in the plan. Coaching sessions are of two types: 1. Review of progress, results and remedial action. 2. Proactive implementation assistance involving creation of new programs and systems. The coaching program is organized around regular meetings for as long as necessary – usually 12 months initial commitment. We do this at least once per month in order to develop and maintain momentum. The program is intended to start with the Preflight Inspection, then a Flightplan, and then follows a process determined by the plan. However, it is flexible enough to accommodate changes in priorities, or grapple with challenges, problems, projects or opportunities that may arise along the way. In addition we also offer consultancy assistance with any projects that need outside expertise or that need to be moved along quickly, plus team workshops where it makes sense. Each of these are individually quoted depending on requirements and number of attendees. Where outside specialist expertise is needed, such as in sales improvement, marketing, or process improvement, we have a range of associates who are experts in their fields that can help with specific problems or projects.
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