It’s a new year and, with a new year, comes a clean slate, an opportunity to start fresh, purge bad habits and create healthy new ones to sustain a profitable and successful business. The temptation definitely exists to just jump IN to the business blindly before taking a little time to work ON the business. Not that the following exercise equates to proper ON time, but it has to be a part of that process.
Stop and take inventory of the following:
If you were sitting here 3 years from now looking back to January 2011, what would have had to happen in order for you to be satisfied with your results? Now, dig a little deeper and more specifically into the following:
Opportunities
What changes took place within your industry that you were able to anticipate and turn from a challenge into an opportunity?
What unfulfilled customer needs did you identify that you are now fulfilling?
Dangers
In order to survive/thrive, what has changed about your business model as a result of industry/economic/political changes?
Distractions
What previous competitive vulnerability has been removed?
What behaviors that used to slow you down, or even derail your initiatives, have been eliminated?
Strengths
What is your greatest competitive advantage over your competition?
How have you exploited that advantage?
Next step
What are you going to do over the next 12 months to take meaningful steps toward your answers to these questions? If you don’t have that clarity, chances are the time you spend IN the business will largely be IN the wrong areas.
Content provided by Q4intelligence
Photo by bee32
