2020 is here, which can only mean one thing: endless attempts to market business-related vision puns. Yes, the title of this post makes me guilty of taking advantage of a punny situation.
I do want to get serious though. If you were like some of my clients a few years ago, where we developed their "Vision 2020", you might be in good shape. Many of those strategic goals have been reached, some are still within reach, and some have no chance of being hit, unfortunately. As a business leader, you know how that goes sometimes.
My point in writing this post is this: We're almost through January (which is when this was originally written), and if you're just now considering taking your company through a big growth and profit-focused transformation to achieve big aspirations for 2020, you better get moving because you're late! You're going to have to move fast to see real value this year.
Transformations take time. The bigger the boat, the slower it moves. (Insert Titanic reference here). The bigger the problems, the bigger the company, the bigger the constraints, the slower the change happens. I know you want to see real gains quickly.
So what can you do about this? Here are three things you can do in your business right now to start seeing positive profit-impacting results in 2020.
Get Started! Just go. Start by identifying weaknesses and problem areas. Do a cost inventory, and see what unnecessary spend needs to get trimmed off. Don't read this and think I'm telling you to go fire a bunch of people. If your talent is weak and toxic, that's another thing, but assuming that's not you, you shouldn't start there. Next, identify processes that haven't been refreshed in a while and see if there are efficiency savings that can be attained.
Identify Quick Wins. Once you know your problems and potential solutions, it's time to analyze each one to see which ones are the low hanging fruit to grab. You could rely on your gut for this, but I think you should use a simple 2 by 2 we at Louder Co. like to use. Measure each potential solution against Impact and Effort. Those things that fall in the High Impact, Low Effort quadrant are your Quick Win opportunities. Execute those first!
Go After Soft Fixes. What are Soft Fixes? These are the intangible things that might be broken in your company. Maybe communication (internal & external) is bad, silos have formed, or the culture has taken a hit. These types of improvements are relatively inexpensive to execute, but can reap huge productivity, performance, and cultural gains.
We recently took a client through these steps, finding savings that will double their profit this year. This is doable. Get moving on this aggressively right now, and I promise you'll see positive impact to profits by July 1.
I understand that taking on these changes can be hard though. Not to mention, we haven't even hit on the big stuff that will get you primed for a highly profitable 2021.
We're here to help you. We know your business needs to reach some serious growth goals in a short amount of time. You might not know how to do it, giving you reservations about tackling the project internally.
Bring in some outside help.
We combine our Business Transformation expertise with groundbreaking AI strategies - so you can grow profits, kill inefficiencies, and save yourself from lost time and wasted money.
Schedule a coffee conversation with us here. I'm certain we can help bring your vision for 2020 into focus (sorry, last pun).
Your guide,
Andrew
PS. Give our new podcast, Dallas Based Innovators, a listen. We go behind the scenes with top innovative minds. Go here to listen on iTunes or here to listen on Soundcloud.