Posts Tagged ‘profit’

I’ve heard few authors say that they “found the time” to write their book! Time is not something you “find,” like a needle in a haystack (or, the New World).

Instead, time to write is something you create, and you create time using tools like planning, commitment, and efficiency.

Here’s a proven, 4-step process for making the time to write that works for me, and many of my clients.

1. Start with a plan

Whether you’re writing a book or a blog post, progress comes quicker when you know what you want to write before you sit down to write.

Your “plans” don’t have to be elaborate, and they don’t have to be formal. As you can see from the content plan I created at the start of this series, a simple mind map is enough to provide a framework for your writing success.

Likewise, if you’re starting a book, your plan might be as simple as a list of the 10 chapters you’re going to include in your book, plus the 7-10 main ideas (or topics) you’re going to discuss in each chapter.

For example, I just added a copy of a mind map I created a few years ago for a major project to my Active Garage Resource Center. It was one of my first maps, but it was enough to sell the project and help me write the project on time.

2. Commit to daily progress

Once you have created a content plan, or framework, the next step is to forget everything you ever heard about deadline-based “writing marathons.” Likewise, forget about “getting away” to write a book and myths like “I write better under pressure.”

I’ve interviewed hundreds of successfully branded authors, and the majority of them don’t believe coffee-inspired writing marathons. Instead, they commit to consistent daily progress, often in working sessions as short as 30 minutes.

Books are best written in short, daily working sessions, not stressful marathons!

It’s amazing what you can accomplish in 30-minute working sessions if you know what you’re going to write about. The act of creating a content plan, activates your brain so it is constantly working in the background, sifting and organizing ideas, searching for the right words, while you’re doing other tasks during the day, and when you’re driving or sleeping.

Fewer expectations equal less stress

One of the reasons that short working sessions are so productive is that there is less stress- -primarily performance anxiety- -involved in short 30-minute working sessions than in vacations or weekends. One of the reasons for this is that if you only expect to write a page or two during a working session, you’re not as likely to be disappointed.

But, if you have vowed to write a book over the summer at a vacation cabin, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment. Why? Because the expectation of a completed book leads to the worrisome thought, What do I do if I don’t finish my book? Won’t I be a failure? Won’t people laugh?

Likewise, expecting to write a book during weekends and holidays, creates guilt-based stress because you’re not spending time with your family.

3. Harvest your time

Begin by taking an inventory of your time, locating specific time periods each day when you can commit to 30 minute working sessions. Look for opportunities like:

• Getting up 30-minutes earlier each day, preferably before the family gets up.
• Staying up 30-minute later each night.
• Arriving at the office 30-minutes earlier and closing the door.
• Taking your lunch with you, and eating a sandwich at your computer.
• Taking your laptop to a coffee shop or bookstore café during breaks or mealtime.

Then, make both public commitment of specific times each weekday. Don’t say, I’m going to write a little every morning! Instead, specify, I’m going to get to my office by 8:30 AM and check my messages or e-mail until 9:00!

Your daily writing sessions don’t have to be at the same time each day; your working sessions on Monday might be between 7:30 and 8:00 AM, but your Tuesday working sessions might be 8:00 PM to 8:30 while the family is watching television.

Once you’ve made a commitment to daily progress, and shared it with others, you’ll find it much easier to keep your project on track.

4. Track your progress

Since we all find the time to do what we want to do, it’s important that you keep yourself motivated.

That’s why the final step is to find a way to demonstrate your daily progress. One of the ways you can do this is to add a check-mark, or a strike-through, to indicate finished chapters and topics on your content map.

Another way to show progress is to print what you’ve just written during each writing session on 3-hole punched paper, and store them in a 3-ring binder.

Each time you open the binder and insert new pages, you’ll enjoy a feeling of accomplishment, as you see your finished pages mounting up.

Conclusion

All the “how to write” books and workshops in the world won’t get your book written if you don’t make the time to make the time to actually write your book. The 4-step process of planning your content, commiting to short, daily working sessions, harvesting your time, and tracking your progress is a formula that works. But, it’s up to you to put the process to work!

Roger C. Parker helps business professionals write brand-building, thought-leadership books. He’s written over 30 books, offers writing tools at Published&Profitable, and posts writing tips each weekday. His next book is Title Tweet! 140 Bite-Sized Ideas for Article, Book, and Event Titles.

Tagged as: active garage, business writing, expectations, harvest, plan, profit, progress, promote, roger parker, stress, time, track, write, Writing for Business

Authors must look beyond the obvious – -the trends and the hype – -when choosing the type of book publishing that’s best for them and their family. It’s easy to get seduced by the many recent, exciting, changes in book publishing technology.

Before rushing into a decision, I encourage you to make your choice from a detailed analysis of how each publishing option will impact you and your family both before and after your book is published.

Publishing options at a glance

The 3 primary publishing options include e-books, trade publishing, and self-publishing.

E-books

E-books span the gamut from word-processed documents distributed as Adobe Acrobat PDF files to professionally designed books optimized for on-screen reading, like Rajesh Setty’s Defiant. A new generation of e-book readers has received a great deal of attention, like the Amazon Kindle and Barnes & Noble Nook.

When analyzing the pros and cons of e-books, authors need to be careful to ask the right questions. The questions should not revolve around the current popularity of e-books and e-book readers- -i.e., whether or not e-books will replace printed books, etc.

Instead, authors must ask whether or not an e-book, by itself, will be enough to build the compelling, income-generating, personal brand they desire.

The big question is not whether or not e-books are popular, but whether or not they can position you as a subject area expert in your field

Trade publishing

Trade publishing, i.e., printed books published by large, specialized firms and distributed online and through “bricks and mortar” retail channels like Barnes & Noble, Borders, and regional independent bookstores offer authors a “no cost” way to get their book published.

Trade publishers front the money for all of the costs involved in editing, designing, formatting, printing, and distributing the book. In fact, traditionally, authors would receive often-significant advances on the future earnings of their books.

In exchange for freedom from up-front investment, however, authors must pass the gauntlets of rejection; publishers typically receive hundreds of books proposals for each book they publish. In addition, authors typically sacrifice a lot of control. It’s no longer “author and book,” but “author and committee”- -and the committee is a huge one.

Major decisions, like titles, book covers, size, pricing, and market positioning, are taken out of the author’s hands, and many surprises occur. (Many authors don’t even see their book’s front cover until it’s too late!)

Other compromises involve the amount of money authors receive from sales of their books, copyright issues that can limit back-end profit opportunities, and rights to future electronic products (like DVD’s). Most non-fiction books fail to earn royalties beyond the initial advance, although the occasional “home run” can create life-changing cash-flow.

Authors must ask themselves if the publisher’s credibility, expertise, and bookstore distribution are worth the lack of control and reduced earnings characteristic of trade publishing.

Self-publishing

Self-publishing continues to enjoy growing popularity. And, like “hybrid automobiles,” the term covers a broad range of options. Self-publishing ranges from an author taking responsibility for everything- – including editing, designing, printing, and distributing their book- -to options where outside firms will take as much responsibility for book production and distribution as desired.

Self-publishing offers control and speed: author’s call the shots and can get book into the hands of their clients and prospects faster than trade-publishing.

In addition, depending on how much money the author initially invests in their project, authors can far more profit per-copy than they would ever earn from trade publishing. This is especially true with direct online sales and from selling multiple copies of their books to businesses and associations.

Before choosing self-publishing, however, authors must determine whether or not they have the resources necessary to self-publish their book, and also make sure they want to spend their time performing the tasks necessary to distribute their book.

Authors have succeeded, and are succeeding, with each option. In addition, hybrid options are becoming available. What’s important, however, is What will work best for you?

How to choose the right publishing option

Ultimately, the choice for most authors boils down to just 2 issues: cash-flow and task preferences.  Cash-flow and how the author wants to spend their time after their book appears are the crucial issues.

Cash-flow

For many authors, the issue is cash-flow. Self-publishing initially involves negative cash flow, the money flows away from the author. The author is investing (or borrowing) money against future profits. Authors must put out money for editing, design, production, and proof-reading- -in addition to paying up front for printing and shipping.

If the money is there, i.e., if an author can more comfortably invest in their book without risking their financial security, self-publishing makes sense.

But, if the investment will seriously impact their family’s standard or living, or- -, even worse- -put it at risk, self-publishing doesn’t make sense.

The Preliminary Cash Flow Projection worksheet displays the implications of self-publishing versus trade publishing.

Task preferences

Successful self-publishing requires a different set of tasks than writing a book. It’s up to you whether or not the tasks are those you’d like to either commit to on a daily basis or delegate to others. These tasks involve:

• Processing and fulfilling orders, packaging and addressing individual books, handling the occasional, inevitable, returns.
• Shipping cartons of books to distributors and bookstores, handling returns of unsold books.
• Monitoring inventory, deciding when to re-order books.
• Legal and accounting; monitoring accounts receivable and tracking down overdue payments, dealing with copyright issues.
• Negotiating terms with bookstores and distributors, including discounts and return privileges.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with these tasks, but authors must balance their writing and client-service time with the minutiae involved in bookstore distribution and fulfilling individual orders.

The Author Task Preference Worksheet helps you identify your “fit” with the tasks involved in self-publishing.

Conclusion

As the above questions show, choosing the right publishing alternative involves more than simply “going with the flow” or choosing the most popular alternative. The right choice of publishing alternative involves carefully balancing their goals and resources with the realities of each publishing option.

To help my clients, I’ve created several worksheets, like my Self-Publishing Expense Planner, shown above, to help authors realistically run the numbers and make the right decisions. (E-mail me if you’d like to see a sample.)

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Roger C. Parker helps business professionals write brand-building, thought-leadership books. He’s written over 30 books, offers writing tools at Published&Profitable, and posts writing tips each weekday. His next book is Title Tweet! 140 Bite-Sized Ideas for Article, Book, and Event Titles.

Tagged as: active garage, author's journey, business writing, defiant, e-books, plan, profit, promote, publishing, Rajesh Setty, roger parker, self publishing, trade publishing, write, Writing for Business

No publisher wants to publish a book that covers the same ground existing books cover. Likewise, no intelligent self-publisher wants to waste the family’s resources on a “me too!” book.

Thus, not only does your book have to serve your intended reader’s needs instead of your interests or your ego, your book also has to bring something new to the table.

The starting point is to evaluate the current competition. This is a task that you can easily accomplish online in two steps:

• Step One is to locate competing books in your field. You want to know what’s already available, so you can avoid rewriting an existing book.
• Step Two is to organize the results of your online research into a visual format that will help you position your book relative to the competition.

The procedure outlined below will help you keep track of existing books in your field and save you time identifying the ideal position for your book.

Step l: Locating competing titles

Start by creating a 4-column worksheet similar to the Competing Titles Worksheet shown at left. You can easily do this using the table feature built into your word-processing software. You can also create a spreadsheet using Microsoft Excel, or a mind map using Mindjet’s MindManager. (A writing tool we’ll be discussing in an upcoming Author Journey.)

As an easy alternative, to get you quickly get started, you can also work by hand using sheets of lined yellow paper, as described below:

1. Draw 3 equally-spaced vertical lines on the sheet of paper. This divides the page into 4 columns of equal width.
2. Add “Author/title” to the top of the first column. When entering author’s names, of course, be sure to begin with the author’s last name, followed by their first name. This will pay big dividends later.
3. Title the second column “Big Idea.” Or, you can call it “premise” or “type of book.” The goal is to briefly describe the author’s approach to the topic.
4. The title of the third column should be “Pros & Cons.” This is where you briefly comment on the book’s strengths and weaknesses.
5. Add “Keywords” to the top of the fourth column. This purpose of this column is to pay attention to the Search Engine Optimization keywords associated with the title. The best book titles are those that contain the keywords readers are searching for online. The sooner you identify the keywords used with successful existing titles, the easier it will be for you to incorporate the right keywords in your book marketing and promotion.

Note that the above worksheet is not intended to include every detail about the books you locate online. Instead, it’s main purpose is to provide a handy way of seeing–at a glance–what’s already been written in your field as a prelude to positioning your book.

Step 2: Visually positioning your book

In order to position my forthcoming book apart from existing books on the topic, I created a simple Book Positioning Worksheet that you can use to position your book apart from existing books. This book will help you identify the most popular categories of existing books, so you can stake out a new territory for your book.

In my case, my goal was to help business professionals write a book that would position them as thought leaders and obvious experts in their field.

Surveying the available books in the writing field, I quickly noticed how most books fell into one of eight categories. For example, there were numerous books in the following categories:

1. Introductory books about writing and publishing
2. Locating an agent or preparing book proposals and query letters
3. How to self-publish a book and make oodles of money
4. Inside story, or “publishers are mean” books
5. Creativity and inspiration books
6. Editing and self-editing books
7. Marketing and promotion techniques for authors
8. How to make money writing books

With the competition displayed in the outer 8 boxes of the Book Position Planner, I could see that the missing book–the book that no one had yet written–was a book about book titles!

And, I was off and running! The breakthrough was being able to view existing titles as groups of titles, rather than individual titles.

In the next Author Journey, I’ll address the steps I took to choosing the right publishing alternative and the right publisher.

Offer

If you like the idea of a Book Positioning Planner appeals to you, drop me an e-mail at Roger@Publishedandprofitable.com. I’ll send the first 10 who respond a PDF copy of the Book Positioning Planner shown above. (Please include Book Positioning Planner in the subject line. Thank you.)

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Roger C. Parker helps business professionals write brand-building, thought-leadership books. He’s written over 30 books, offers writing tools at Published&Profitable, and posts writing tips each weekday. His next book is Title Tweet! 140 Bite-Sized Ideas for Article, Book, and Event Titles.

Tagged as: active garage, agent, author's journey, book, business writing, competition, editing, locate, marketing, plan, profit, promote, research, roger parker, titles, writing

One of the most important decisions you should ask yourself during the planning process is, “Who is my intended reader?”

Your answer to the question will have a lot of bearing on the overall profitability of your book publishing project as well as help you make faster progress. Your response will influence your book’s title and subtitle, your book’s contents, as well as how you market your book.

More important, by carefully answering the above question, you can not only serve your most target market better, but you might also be able to write a shorter book and get it to press faster!

All readers are not created equal

The market segments you want to sell to in the future should determine the readers your book targets. As every business owner and marketing professional knows, some segments are more profitable, more loyal, and easier to deal with than others.

By identifying your most desired clients as early during the planning process as possible, you tailor your book to your A-list prospect’s needs, rather than “spinning your wheels” with more B-list and C-list prospects.

Thus, start to plan your book by analyzing your firm’s past and current clients. I recommend creating a worksheet similar to the Published & Profitable Reader Identification Worksheet shown at left. Worksheets make it easy for you to answer questions like:

1. What characteristics do my most profitable, A-list, clients have in common?
2. What are their problems and goals?
3. Why is this reader segment important to me?
4. What problems and services do I hope to sell them in the future?
5. What keywords do they use when searching for information online?
6. Who are the experts this market segment trusts?

What your answers will reveal

Your responses to the above questions will help you get started planning a profitable book, one that will open doors of opportunity by attracting qualified prospects and search engine traffic.

Let’s analyze each question and the information your answer will provide:

1. What characteristics do my most profitable, A-list, clients have in common? Your response will help you better understand the readers market segment most likely to turn into profitable long-term clients.
2. What are their problems and goals? By focusing on your most profitable market segment, you can tailor your book’s contents and marketing message to their particular needs. You can “go deep” and better address this market segment’s needs, without diluting your message by attempting to appeal to the needs of every market segment.
3. Why is this reader segment important to me? Your answer will reinforce the reasons for focusing your book to appeal to a few, key, marketing segments. You can state your answer in terms of average cost per sale, frequency of purchase (i.e., cash-flow), the number of referrals they generate, the promptness of their payments, their long-term loyalty, or ease of dealing with them.
4. What problems and services do I hope to sell them in the future? Knowing what you want to sell them in the future helps you identify the content needed for your book. You’ll be able to subtly plant the seeds of future purchases in your book, highlighting areas of your expertise and describing the benefits of taking action with the help of your tools or your qualified assistance.
5. What keywords do they use when searching for information online? Knowing the terms that attract appropriate search engine traffic will help you choose the right title and subtitle for your book as well as the right section titles and chapter titles. Book titles that contain relevant keywords enjoy a great advantage over their more creative, but less SEO-friendly, competition.
6. Who are the experts this market segment trusts? Your answer will help you identify your competition, existing books in your area as well as the blogs and websites that are competing for your ideal client’s attention. Addressing this question now saves you time in the future when you are preparing the “competing books” section of your book proposal.

As you can see above, there are numerous benefits to beginning your author journey by identifying your most desired readers. In addition to doing a better job of serving their needs, by focusing on your ideal prospects, you might be able to write a shorter book. A book that serves “everybody” has to be encyclopedic, but books that target specific markets can focus on just the desired market’s information needs. Thus, a shorter book that can be brought to market faster.

Take action now

Your Reader Identification Worksheet doesn’t have to be fancy. You can create one by simply taking a sheet of paper and dividing it into three equal columns.

• Ÿ  Left-hand column. Label the left-hand column “A-list” or “Most Desired Prospects.”
• Ÿ  Center column. Label this “B- and C-list” or “OK prospects.”
• Ÿ  Right-hand column. Label the remaining column “Least desirable” or “More Trouble Than They’re Worth” prospects.

Then, thinking about your client and customer experiences over the past few years, look for commonalities shared by your best clients and ways they differ from your “just OK” and toxic clients.

The business of books

If all this sounds familiar to your previous experiences preparing business and marketing plans…that’s because books are businesses!

Just as a strong business plan begins with identifying the intended market and their needs, nonfiction books should begin the same way. Books have to be sold–that’s the bottom line. It’s a waste of time to write the perfect book, only to find out after it’s been published that nobody wants it.

So, as you begin your author’s journey, identify your ideal prospects and plan to write the book they want to buy!

Offer

I’ll send the first 10 readers who e-mail me at Roger@Publishedandprofitable.com a copy of the Reader Identification Worksheet shown above. Please mention Reader Identification Worksheet in the subject line

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Roger C. Parker helps business professionals write brand-building, thought-leadership books. He’s written over 30 books, offers writing tools at Published&Profitable, and posts writing tips each weekday. His next book is Title Tweet! 140 Bite-Sized Ideas for Article, Book, and Event Titles.

Tagged as: active garage, book, business writing, contents, profit, profitability, publishing, reader, reader identification worksheet, roger parker, subtitle, title, worksheet, Writing for Business

I’d like to invite you along on an author’s journey towards writing a nonfiction book. During the next 26 weeks, I’m going to share my progress towards my 39th book. I want to share with you some of the strategies and tips I’ve learned about book publishing and personal branding. I also want to share some of the changes that have taken place in publishing, as well as share the steps in the decision-making process that can save you time and help you avoid expensive mistakes.

Why do business professionals like you write books?

Certainly, it’s not the “big bucks” advances from conventional trade publishers. Celebrity 6 and 7-figure advances notwithstanding, direct income from book sales is likely not to become a significant income source for you and your family.

And, unless you self-publish, which requires you to spend money before you can earn money–you’re unlikely to profit from endless streams of recurring income from book royalties each month.

So, why do business professionals write books, if it’s not the money?

There are two ways to answer this question: the anecdotal approach and the statistical, research study approach:

1. Anecdotal approach. The easiest and most readable way to learn why busy professionals write books is to pick up a copy of Mitchell Levy’s 42 Rules for Driving Success with Books. The 5 sections of this book provide concise, entertaining, and revealing real-world portraits of authors who have escaped the economic hell of anonymity by writing a book that positioned them as experts in their field. If you’re looking for believable role models of publishing success, this is the place to start at a very reasonable price.
2. Research-study approach. RainToday, the research and publishing arm of the Wellesley Hills Group, has published a detailed, 2-volume, 300-page Business Book Publishing Series Report. Based on detailed interviews and surveys with published authors, these reports make a dollars and cents argument for writing and publishing a book to build your brand and attract qualified prospects.

The most telling statistic: 96% of authors reported that publishing a business book affected their practice either “Positively” or “Extremely Positively!”

So, why am I, again, beginning an author’s journey?

My last book, Design to Sell, came out in 2006, and my previous book, The Streetwise Guide to Relationship Marketing on the Internet, came out in 2000. My previous books sold over 1.6 million copies throughout the world. (My shelves are loaded with copies of my books I’ll never be able to read, i.e., Chinese, Polish, Russian, and Hebrew editions.)

My best-selling books came earlier, when it was easier to earn significant incomes from publisher’s advances and royalties on book sales. My first NY Times best-seller was Looking Good in Print: A Guide to Basic Design for Desktop Publishing, and the late 1990’s were subsidized by significant royalties from Microsoft Office for Windows 97 For Dummies, and others in the series.

Now, it’s time to write again, and there are several factors driving my decision. The relative importance of the following varies from day to day, but all of the following play a role:

• Writing is fun. Isn’t that a crazy thing to say? Yet, it’s true. At the end of the day, there’s satisfaction to be found in whatever you’ve been able to accomplish. There’s a lot to be said for starting with nothing, and ending up with a page or two of convincing arguments that didn’t exist at the start of your writing session.
• Repositioning my expertise. For many years, I was known as the “design guru of our generation who has taught desktop publishing excellence to hundreds of thousands,” as Ralph Wilson said. I continue to love graphic design, but at the present time, I’m more interested in teaching writing skills at Published&Profitable and writing about writing in my daily writing tips blog. The time is right for me to write a book about publishing that will attract more qualified traffic to my website and more invitations to speak.
• Passion. I’m not only very passionate about the topic, I want to learn more about it and be able to teach it more effectively. Writing is the best way to enhance your understanding and ability to communicate it to others.
• It’s a different world. There are some wonderful changes taking place in publishing these days. New tools are available that open up new frontier of opportunity for authors who are willing to adapt to the times. Never before have the barriers to entry been as open to entrepreneurial authors as they are now. I’m tired of writing about these changes, I want to take advantage of them myself!

I’m tired of writing about these changes, I want to take advantage of them myself!

I’m looking forward to putting today’s new writing and marketing tools to work writing and promoting a different type of book, one that only now makes sense for business professionals.

My new book also provides an opportunity for me to synthesize marketing and writing in ways that were impossible for most business professionals in 2000, and were only known to a few non-computing professionals in 2006.

I hope you’ll come along for the remaining 25 installments of this author’s journey; and, if you’re so inclined, I hope you’ll become convinced that it’s time for you, too, to begin an author’s journey.

In the second installment of this series, I’m going to address the first question you should ask yourself when writing a book: Who Do You Want to Read Your Book? The answer may surprise you.

Note: Drop me a line at Roger@publishedandprofitable.com and I’ll send you a PDF of the mind map I’ve created for my author’s journey plus a mind map of the contents of my next book!

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Roger C. Parker helps business professionals write brand-building, thought-leadership books. He’s written over 30 books, offers writing tools at Published&Profitable, and posts writing tips each weekday. His next book is Title Tweet! 140 Bite-Sized Ideas for Article, Book, and Event Titles.

Tagged as: active garage, anecdotal approach, author's journey, book, business professionals, design to sell, plan, profit, promote, publishing, research study approach, roger parker, streetwise guide to relationship, write, writing book, Writing for Business

In a recent post discussing how to build your company into an attractive strategic candidate with a process known as ExiTrak^®, we advised the following.

1. Have a trusted advisor interview key acquisition executives in 15-25 prospective buyer companies.
2. From these responses, put together the profile of the attractive strategic acquisition candidate from the perspective of the buying marketplace.
3. Conduct a “gap analysis” comparing the marketplace profile with the strategic profile of your company.
4. Based on this analysis, make decisions regarding which strategic assets to acquire and/or enhance in order to bring your company’s strategic profile as close as possible to that of the marketplace.
5. Create a strategic plan to implement these decisions in the context of improving operational performance.

This blog will review in detail the strategic planning process.

Overview

A solid strategic planning process will take the participants from the “10,000-foot level” to the place where “the rubber meets the road.”  {No more metaphors, I promise.}  The most critical element for a successful strategic plan is the extent to which everyone in the company can see a direct link between high performance in what they do every day and the long-term prosperity of the company.  Achieve this and “the world is your oyster.”  {Man, that promise had a shorter shelf life than the average New Year’s Resolution.}

Who Should Participate?

This is both a “who” and a “how many” question.  One of the best ways to overcome resistance to change is to have those who will be implementing the changes participate in determining what those changes will be.  Therefore, if possible, everyone who can have a significant impact on the achievement of the company’s Vision, Mission and Long-Term Goals should be part of the strategic planning process.

It is, nevertheless, well established that any working group begins to lose efficiency and effectiveness when it gets bigger than 17 participants.  Depending on the size and complexity of your company, an ideal strategic planning group size is 5-15.

How Long Should This Process Take?

Some professional facilitators recommend telescoping the entire process into a single weekend.  I think this is a mistake.  My recommendation is to conduct a series of three one-day meetings, spaced about one month apart.  After a couple of weeks, the facilitator should issue a preliminary report summarizing the results to date.  At that point, each individual will be able to review this report as a “reader” rather than as a “writer” – a key factor in objectivity – and be prepared to suggest changes, if appropriate, at the next meeting.

Selection of a Facilitator

Every strategic planning process needs a facilitator.  A highly effective facilitator must possess all of the following skill sets and personal qualities.

• Highly knowledgeable about your business and industry
• High self-esteem
• Not easily intimidated by higher-ups in the organization or their opinions
• Well organized
• Excellent listener with first-class summary skills
• Excellent at drawing out all participants, including the wallflowers
• Articulate
• Clear writer
• Not the CEO

If you are the CEO, try to avoid revealing your position on various issues for as long as possible.  You will always have the power to pursue a particular course of action.  But, when you do, you want to be certain that you have had the benefit of the broadest set of opinions and options.

Key Elements of the Strategic Plan

The strategic planning process involves the following key elements:

• Vision
• Mission
• Long-range Goals
• Short-term Objectives
• Task Assignments
• Action Items
• Follow-up to compare actual performance with plan

Vision

At least 3 Years in the Future

Often at End of Accounting Year (Calendar or Fiscal)

Any worthwhile strategic planning process must begin with the Vision for the company at some specific date in the future.  What will be the company’s identity?  When customers, suppliers or professionals hear the company’s name, what image do you want them to conjure up?  What overriding quality do you want front of mind?  In other words: Who is this company?  Here are a few examples of Vision statements that speak to this identity question.

1. We make the defense of the U.S. homeland stronger and more flexible.
2. We help our clients’ teams to function more cohesively and effectively.
3. We improve the quality of health care in America.
4. We make transit passengers safer.

When your employees fully understand (intellectually and viscerally) your company’s Vision, they will be able to see how the optimum performance of their individual jobs will contribute to the fulfillment of that Vision.  This connection is critical for long-term job satisfaction, high achievement and career track progress.

Mission (Same Date)

The Mission statement describes your company’s function in concrete terms.  Using the same examples, here is a group of Mission statements that address the question “What does this company do, and for whom?

1. We train dogs to assist Customs inspectors to locate drugs and explosives.
2. We deliver workshops to privately held companies on verbal and written communication, listening skills and teamwork.
3. We make timely delivery of top-quality components to medical instrumentation OEMs.
4. We manufacture shatter-proof glass for public transit vehicles.

Marrying the Vision and Mission statements is essential, because it helps to get across to your employees how truly important each of their jobs is in the grand scheme of things.  For example, these dog trainers are obviously in support of the drug and explosive interdiction business.  But, interdiction is a means, not an end.  The end is that we are all safer in this country.  In this example, you want your employee to make the connection that “If I do my job really well, I will be saving lives.

Long-Range Goals (Same Date)

The Long-Range Goals (LRGs) cover as wide a range as you and your group deem appropriate, including such categories as:

• Sales
• Gross Margins
• Overhead structure
• Pretax profit
• Market share
• Market niche(s)
• Key new customers
• Improved product quality
• Improved delivery times
• Customer satisfaction
• Geographical outreach, including additional facilities
• Breadth and depth of management company-wide
• Technology
• Technology management and infrastructure
• Reducing employee turnover

These goals should be quite specific and measurable. For example, improved customer satisfaction could be measured by two distinctly different kinds of yardsticks.

1. Reduction of customer turnover by 30% over three years.
2. Improvement in customer survey numerical responses by 30% over the same period.

Both provide numerical measures, but surveys rely on subjective personal judgments.  Improved delivery times are much easier to measure than, say, product quality.  However, the latter can be measured by customer returns, customer complaints or other means.  This, of course, requires that you have a system to capture these data 100% of the time.  Whatever your system, ensure that your Long-Range Goals are inextricably linked to day-to-day performance.

Short-Term Objectives

To be Achieved Within 12 Months

The successful completion of your short-term objectives should provide some tangible improvement in company operations.  However, the primary strategic payoff will be a head start on achieving the Long-Range Goals.

If you are going to make a mistake, err on the low side of commitment, not the high side.  You can always add something later, but lack of achievement in one part of the strategic plan can cause problems elsewhere and, at the same time, create morale problems for the team.

Carrying on with the example of Improved Customer Satisfaction (and assuming that progress in each of the measured categories is linear) the Short-Term Objective for customer turnover and survey results could be 10% per year.  However, inertia may preclude linear progress.  As a result, 5%, 10% and 15% in years 1, 2 and 3 respectively may be more realistic. Try to ensure that your Short-Term Objectives are achievable, and give yourself and your team enough time to get the job done.

Task Assignments (Quarterly)

The achievement of quarterly task assignments will, by definition, achieve the Short-Term Objectives.  Each task assignment is the responsibility of one or two individuals, with a deadline and standard of performance.  For example, someone will have to design the system to collect data on customer turnover, including precisely what constitutes turnover.

Similarly, someone will have to design and implement the customer survey or find and supervise a source outside the company to perform one or both of these services.  Someone will also have to analyze the data and present it to management.  The best way to avoid front-loading this part of the process is to assign tasks only one quarter at a time.

Action Items

What Do We Do Tuesday?

Action Items fall out week by week or month by month from the Task Assignments.  Unlike Long-Term Goals and Short-Term Objectives, it is best to front-load the Action Items, because that is the best way to get the job done on time.

Monthly Follow-Up

Plan the work and work the plan.  Whether it’s an individual salesperson’s call plan for the next week or the company’s strategic plan for years to come, the principle is the same.  It doesn’t matter how great the plan is if implementation is poor, excessively late or both.  In this regard, follow-up to compare actual results with plan is invaluable.

There should be a two-hour morning follow-up session, no less often than monthly, that includes all members of the original planning team.  The purpose of each meeting is two-fold.

1. Determine the status of all active projects in the strategic plan.
2. If any project is in trouble, determine what can be done to right that particular ship.

The most critical factor is that the strategic planning group functions as a team, providing support for one another and directing help where and when necessary.  Good luck.

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This article has been contributed by Steven D. Popell. Steve has been a general management consultant since 1970. Steve is a Certified Management Consultant, business valuation expert, and inventor of ExiTrak®- a process designed to assist the privately-held company owner/manager to build an attractive strategic acquisition candidate

Tagged as: active garage, assignments, customer satisfaction, exitrak, long term, market niche, market share, monthly follow up, objectives, profit, short term, steve popell, strategic planning, Tasks, technology, turnover

Entrepreneurial business ventures have the same business concerns as their conglomerate competitors – they all want to turn a profit. They want their revenues to be significantly larger than their costs.

Keeping it simple, to increase profit we have two approaches:
~ increase our revenues relative to the cost
~ reduce our costs relative to our revenues

During times of economic prosperity companies often deal with challenges associated with growth, in their operations, by sacrificing operational efficiency. Typical examples are acquiring equipment when we expand our orders rather than reworking the scheduling; hiring additional staff rather than reorganizing the process.

I will use an example to simulate a company going through a growth and contraction to highlight the effect:

A sample company produces 1000 widgets per month at $5/piece, produced by 2 machines costing $2,000/month each. Throughput is 500 units per machine.

Through economic prosperity, production increases to 2,000 widgets per month, however this production requires 5 machines because along the way as each successive machine is acquired, the sudden capacity relief resulted in a decline in efficiency. This efficiency is not regained as you approach each successive machine capacity limit. Throughput is now 400 per machine.

In a market contraction,  production reduces back to 1,000 widgets. This is half the peak value so the machines scale back at this new throughput rate of 400 units per machine (1000/400=2.5) This requires 2.5 machines which we obviously can’t have, so now we need 3 machines to produce our 1000 units per month.

If we look at these three scenarios from a profit margin point of view (below) the accumulated inefficiency during growth has a drastic effect on the profitability when operations have to be scaled down. This example used machines but the same concept applies to all resources.

Going back to the factors that influence profitability, this translates into value, which is what we are prepared to pay for items:

• the value produced for customers through product offerings – this will preserve the revenue side of the equation through both expansion and contraction.
• the value to the organization of resources (assets, employees, cash) – cost is the component that seems to creep out of hand quickest and can be difficult to reign in again once you have established a lower value to the organization. This usually shows up in falling utilization (% of productive time) and realization (% of potential revenue)

The market is cyclical and the challenges faced in prosperity are the same that will haunt you during contraction. So as your business grows, pay attention to which notch you keep the belt on!

–

This article was contributed by Guy Ralfe, co-founder of Active Garage and co-author of the upcoming book "ProjectManagementTweets". You can follow Guy on Twitter at gralfe.

Tagged as: Business Management, costs, cyclical, economic, economy, fiscal management, profit, value