The Business Game Plan

“If winning isn’t everything, why do they keep score?” – Vince Lombardi

As I write this blog, most of the nation is eagerly anticipating the Super Bowl game between the Packers and the Steelers. The winner has yet to be determined, but one thing is for certain – both teams have undoubtedly been working very hard to prepare their game plans and how they intend to implement those plans for the win.

We have been discussing intentions for the past few weeks. Remember, an intention is a specific and measurable target that you set for your business. How much revenue? How many clients? How much time off? We talked about the characteristics of a good intention, and how to choose intentions that will give you what you want.

Now that you have your intentions in place, it’s time to look at putting them into action. It’s one thing to figure out what your intentions are, but how do you set about delivering on them?

It all comes down to building a game plan. Just like the Packers and Steelers, your business needs a plan of action that will highlight your strengths, mitigate your weaknesses and put you in the best position for winning the game. Here are some basic steps to putting together your game plan:

Break down the numbers. If your revenue intention is $1MM this year, break that down into monthly or even weekly numbers. To reach $1MM, you need to bring in roughly $83,000 in revenue each month. That’s around $21,000 a week. Do you have seasonal variations in your business? Other factors that impact a consistent revenue stream? How many clients do you need to generate $21,000 a week? Break down the numbers so that you know how much you need to be consistently producing in order to reach the target.

Assign actions to the intentions. Looking at the numbers, what are the actions that have to take place? How many clients do you need to generate $21,000 a week? How many sales calls do you need to make to land that many clients? How long does each call take? What goes into each order and what do you need to do to produce it? You may need to make 20 sales calls and land ten clients to make your goal. But what other actions are involved with that order? Working with production? Providing customer service after the product is delivered? Make a list of each action that has to occur to complete the client’s request. Now you are getting a clear picture of all the actions you need to take in order to bring in $21,000 a week.

Schedule those actions into your calendar. Everything you do, every action, has to occur in time. Exactly when will you make the 20 sales calls? If each call takes an hour, that’s 20 hours a week that have to make it into your calendar if you are going to deliver on your $1million intention. That’s four hours every day. Get out your calendar and schedule four hours a day of sales calls. Be honest with yourself about how these actions are going to show up in your calendar. What else do you need to schedule? Three hours for customer service? Four hours for production design? Two hours for administrative tasks? Don’t forget to pad your calendar with a few hours for breakdowns, the fire drills that happen to all of us. Now look at your calendar. Do you have enough time to deliver on your intention?

Assess your resources. Looking at your calendar, you can quickly see where you may need additional resources. Maybe you need to hire an assistant five hours a week to handle customer service phoning and follow up. Maybe you need an additional piece of equipment if you want to successfully produce every order. Do you need an extra salesperson? More phones? Another computer? What additional resources will you need in order to be able to handle $21,000 in weekly revenue?

Monitor your progress. You can be sure that the Packers and Steelers will be keeping their eyes on the scoreboard all throughout the game. If they didn’t, how would they be able to plan their next move? The same is true for business. You must constantly be looking at your numbers to make sure you are on track to meet your intention. Your numbers are a picture of what’s working and what isn’t. Schedule time weekly to review your sales and production numbers, as well as expenses. Keeping an eye on the scoreboard allows you to make adjustments that will keep you in the game.

Running your business is very much like playing a football game. You have specific intentions, a block of time and scoreboard that keeps track of your progress. Make sure that you have the right game plan that will keep the ball moving down the field. And just like successful sports teams, thriving businesses need coaches to help them execute their game plans. If you need support in crafting and implementing your business game plan, give us a call. We would be happy to coach your business to win!

Are you ready to win?