Do You Know What You Are Doing?, Better Business Starts Here

Do You Know What You Are Doing?

When you read the title, “Do You Know What You Are Doing?”, chances are you answered “yes, of course” and you believe it to be true. You would also likely answer “yes” to “Do you know where you are going?” But… chances are you may be wrong.

Getting ahead of the competition and growing a successful business requires both planning and practice. “Practice” not in terms of rehearsal but rather through daily application. It also requires a recovery strategy for when things don’t go your way, and an exit strategy such as grooming the next generation of family to take over the business, or selling the business upon retirement; which requires succession planning.

Ask yourself the following questions. If the answer to any of them is “no” you may be setting your business up for eventual failure, or at least harder times than necessary.

Do you have all of these in place and documented?

Business Model/Vision
Business Strategy
Business Goals
Value Map (Internal and to your target customers)
Road Map
Business Maintenance Plan
Employee Loyalty Plan
Risk Management Plan and Financial Reserve Plan
Disaster Plan
Business/Staff Recovery Plan
Growth Management Plan
Future Status Transition Plan (moving from small business to a full-and-open competitive status)
Market and Competitive Analysis
Quality Plan (internal) and Industry Expectations Overview (recognition, Certifications/Ratings, publication, press coverage, etc.)
Public Relations Management Plan
Proposal Development Plan (how to avoid distracting your key executives/staff through proper proposal development tasking and meeting planning) including long, medium, and short turn-around times
Template text and data for proposal development
Contact list of potential sub-contractors, independent contractors, and partnering entities
A corporate policy on what it means to act with integrity

Have you created:

Realistic overhead and growth budgets including graphic arts, training, and travel budgets
Documentation Repository and Records Library (no, they are not the same thing)
An Industry Forecast (and, if applicable, a Market Expansion Plan)
A Programs Support Plan and related template documents (PMO basics)

Are you intimately aware of:

Customer Vision
Legal Matters – Know your liabilities and have your NDAs in place
Understanding of a project. Technical requirements, functional requirements, and business requirements mapping. Project value map. Project reality check.
Templating and tailoring (repeatable) versus customization (one-offs)
Metrics and measures processes
Clear chain of command, management, and sponsorship

Are you on top of:

Business Development
Compliance monitoring
Customer business focus
Customer and team engagement (Communication, communication, communication!!!)
Training and re-training your employees on handling, and the political sensitivities of, each customer with whom they are/will be working so they can drive their projects rather than fall victim to them

AND, ARE YOU PRACTICING THE CONTENT WITHIN THESE DOCUMENTS DAILY?

Don’t keep these internal. Be transparent to your customers. Use these documents for marketing on your website. It may go a long way toward selection of your company by other companies and agencies for prospective contracts if they can see that you are organized, stable, and prepared.

Speaking of websites, if you are going to have a website, have a website. Don’t make your first landing page Facebook or Yahoo. That greatly diminishes the appearance of a fully staffed, professional and responsive organization. Also, keep the site updated. If you have a News section and all of the articles are three years old or older, it can make your company look stagnant instead of progressive.

REMEMBER, IF YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING YOU MERELY NEED TO REACH OUT TO ONE OF THE MANY QUALIFIED BUSINESS PROCESS AND ORGANIZATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS PROFESSIONALS IN YOUR MARKET.

Have approaches ready to serve your customer :

Employee Engagement
Leadership Management
Team Building and Culture Management
Change Management, including Cultural Dynamics Management
Value Identification
Quality, safe and legal Communications and Marketing
Talent Management
Organizational Design and Effectiveness
Process Improvement and Maintenance
Systems/programs sunsetting awareness and planning
Succession Planning
Risk Management
Education
Government (/nonprofit) contracting/regulation expertise

Make sure that all appropriate service areas are covered in your proposals and avoid having proposals too high-level or sounding like a sales pitch. Offer all that you have to offer to your potential customer, but don’t use “smoke and mirror” sales tactics to close the deal. Be sincere and accurate, and always act with integrity. By clearly conveying in your proposal the value add you will provide your potential customer’s business, you should be able to overcome potential competition who are not so experienced, visionary, or eloquent, and are competing soley on price. Also, be prepared to lose a few before finding the right combination of value-to-price needed to win in each business domain or agency. That kind of experience pays big dividends in the long run.

Now you have some idea of what it takes to truly answer “yes” to the question “Do You Know What You Are Doing?”

About the author:

Harry “George” Weissenberger, PMP is in his second decade as subject matter expert for organizational design & effectiveness, and business process improvement for Lockheed-Martin, Golden Key Group, and Lumark Technologies serving primarily Government agencies. He has written several articles for Better—Business.com and Managing the Skies magazine, along with other project management websites. He is currently located in the Washington, DC area, although he serves the global market space.