Denbrook Strategic Advisors...

Right now you may be using overtime to add needed work hours. But the time will come when growth dictates the need to add an employee or two. With the unemployment rate predicted to stay high for a considerable time in the future, you may be inundated with applicants making it difficult to choose the best one.

Jim Blasingame wrote in August 2002 that the answer to the question, “What areas do small business owners most need to work on?” is a tie between marketing and human resources. My experience confirms his statement. Let’s just consider the latter one.

The hiring decision for small businesses is often made in haste, with too little serious analyses of the needs of the job (properly written job description) and the fit of a candidate to the job. Big businesses, writes Blasingame, have long had seriously sophisticated hiring protocols. They can afford the expense and time to thoroughly check out an applicant. And they have lots of depth on the bench and can suffer a hiring mistake without too much problem.

But small businesses that are always short on capital cannot afford to make hiring mistakes, yet the hiring decision is often made on a “gut feel.” Not a good way to run a business where adding another employee may represent an increase of 10 to 20 percent in your headcount.

There are, however, simple low-cost tools you can use that can help you make your hiring decision more successful. Here are a few ideas to consider.

First, take the time to do an accurate, thoughtful job description. Begin with a title, and then write two sentences on why the job exists. Next record the reporting relationships for this job: upward, downward, and peer-to-peer in your business, as well as any external relationships required. Now the real work begins. Decide what the incumbent’s authority really is. What can the person decide for him or herself? Can the person hire, fire, price, sign checks, etc. After this you need to get specific about the person’s responsibilities and principal duties. Begin each statement with “Is responsible for…” For duties include a detailed list of specific primary and secondary duties, usually beginning each one with a verb. The job description next must contain requirements for the position such as prior jobs, past work history, education, software skills, etc. You also need to include the physical activities and requirements of the position (e.g. driver’s license, etc.) if applicable.

Finally the job description contains the criteria to be used to measure job performance. Determine what specific goals or targets will define the success of the incumbent in the job. Not only is this part important for an applicant to understand, but it serves as the basis for a performance review of an employee. Although more detail will be required in a formal review process.

With a properly constructed job description, you are well-equipped to sift through applicants quickly and identify those whose resumes indicate a potential fit. Using online job posting will generate a ton of applicants these days. The problem then is how to winnow down the number to a manageable group you can process. There are now software approaches to doing this even small business can afford use. In addition, there are software based employment assistance services such as New Hire http://www.new-hire.com that will take over much of the administrative aspect of finding and sifting through applicants for a very reasonable fee. Not the 30% often associated with search firms.

Once you have an applicant pool, the next idea to consider is how to pick the best fit. The resume, job description, and screening interview will help you match an applicant’s education and training, and skills and experience to the job requirements. Now you have reduced the flood to a small pool of candidates.

But there remains an important aspect of the candidates’ overall fit with the job that it is difficult to clearly measure in interviews. This is the person’s behavior and emotions. In other words, how does the person’s observable behavior fit the behavior that the job requires? Different jobs have different behavior requirements. A customer service rep will need to exhibit consistent behaviors that are very different from a machine operator or a research scientist. Behavior styles are an integral part of who a person is. Much of our behavior comes from nature (inherent) and much from nurture (our upbringing.)

There are well-researched tool that you can rely on to assess a person’s behavior. The same tools are used to define the behavior a job requires (easy to do once a job description has been written.) When a person’s behavior fits the job well, the person will be relaxed and comfortable in that position, given that he or she possesses the other attributes needed for the job. If the person’s behavior style is significantly different from the behavior style the job requires, the person may be able to adapt to the job style for a period of time. But this will be a stressful experience for the person and under pressure may cause the person to revert to his or her “natural” style with unintended consequences in job performance.

Tools for assessing behavior are also available and are relatively inexpensive. Target Training International, Ltd. www.ttiltd.com is one source that offers behavioral assessments as well as other assessment tools useful in the hiring process. The common name for these assessments is DISC. A search online will reveal a number of sources for this kind of hiring help.

To wrap it up, there is no excuse for a small business to forego a proper hiring process for lack of time or money. The payoff for a good hire is high and the cost of a bad hire in a small business can be catastrophic. You certainly can begin by creating job descriptions for all your current positions. Ask the incumbents to help with the job description details. This can be an eye-opening experience for a leader. Once they are done, you are ready to start a smart hiring process whenever it’s needed.

Do you remember using the leverage principle as a child on a see-saw? The farther out you pushed yourself, the more important your weight became. If the kid on the other end was not out as far, and did not weigh more than you, ultimately you could strand the kid high in the air while you ended safely on the ground. The other kid was powerless to do anything except crawl down or jump down and leave you to play by yourself.

This is an example of the tipping point: where one side of a duo becomes so powerful that the other side no longer has a say in the result. Reaching a tipping point in the life of a company or of a country is no longer a fantasy because the distance between the “haves” versus “have-nots” is growing.

Large businesses move closer to the tipping point every time the executive compensation committee increases the pay of the top dogs without consideration of the income needs for the lower level employees. Or cuts corners in pursuit of profit without consideration for the impact on the environment.

Countries are reaching tipping points in the competition between government employees and the taxpayers who fund them. Government workers in Greece have marched in the streets against the efforts of their broke government cutting costs.

In the USA government workers are paid significantly more than their civilian counterparts, a dramatic change from years ago that shows the power of civil service unions. The increasing grab by Washington for control of more segments of the economy adds more government workers who will demand high pay and top quality benefits, all on the backs of cash-strapped taxpayers.

Picture the fat-cat government workers moving farther out on the see-saw and you get the picture. Someday, if government continues to grow and if more and more citizens see their general welfare dependent upon government social programs, we will reach the tipping point.

Companies that reach the tipping point can pay a price in the stock market and their executives can find that they are left to play by themselves. I am not a union supporter, but I do believe in justice and fairness, and businesses that allow themselves to reach a tipping point should be dealt with severely by market forces. Their boards and officers need to get off the see-saw and go to a time out.

Governments that slide out on the see-saw and threaten to reach the tipping point are a risk to more than stockholders. Their bloated civil service ranks threaten the future of a country. In Washington much of the increasing size of the government is being built to produce the growing regulatory apparatus. Congress and the White House believe that their “experts” in charge know better than the folks in the real world. And who is to blame for that attitude? Businesses that have reached their tipping point have driven popular opinion towards the belief that more government is better for all of us.

But we know that is not true. There is a fallacy in over-regulation. Not only does it stifle entrepreneurialism, it adds a clear path for large, predatory businesses to co-opt the regulatory agencies for their own needs. This is exactly what happened in the Gulf Disaster, and is probably happening in other relationships within the Washington regulatory world. We may never discover these until another disaster occurs.

What can small business leaders do about this? First, let your elected representatives at all levels of government know your opinions. Tell them why over-regulation hurts your small business. Tell them the good your small business does in the community. Tell them your mission and vision. Tell them why they need to leave you alone because you understand your market better than they do.

Second, team up with other small businesses. Join an association that truly represents your needs. Be cautious of joining a large association that purports to speak for small business, but in fact has been co-opted by big, greedy businesses looking out only for themselves.

Third, examine your business plan and make sure you see a path to the future that can evade the worst of the regulatory fiats that are sure to come out of Washington in the next few years. It may not be possible to stay clear of everything, but pay attention to the limits such as employees and revenue that are used to define the targets of regulation.

Finally, pay attention to politics. Too few small business owners spend the time necessary to influence elections. That needs to stop because it is the only way you can move your weight a little further out on your end of the see-saw and prevent the big bully on the other end from stranding you in the air.

The tipping point in the USA is not here yet, and with any luck those of us on the upper end of the see-saw today will begin to realize we need to slide farther out now, before it is too late.

Ninety percent of U.S. businesses are family-owned, and one-third of the Fortune 500 is either family-owned or family-controlled. Only 30 percent of family-run companies today succeed into the second generation, and only fifteen percent make it into the third generation. Experts say this is primarily due to poor succession planning.

I think the same case can be made for succession within a business. Who will be the next number two if the current number two is no longer in that position? Who will head up the customer service department if the incumbent is promoted or quits? Who takes over for the sales manager when that position becomes vacant?

In smaller businesses there is no room for bench warmers and little free time to cross train. That means that when vacancies occur in key leadership roles little thought has been given to potential replacements. This poses a significant risk to the stability of the business. And if you are in a leadership job, you should do all you can to minimize this risk.

The time to make some contingency plans is when everything seems to be going well. Maybe that is right now in your organization. Now you have the luxury to test potential successors in different roles and responsibilities to see how they handle them. You can learn their strengths and weaknesses and prepare a line of succession for various jobs in your business that plays to individuals’ strengths and minimizes the impact of their weaknesses.

If you are searching for your own replacement as the CEO you need to go further than simply testing out capabilities. You need to think about the long-term stability of your business and determine the source(s) of a potential successor.

A timetable for replacing a CEO should be at least five years. This allows time to explore all the options and conduct discussions with your family, your senior managers, and key employees. Initial discussions should be informal and designed to help you select the source for your replacement. It may be that a family member is ideally suited for the job, or perhaps there is a senior manager who can step into the lonely position at the top, or you may conclude that reaching outside is a better decision.

Concurrent with exploring these options you need to develop a business transfer plan based on your current structure. Partnerships have different agreements affecting dissolution or buy out. Close corporations have other concerns regarding transfer of stock ownership. With a sole proprietorship finding a good approach to transfer ownership is important.

As important as finding the right person is finding the right price for the transfer, and determining the timing of the transfer of ownership. Determining the worth of your business is a tricky one, very subjective in many respects, and fraught with tax implications. A fair value for the transfer needs to pass IRS muster. Since businesses can be legitimately valued differently for different purposes, you should make use of a qualified outside firm to develop the price based on the goals of the transfer. The firm can also help you determine the appropriate way to finance the deal.

Whether you are transferring ownership or giving up the leadership of a division or department, you need to pay close attention to your role before, during, and after the transfer takes place. Once a successor is named the two of you jointly should develop a turnover plan that includes training the successor, a new job description, provisions for contingencies such as loss of others who wanted the job, and your personal plan for removing yourself from the “equation.” That last point may be the most difficult, especially if you are remaining in the business after a new leader takes over.

If you have taken the time for self-examination to determine why you want to move out, you will have developed the self-motivation to let go sooner rather than later. Perhaps you want to accomplish something more over the future years or you want to spend more time with your spouse. Maybe you have a set of goals that are completely outside the business and need time and freedom to pursue them.

Whatever you do, make sure you have something to look forward to once you are free from the job. A merger and acquisitions executive told me that his primary concern in helping a business owner sell the business is what the owner is planning after the deal closes. He said he wants to be sure that at the closing table the owner can actually pick up the check. If the owner does not know what he or she will do “tomorrow” and can’t say goodbye to the business it leads to disaster all around.

As the former owner of a racing sailboat I am sympathetic to the saying about boat owners: the two happiest days of owning the boat are the day you buy it and the day you sell it. While you really may not be totally happy the day you sell your business, it sure helps if you can look forward and not backward. Make up your mind to pick up the check, pack up your stuff, and go on to the next big thing in your life!

According to Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman, when most employees agree with eleven statements about their work, the company has a strong workplace. The statements are contained in the first pages of their 1999 book, First, Break all the Rules. Although written before the dot.com bust and the 2008 recession, the statements still make a lot of sense—enough for you to pay attention to them now.

As your organization recovers from the recession and you begin to rehire, give some thought to the principles in these statements and make your team even stronger. Would your employees say they agree with them? If so, then you will enjoy better productivity, profitability, retention levels, and customer ratings.

Here are the statements:
1. I know what is expected of me at work.
Comment: Written job descriptions covering responsibilities and authority along with a definition of satisfactory performance are a good first step.
2. I have the equipment and material I need to do my work right.
Comment: Ask them, because sometimes an inexpensive tool can significantly reduce cost.
3. At work I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day.
Comment: Not every task falls into this category, but avoid putting square pegs in round holes.
4. In the last seven days I have received recognition or praise for good work.
Comment: If you have the first 3 statements covered, then there will be opportunity to give honest praise. Never “fake” it.
5. My supervisor or someone at work seems to care about me as a person.
Comment: Perception is reality. Be alert to what employees tell you about themselves and follow up with them if appropriate.
6. Someone at work encourages my development.
Comment: Are you growing the skills within your team? Find opportunities to give career growth education to deserving employees.
7. At work my opinions seem to count.
Comment: Listen with sincerity and understand what your team members are saying, even if you disagree or if the idea is impractical.
8. The mission/purpose of my company makes me feel my work is important.
Comment: First: is your mission communicated clearly and repeatedly? Second: does it express the reason you exist and does it show that your business meets a true need?
9. My co-workers are committed to doing quality work.
Comment: Correct hiring mistakes promptly and use assessment tools to be sure you bring in people who fit your company culture and values.
10. I have a best friend at work.
Comment: Maybe this seems unimportant or silly, but imagine if you were isolated from everyone else at work. People are social animals and need each other. Create an environment where team members can build friendships.
11. In the last six months I have talked to someone about my progress.
Comment: If you write job descriptions, then you owe it to your employees to evaluate them and to talk with them about their future in the company.

Use these statements for a little self-analysis. How are you doing as a leader? While you may disagree with the importance of some of the statements, they describe a good work environment. If you are deficient in one or two of these, make it a point to work on them. But be subtle; big changes in the boss’s behavior can be unsettling to team members.

These statements describe many of the things that, according to Buckingham and Coffman, the world’s greatest managers do differently. It is worth considering how to make them a part of your workplace.

Making a hiring mistake (or joining the wrong company culture) can be devastatingly expensive whether you are the employer or employee. It is commonly said that we hire people for their technical skills, but we fire them for their soft skills.

What are soft skills? They are usually the intangible personal assets that set apart the good from the best employees in most businesses today. Briefly they are described as interpersonal skills, oral communications ability, teamwork capability, and problem-solving skills.

These skills are important because organizations are much less hierarchical than they used to be. Organization structures are flatter and more fluid. Project teams are common, group think counts more, leaders accept input more readily, and younger people have been raised in an environment that sought their opinions on everything. Soft skills are the lubrication within the organization that keeps the team functioning smoothly.

Most interviewers have no problem determining the technical skills of an applicant. Perhaps they use an assessment tool to test knowledge or they may pose a serious of technical questions to determine the competence of the interviewee in a specific discipline. Generally this approach works well in differentiating one candidate from another along technical competence lines.

But assessing soft skills is not so simple. First, the interviewer needs to realize that the impression the candidate gives in the interview probably represents the best you will get with that individual. The person is absolutely putting his or her best foot forward. If that is not the case, the applicant is pretty naïve. So you cannot rely on some overall impression gained while assessing technical skills to provide a good picture of soft skills, too.

Questioning for soft skills means exploring the candidate’s capabilities along different lines. And it is important to establish a comfort level with the applicant before delving into soft skills questions. Nor should it be a surprise to the applicant. It calls for a smooth segue into a new part of the interview. Perhaps you can conclude the technical skills discussion with a comment reflecting on his or her competence and express interest in learning more about how the applicant worked within previous business situations.

This opens the door to soft skills questions that by their nature are a little more probing. In fact as you ask each question, the response should give rise to another question in your mind that will allow you to drill down a bit further. (Note that these comments are written from the viewpoint of the interviewer, but if you are an interviewee you should prepare your answers to these kinds of questions.)

Here are some questions to consider. These are just a few from a long list prepared by Patricia Frame on Strategies from Human Resources available on the Internet.

To assess interpersonal skills ask: “Describe how you developed relationships with others when you were new on your current/most recent job?” or “Give me an example of how you handled a very tense situation at work.”

For an understanding of the person’s oral communication capability ask: “What types of experience have you had dealing with irate customers or clients?” or “Tell me about a time when you ‘put your foot in your mouth’ and what happened.” or “What has been your experience dealing with the poor performance of subordinates.”

For a picture of the applicant’s teamwork ability ask: “Tell me when you think it is important for a manager to use a participative style and involve work unit members in making decisions.” or “Give me an example of a situation in which you managed or led a team and were able to create a high morale, high productivity work group.” or “Tell me about a time you had difficulty getting others to work together on a critical problem and how you handled it.” or “Describe a really difficult person you worked with and how you handled working with that person.”

To assess problem-solving experience say: “Describe a time when you were able to reverse a very negative situation at work.” or “Give me an example of a problem you have faced and how you solved it.” or “Describe a situation in which you had to solve a problem without having all the information you needed—what did you do and what happened?”

In addition to using directed questioning to assess soft skills, behavioral skills can be quite accurately determined using commonly available assessment tools such as the DISC Behavior profile. This assessment can tell you the individual’s natural (unaffected) behaviors and also the behaviors the individual believes the job requires. If the two profiles differ significantly, the person may be easily stressed at work and revert to the natural behavior, which may be unacceptable in the job.

Do you reject an applicant with strong technical skills but weak soft skills? Perhaps you should the culture within your work environment depends upon satisfactory answers to questions like the ones above. Sometimes it’s easier to bring weaker technical skills up to acceptable standards than to improve soft skills. While there is no hard answer to this question, simply add these two facts together: it can easily cost 3-5 times a person’s annual salary to replace the person, and technical skills training is more readily available and results are more measureable. More often the choice should be the person who can “fit in” rather than the “loner” who is super-technically qualified. In making the choice realize that you can improve technical skills through additional training a lot less expensively than the costs of replacing a hiring mistake.

In the late 1980s my business career reached a fork in the road. Having left an executive position at a computer hardware manufacturer, the choice for the next source of income came down to two options: consider a CEO role at a company in a city about an hour away or go into business for myself. You may be facing a similar pair of options at some point. Now, 23 years later I’m glad I took the road towards independence. Making the decision was a bumpy road however.

Choosing to be my own boss was relatively easy because as an employee at whatever level, chafing at the bit and second guessing bosses made my business life difficult at times. In considering the CEO opportunity, not only did the daily commute (moving was not an option for family reasons) pose an obstacle, but since the company was venture capital financed, the real bosses were those who put the money into it. Satisfying them was a big part of the job, and that might have been a challenge, and it was definitely an unknown.

During the six months I was searching for the right next step, the career guidance firm I worked with included assessment tools that evaluated your ability to be an entrepreneur. Not surprisingly, I scored high in that category. But what sort of business was right for me? They had an assessment for that, too. It pointed me towards a B2B business, and identified potential franchisors to consider.

But wait! Wouldn’t a franchisor be a boss, too? Wouldn’t it be too constraining to live within a system that shoehorned me into a particular mode of marketing, sales, production, etc? After rationalizing those concerns away, I started down the road to accepting a franchise that was in an industry with which I was familiar, included extensive use of computers in the business, and serviced the needs of businesses.

It sounded good, I sent the initial deposit, and then began to review the franchise agreement with the aid of a counselor at the career guidance center who had been an attorney for a franchisor. We found a number of issues and my negotiations with the franchisor became sticky. The relationship ended suddenly when my check was returned with a Dear John letter after three months of trying to nail down the agreement.

In retrospect this was the best thing that could have happened to me. Concurrent with the negotiations, I networked within the local business community and my banker connected me with a business owner in a nearby town who owned the same kind of business, but was not a competitor. Through him I met an equipment distributor who convinced me that he could provide me with the complete set of equipment and ancillary items needed just as effectively and at less cost than the franchisor. He also made an important point to me: the primary benefit of the franchise system was its marketing guidance. Finding people who could operate the equipment, developing the financing, and most of the other details of starting a business would fall on me shortly after the franchisor blew into town, set me up, and then left. Since my career to date had been in marketing and sales, there seemed to be little benefit in becoming a franchisee and paying a percentage of revenue for ever, primarily to gain access to their marketing system and support.

DIY worked for me and the business went well. But after about ten years a competitor saw synergies between our two businesses that enabled him to gain a foothold in a different market and he bought me out. (Along the way I had acquired another business which was an interesting experience. And selling mine was an odyssey that proved stressful for both seller and buyer. But that is another story.)

For me, entrepreneurship is not the same as being a franchisee. There is immense satisfaction in starting from zero, making the necessary connections, and then executing a marketing and sales plan that works. But that came about because I had some previous knowledge about the business, absorbed detailed knowledge from every source I could find, and networked extensively. And continuing volunteer roles within the community developed the personal connections that led to more and more business.

What about you? If you find yourself frustrated and constrained in your current business role, what are your next step options? If you are not sure, use some assessments to learn more about your personal style, your value system, and your interest in independence. Decide whether running your own business within the system devised by an experienced franchisor is the right way, or whether you need the complete freedom to do it on your own. If you are an independent type, then go for the DIY, but be smart about it, Make a good business plan. Line up your advisory team, make sure you have plenty of resources (cash to invest and other cash to live on for a number of months) and then take the plunge.

On the other hand, if that path seems fraught with excessive risk for you, look into buying a franchise. And if you take this route, make up your mind to get everything you possibly can out of the franchisor. Exploit the business system provided to you, absorb the training, and milk the support staff dry. Become a squeaking wheel in the early months of your new business and then as your fledgling business matures, understand that you will develop a love/hate relationship with the franchisor. You will become exasperated with them, and they with you. But it is a relationship you need to nurture because your future is tied to theirs and vice versa.

As a teenager, I became keenly aware of the vagaries of being in business for yourself, since I watched my father struggle from time to time to make ends meet and grow his professional business. I vowed then that I would never get into a situation where my income was so uncertain. What I overlooked was the fact that as an entrepreneur, he was free to call the shots on his time, something most employees cannot do. He also enjoyed many activities and volunteering that an employee would find hard to fit into daily life. These are the benefits of owning your own business.

People define success differently. And it isn’t always about making the most money. At least I came to the realization that owning my own business would work better for me. It did. And I wish I had come to that conclusion ten or fifteen years sooner. If the urge strikes you, give it serious consideration. Life as a business owner is sweet…except when it’s sour (which isn’t often!)

As you stare down the tunnel towards the end of the economic downturn, the light appears closer and brighter. So now might be the right time to assess what you can do to speed up your trip towards the light of a growing economy. Consider forming one or more strategic alliances to get a jump on growth. In the same way that you will be careful in adding full time employees today, you also will be careful in making growth investments for your business. A strategic alliance is a way to grow without making a huge initial investment.

Booze-Allen & Hamilton reports that strategic alliances are becoming popular in nearly every industry and are important drivers of added growth. That’s just the kind of boost your business may need today. With the right alliances you can drive into new markets faster, meet competition more effectively, reduce costs, and respond to a fast changing marketplace. A primary benefit of strategic alliances is to minimize risk, generally by avoiding re-inventing the wheel.

A “partnership” with other businesses is an effective way to gain improved exposure and increase your revenue. Sometimes these close working relationships just seem to happen and other times they are the result of proactive searching and matching. Use an alliance to jointly market or sell into new channels, combine capabilities to produce a new or more complex product or service, add to your research and development, collaborate on design, etc. You can begin to work together horizontally with businesses that complement your own or you can link up with vendors or customers.

Let’s say that you make widgets and you have a customer who wants to buy your widgets but needs them redesigned for a unique application. But you do not have the in-house design capability. You could outsource this need, but you want a closer working relationship than you can get by simply buying the design hours from a “body shop.” What you are looking for is a business “partner” that can provide the design capability but would also provide the guidance you need to expand on this new custom business you are experiencing. Small businesses need to be market driven, and if your customers are telling you they want a broader or different service from you, responding may be the only way to keep growing. To launch off into this new custom production world and not fall on your face, you need a relationship that can endure and that injects experience you lack.

This is a typical scenario that leads to the need for a strategic alliance. Sometimes the company you choose to connect with is already involved with your business. Or perhaps you need to hunt down an appropriate partner.

But first do some work before you link arms with a new partner. It is important to document exactly what you are looking for from the alliance by documenting a basic business plan. What are the business objectives you want to achieve? What sort of partner are you seeking, i.e. company culture, personal chemistry, sense of commitment, etc. What are the absolute requirements and what will you compromise on?

If you already know the companies you want to consider, use your business plan to objectively evaluate the potential for the partnership arrangement. If you do not know of a business you want to align with, network through your professional contacts and associations to find candidates.

While none of us likes to document a relationship because the devil is always in the details, failure to develop a written agreement covering the operation of the strategic alliance will ultimately cause trouble. It is true that most partnerships fail eventually. And that will happen with any strategic alliance for lots of reasons. With a document that specifies what happens when the relationship ends, what triggers end, and how and when money flows between the partners, at least you will have some agreed approaches to get past the tough spots.

A strategic alliance like any other ongoing deal is only good if both parties benefit. An agreement where either party can end the relationship on 30 days notice is probably wise. An initial stated term for the working relationship is also useful. Maybe it begins as a two-year agreement with automatic renewals for some period subject to a 30-day cancellation by either party at any time. By setting a term of a few years, both parties can take a longer viewpoint in planning the working relationship.

These “outs” may sound pretty loose, but the whole purpose of the alliance is to benefit both parties and as long as everyone is happy, then time frames and ending arrangements are moot. The 30 day out acts as a brake on either party running rough shod over the other.

Because you are documenting a relationship that may include exclusivity and confidentiality aspects, as well as other details that can get sticky, you will need to have an attorney review the final agreement. But hold off on involving attorneys until you and the partner have documented the agreement to the best of your ability. Then let the attorneys at it; but beware of the tendency of the legal eagles to over protect a party, or inject other unpalatable stuff into the agreement.

Before you sign the final draft, go back to your original business plan and objectives for the relationship. Make sure you are achieving your goals and that you have developed a win-win working relationship with the partner.

A strategic alliance is not a merger or a buyout, but it can put your business on a faster growth trajectory if you get the right match. And who knows, maybe the strategic alliance will grow into something more. It could become a merger that someday provides the exit strategy for one of the partners—and lead to a happy result for both parties.

Here’s something worth trying this year: make ten New Year’s Resolutions that you actually track—and keep! I came up with ten different subjects for you to use as a framework for your personal list. They relate to four areas: management, leadership, finance, and personal. And I added a bonus one at the end. Here is the list.

Management

Delegate One Thing. Find ONE aspect of your responsibility that you can delegate to another team member. It should be something you don’t like to do that will “stretch” the recipient. Be sure to delegate the necessary authority.

Set and Track 2010 Objectives. Make your list more than just revenue and profit. Include specific, time phased goals that involve HOW you will achieve the primary revenue and profit goals. Do not forget to assign responsibility for completing each one.

Evaluate Your Website. Take an objective “third party view” of your current website. Does it still look good? It is your “front door” to lots of prospective customers. Take the actions needed to keep it current and competitive.

Finance

Take Vendor Discounts. Make sure your payables system is set up to take all discounts offered by vendors for quick payment and do it throughout the year.

Produce a Cash Flow Forecast. Do this every month or more frequently. Cash is always king and you need to treat the king well or he will punish you. Know when and from where your revenue is coming for several months out, and what your expected cash outflows are in future periods. These can be educated guesses based on historic records combined with actual accounts receivable and payable figures for close in periods.

Leadership

Listen More. This is tough to do. But your team members and your boss often convey messages within their words or by their body language. And it may occur in casual conversations, not in formal meetings.

Recognize Deserving Team Members. Recognition needs to be “public” and legitimate to be most effective. It does not need to be expensive. Often some time off is most appreciated.

Create Real Performance Plans. The people you lead need to know what you expect of them, and they will help you set their goals. Do this early in the year and tie recognition and evaluation to each person’s plan.

Personal

Schedule Your Own Time Off. You owe yourself and your family a regular break from the pressures of business. Weekly time, some vacation weeks, or some other regular down time is important. If you are the owner, your team expects you to take some time away. (They like the time in the office without you and they will surprise you by making good decisions in your absence.)

Learn Something New. What do you want to learn this year? Add to your skills, to your hobby, to your interests, etc. Running a business operation can sometimes become unexciting. If that is your situation, brighten your outlook with the challenge of learning.

Bonus

Smile More. Smiling is a simple solution to making life more pleasant. People will smile back. You will feel better. Make a resolution to be a pleasant person to be around. As a leader you don’t need to be popular, but you do need to be respected professionally. Projecting a positive confidence in a smiling manner is infectious and earns you respect.

So that’s my Ten for ’10. Maybe you have a different list and that is fine. Just make a list and review your progress over the year. Good luck and Happy New Year!

You are in the midst of preparing your 2010 plans, right? Setting objectives and making a budget have never been more important as the economy slowly begins to climb out of the Great Recession, as it is now called. Your approach to next year’s plan needs to be a little different since so much uncertainty remains.

The process of planning has always been more important to me than the product (plan) itself. That is because the process is where you think through alternatives and bounce ideas off of your planning partners. It is the time to ask the “what if” questions that lead to identifying options and contingencies. This year it is difficult to peer through the haze into the future because so much remains in doubt. Major government actions are bound to impact even the smallest business and probably the impact will be negative. But that is no excuse not to plan.

So here are some comments designed may deserve some deeper thinking as you prepare your plan.

• First, be sure that all your objectives and actions are “SMART.” They need to be Specific, Measureable, Attainable, have a Responsible person assigned, and include a Time requirement. You will be operating your business within a tight budget, and the SMARTer you are, the better chance you will have to accomplish things within budget.

• If you have a strategic plan that looks out several years and you have not revisited it in 2009, make that one of the first steps in your 2010 planning. Be sure your longer term goals are still valid and that your time frames for them remain realistic. If not, update them now so your 2010 detailed plan is in sync with your long term plan.

• Determine the breakeven point for your operation as it is currently staffed and also for the contingency that sales might vary by 10% up or down. If you cannot cover your breakeven point after a sales dip, what can you do to lower your expenses? Develop sidebar contingency actions for this and set a trigger point so you take action in time. Remember that for most businesses, labor is not a variable expense, although you may be able to shorten work hours and reduce pay somewhat, maybe you should simply cut headcount. What other expenses could you cut? Likewise, if sales grow how will you cope with additional workload? Overtime is often the best way until you are truly comfortable adding people. Contract labor is another way to do this, but be sure you are not mislabeling an employee as a contractor. That can cause serious tax and insurance problems.

• If you have not evaluated your customers individually for their contribution to your profit, that is a worthwhile exercise now. You may find that at the bottom of the list are some customers you would be better off without. They may cost you more than they are worth and it is time to “fire” them. If it is a large customer that may be hard to do. But a realistic discussion with them may enable you to raise your price to cover the loss they are generating. On the other hand, if you have too many customers costing you money or time you could spend more profitably elsewhere, then you need to examine your pricing and marketing to be sure you are focused on prospects that are good for your business.

• On the flip side, what are you doing to keep your good customers happy? Perhaps you should meet individually with them at year-end to thank them and to discuss their needs for 2010. You need to be market driven, not the other way around. Unless you are a really big business you cannot drive the market. Also, are you keeping TOMA (Top Of Mind Awareness) with them by “touching” them regularly with newsletters, direct mail, sales calls, etc. Sometimes we think such actions are only needed with prospects, but your 2010 plans should be protective of your current revenue sources, too. Remember your competitors will be trying to steal your customers’ business so do not take your customers for granted.

• What about a written marketing plan for 2010? The best way to do this is to determine what kind of a marketing budget you can afford and then devise the best way to allocate the money to generate business. Not enough businesses actually produce a realistic marketing plan. And few allocate enough money to really accomplish their plan properly. Consider manpower or the purchased services needed to execute the plan. And do not underestimate the challenge of coming up with the material needed to produce newsletters, brochures, an updated website, etc. Outside marketing firms rarely have the knowledge to do that for you. They will take your work and improve on it, but cannot do it all on their own. Once you have a plan and an idea of the manpower, post a calendar on the wall and mark in when each item in the plan is scheduled. Look that over and see if it is realistic. Can you do all that work? If not, then scale back to the things you can do. And do them well.

• Have you met with your loan officer recently? What actions should you build in the plan regarding finances? If you are being hounded by your bank, what other banks might want your business, and how will you go about making those contacts? Who do you know who can help?

Planning is much more than setting revenue and profit goals. That is easy. But determining the realistic actions that will get you to the goal is much more difficult. While I am not an advocate of letting the resource availability hamper creative thinking, at the end of the day, the plan needs to be achievable. If your actions require more resources than you can devote, then you need to devise a different approach.

Next year will be a challenge for most, but even if it is a cake walk for your business, you need to produce a “thinking person’s” plan, not simply an exercise that gets put away and never seen again. In my experience, if a plan is thoughtful and documented, it has a real chance of being met.

On the other hand, if you do not know where you are going—as the saying goes—any road will get you there.

Some businesses have been frustrated with the attitude of the recent college grads they hired. It has been said these “millennial” young adults seemed to demand special treatment and expected to be made executives within the first month of being hired. More than that, they also expected that their personal time would not be impacted by work. Managers observed that they worked only to fill the time between the weekends when they could pursue their personal agendas. They simply did not view their job as anything more than a way to pay for their weekends.

That may be a little over the top for most employees today. But the principle underlying their philosophy is a principle business executives need to think about for themselves. Millennials have their priorities, and work is not at the top. Yet most of us who have been in business leadership roles for a while have more traditional priorities. Usually the business needs come out on top a high percentage of the time.

The “constantly connected” aspect of our business lives is a good example. Some of us feel we must respond to emails from business associates no matter what day or time they show up. The ubiquitous Blackberry is as much at home on the beach or ski slope as it is in the office. Texting in the midst of meetings, talking on the cell phone in restaurants and permitting other kinds of electronic intrusions are pervasive. And they are wrong!

It always incenses me to see a person shopping in a retail store loudly talking on the phone while perusing stock or filling a shopping cart. What or who is so important that they need to multi-task? In fact tests show multi-tasking doesn’t work very well. Serial task performance is much more accurate and takes less elapsed time overall.

Those of us who are not millennials need to think about how this electronic intrusion into our lives will ultimately play out. Will the next big advance in technology further tie us to the company? Or will we draw a line in the sand with our Blackberry and say “Enough is enough!”

Here’s why it’s critical to cut back. First, your family is more important. Your kids will grow up well before you expect. And then you will wonder what happened. Remember “The Cat’s In the Cradle?” Second, it has been my experience that when the CEO takes off for a few days, even in the smallest companies, things don’t fall apart. Imagine that! Fellow employees can pick up the slack, make reasonable decisions, and carry on without you present, whether you’re the CEO, a top executive, or a manager.

The Millennials have grabbed onto a principle that the rest of us should consider. More thought about the weekend and keeping business in perspective makes a lot of sense. It also may make you more efficient at your job if you really do kick back regularly.

If you are the owner of a business, or have P&L responsibility for a portion of a business so that you are free to set the goals to drive the business in the direction you want, then here’s something you should do today. Document your personal vision. What do you want the business to do for you and your family? How much do you want to work? What kind of income are you looking for? What is your longer term exit strategy? The answers to these, and other similar questions, become the basis for your personal vision—a statement of what you see the business providing for you over the next 5 years. Once that is down on paper, the goals and action plans for the business can be made to synch with your personal vision.

Why carry the burden of business ownership or executive leadership if you do not use that responsibility to shape the business to perform as you want it to? When you do this, the business is working for you; you are no longer working for the business. This is an extension of the millennial philosophy that can make all the difference in your outlook, and will “authorize” you to turn your Blackberry off between 5:00 pm on Friday and 8:00 am on Monday. Give it a try and see how it works. And find out how much happier you will be!

If there is one common characteristic among sales people it is persistence. People in a revenue-generating role find it difficult to cut and run from an opportunity. In their mind, the prospect or market segment they are trying to develop just needs a little more effort to come around. So they are persistent, sometimes to the point of misspent money and effort.

Even when they realize there is a slim chance of converting their efforts into revenue for their business, persistent sales people leave the now-dead prospective opportunity on the “potential list.” That is when procrastination takes over. Failure to face up to the necessary thinning of the pipeline by some sales people and entrepreneurs ignores reality and prevents focusing on new opportunities. Instead it provides some false comfort to keep them on the list.

But most of this wasted effort can be avoided if we are honest with ourselves and practice the skills of qualification. Qualifying the prospective opportunity requires some probing into the situation and for some this is an uncomfortable activity. But if we approach it on a businesslike basis, it is simply an effort to make sure all parties involved are spending their time productively.

Qualifying the opportunity means determining that the people involved have the money, the need, and the authority to buy. This is easier said than done in many cases. Sometimes the best you can do is infer that you are not dealing with the real decision maker. This can be truer when someone seems to be the right person (or says he or she is) but there are some missing buying signals.

For example, maybe the prime contact indicates the need to consult a higher authority about some aspect of the proposition. Try not to lose control of this opportunity to join the contact in meeting with the higher authority. Have a standard reason you can use that supports your request to go to the meeting.

Perhaps the prospect is simply too nice to tell you to “get lost.” You may have developed a good working relationship and the two of you get along well. Maybe the prospect is enjoying your attention. In this situation the prospect will often delay by asking for more time to think about it. You find yourself making constant follow-up calls but seeing no real progress. This is the time to review the whole proposition with the prospect and ask what additional knowledge the prospect expects to learn by thinking about it, since you have answered every question and proven the value of your proposition.

Some prospects will delay the inevitable by pushing for changes in terms and conditions without actually intending to buy. They lack the forthrightness to tell you they are not truly interested. Perhaps digging into the reasons behind the repeated requests for changes in the “deal” may indicate the need to cut and run.

In these and other situations a sales person needs to become decisive. Yes, you are not working in a marketplace filled with an infinite number of prospects, and so you are not happy to be the one to break off the relationship. And it doesn’t mean you will never revisit the opportunity. Certainly do not burn bridges in cutting off your sales efforts with a prospect. Find a way to leave the door open and maintain your “right” to contact the prospect at a later time. But bringing reality into your current pipeline is an energizing activity.

So as you look at your year-end marketplace activities, be honest and ruthless about your opportunities. Classify your pipeline and work on those that are ready to buy. How do you know who is ready to buy? These are the people who have convinced you they have the money, need and authority. You will be convinced when you “vet” them properly and thoroughly. In today’s economy you cannot afford to do anything less.

“45% percent of the 27 million small businesses in the US say they are currently not profitable,” according to a recent Newsweek article summarizing a survey by George S. May International Co. These are businesses that employ 100 or fewer people, and make up half the nation’s private, non-farm payroll.

If your business is showing signs of persistent profitability problems, now is the time to make plans that change the status quo. Here are some suggestions to start your thinking.

Whenever an operation is spending more than it makes, there are only three things that can be done: increase revenue, decrease expenses, or shed assets. Approaching the last third of 2009 and perhaps the bottoming out of the recession, it is time to plan the steps to prepare your business for a stronger 2010 performance.

Sometimes it is more comfortable to live in denial and not face up to making the tough decisions needed now. And sometimes we feel we have the plan in our heads and that we can work our way through it. But a plan that is in your head is no plan, it is just a dream. Put your options down on paper and evaluate the effect of each one. Then write the actions you need to take to achieve the results you want. And track yourself as you work your plan.

Decreased expenses is responsible for profit improvement in many of the public companies in the last quarter. And maybe you can gain some traction with a miserly approach to your business operations. Reducing payroll may work if the productivity of the remaining employees can be increased as business grows back, and their morale can be sustained. But the cost of replacing people resources can be very high. Cutting head count is low on the list for a small business. On the other hand, a “fanatical” attention to the little costs that add up in a business can make a difference. One hundred dollars saved in electricity each month flows right to the bottom line. Look for savings in all the “expense habits” you and your staff have made routine. Question everything.

If a business does not continue to grow, it will eventually decline. It cannot remain static. Increasing revenue can be a big profit boost if the new revenue does not involve too heavy an investment in inventory, marketing, or personnel. It may be right to look at a new product line or marketplace, but before jumping in take the time to create a business plan that shows true potential. Regardless of how you go about it, a revenue increase plan for 2010 must be in place.

And if you shed assets use the proceeds to pay down debt, not to meet payroll. Us asset sales to offset liabilities not cover operating expenses. This approach is usually a one shot deal and can be of value if you have unused equipment, excess inventory, etc. But make sure you don’t need to repurchase the asset later when business improves.

You are a leader and your team expects you to make the decisions that are needed to maintain business prosperity. Keep this responsibility at the forefront of your mind this month and make it a priority to produce a year-end action plan. Your business should be in the 55% category…making money and moving forward. It’s your job!

Persuasion is fundamental to sales and effective leadership. We need to convince someone to accept our product, service, or point of view. Welcoming an objection to our proposal is alien to most of us because we think it means we failed to sway the prospect. But experienced sales people know that rather than leading to rejection, a well-handled objection is the fast path to a sale. An objection means you are making progress. The prospect is giving your proposal serious consideration.

Objections are opportunities to sell, and an indication of interest, or at least curiosity. Usually they show up in the middle or near the end of a sales call. If they don’t show up, good sales people will try to draw them out because the reasons for an objection are really the keys to the sale.

People make buying decisions emotionally and justify their decisions with facts. A case in point: as a serious photographer I enjoy buying gear to make my photography more interesting or creative. For several years I have watched the development evolution of a new creative lens called Lensbaby. Finally I bought the newest and most expensive version. This was an emotional decision, but I justified it on the fact that it would enable me to create stronger images for monthly competitions. My original objections involving ease of use were answered by the new version, and the fact that a photographer was teaching its use at a conference convinced me that it had a place in my camera gear. Emotion closed the sale, facts justified the decision.

So look for objections as the opening to satisfy an emotional need of the prospect. But sometimes the real objection is several layers deep. Price is often tossed out as the first objection. But we know people do not buy on price alone. It’s one of the top 3 or 4 considerations, but often not number 1. The challenge is to get beyond price to unearth other objections. One approach is to promise to handle the price question but first ask the prospect what other than price that stands in the way of a sale. Handle these other objections first, and then come back to price if needed.

Digging beneath the first layer of objections can be tricky. You must be sincere and honest. You must promise to answer the primary objection, but you should ask the prospect to help you understand more about their concerns. What is it specifically about the issue that they are having a problem with? If the issue is product or service specs, you will need to explain why the specs are what they are and why that is a benefit to the customer.

Sales people often fail to translate a feature or spec into a benefit for the particular prospect and then, most importantly, to seek the prospect’s reaction to the benefit. Sometimes objections can be handled effectively by the old “feel, felt, found” approach that uses a reference to a satisfied customer. Again seek a reaction from the prospect.

Remember to stick with open questions in digging into an objection. “What” and “how” questions are less threatening than a “why” question. Although you may get more specifics with a question starting with “why.” Some have said it takes seven levels of “why” to get to the base objection, but I think that would be hard to do without angering a prospect and losing the sale.

Newer sales people often fear objections and will shy away from responding properly. Two things they need to remember: 1) Know their product, themselves, and their prospect so they have a high degree of self confidence, and 2) Never make up an answer. Instead be honest with the prospect by saying that they will find the answer and get back promptly. Then be sure to do just that.

Most of us do not relish handling objections whether from prospects or employees, and yet they are the fastest way to clearing the air to make the sale. There are some helpful sites on the web for picking up techniques. Here are two--

http://changingminds.org/disciplines/sales/objection/objection_handling.htm and http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/six-steps-to-handling-sales-objections.html.

Just Google “handling objections in sales” to find many more.

Maybe your sales efforts are so good that you cover everything the prospects wants to know and you can close the order without the need to handle objections. Congratulations! However, I don’t believe that is a frequent occurrence. Instead, we are all regular people trying to show prospects how our product or service meets their needs and relieves their “pain.” We believe our offering is right for the prospect. When the prospect doesn’t see it our way, we need to elicit why and then handle the objections to move toward closing the order. Sometimes it can be frustrating, but it’s our job to help the prospect improve his business success with our product or service and that takes patience and skill in handling objections. So welcome the objection—and know that it does not mean rejection.

Success is determined, in large measure, by what a leader is able to get other people to do. Properly transferring responsibility and authority to subordinates is an important skill for an effective leader. If you want to pick up a couple of hours of time every week, then you need to become proficient at delegating tasks.

Why bother to delegate? It takes time to delegate a task and “no one can do it as well as you can,” right? Sure, but if someone can do your task 80% as well as you can, then making the effort to delegate can have real value to you. Here’s an example.

Let’s say your time is worth $200/hour. But a task you are about to do can be done by someone that costs you $50/hour (including benefits and overhead.) If the job takes you one hour, then the 80% effective subordinate would need one and one quarter hours. Yes, it might take you 10 minutes to transfer the task to him/her, and another 15 minutes of intermittent supervision or review while the task is being performed. But you would net a savings of about half an hour at a cost of $50 to pay the employee offset by saving $100 of your time—a net of $50 the first time. But if it is a weekly task, over a 50 week year you would gain $2,500 of your time.

Delegating gets you free time to work on your business. It can add up to many days opened up in a year. The delegated tasks protect your company if you become ill. The time frees you to create growth for the business, execute an exit strategy, etc. And free time reduces your stress level.

Why don’t leaders delegate more often since it offers such great advantages? Sometimes they lack confidence in employees, do not want to take the risk, or actually enjoy some of the tasks they should delegate (especially if not delegating avoids facing up to other more unpleasant work. And leaders who are constantly seeking perfection avoid delegating. Others won’t delegate because it means change. Or the task may not be accepted by the employee. Some fear the employee will do the job better than they do, or are paranoid about sharing company systems or methods.

While effective delegating means shifting responsibility and authority to the employee, it also means that accountability now flows from the employee back to you. There are levels of authority that you can manage when you assign responsibility. At its most restrictive you may say, “Report facts back to me and I will make a decision on what is to be done.” More freedom might be given an employee with the words, “Advise me of your plan; proceed with the plan unless I tell you directly otherwise.” At the greatest level, transferring authority may be “Activate your plan to solve the problem and don’t bother to get back to me.”

But in every case subordinates should be accountable for their performance of delegated tasks. Performance should be evaluated based upon staying within authority boundaries and on the results achieved. This may mean holding regular update meetings with the employee and carefully listening to what you are told. You may also help create “to do” lists with the subordinate after an update meeting.

Successful delegation of responsibility means giving the employee guidelines and standards of performance, timeline schedules, the proper level of authority, and an incentive for performance. Employees need to understand why they are doing what they are doing, what results are expected, and how their responsibilities fit into the long term plan.

Your delegating may be ineffective if the selected employee lacks ability or incentive, fears risk taking, or fears punitive action for failure. And if you, the leader, are unclear about job duties or the specifics of task assignment, if you constantly criticize task results and techniques, or if you fail to set achievable goals, your delegation effort may not achieve the results you want.

Be specific. Identify the tasks you want to delegate, make a plan for the delegation process, and select the employee you want to empower with the responsibility and authority. Some tasks you may consider delegating are things you do not like to do, tasks that take more time and require less business acumen, activities that you think others can do better, and work that you are not good at.

Once you understand the “formula” for correctly delegating tasks, you will be successful at it and begin to enjoy the rewards. These include increased time to devote to your strategic responsibilities. This gives you time to develop successful business growth plans. It also improves the company culture by empowering employees and giving them greater job satisfaction. Finally, freeing up your time means more flexibility and personal time to enjoy life.

Like anything new or seemingly “risky,” start simple. At first, delegate something that has a good chance of success, accept the fact that “no one can do it as well as you,” and relax and enjoy the creative approaches and results your subordinates deliver. Then exercise your new delegating skill by regular practice. Set a target of freeing up at least an hour a day every day. Can you do it?

When was the last time you looked at your company vision statement or thought creatively about your mission? As the country slowly comes out of a deep recession and technology continues its relentless attack on traditional ways of communicating, you need to make sure your vision and mission are tuned to the new reality ahead.

It is easy to get all twisted up in definitions of mission and vision, but for now think of mission as “what my business does to meet needs of my market,” and vision as “the way my business should look in order to fulfill my mission superbly.”

In The E-Myth Revisited, Michael Gerber says that a business must have an “Opportunity Worth Pursuing.” He asks you to determine if the business you have “alleviates a frustration experienced by a large enough group of consumers to make it worthwhile?” He makes the point that although a customer walks out of your business with a product or service, the real product you sell is how the customer feels about doing business with you.

Your mission needs to be thought of in terms of the customer. The story goes that Peter Drucker, the famous management consultant, asked a manufacturer of hand tools what his business was. The response: I sell drills, mostly quarter inch ones. Drucker immediately pointed out that he was not selling quarter inch drills; he was selling quarter inch holes.

Hold that thought! Think about your mission statement. What are you really selling? What frustration are you easing for your customers? Perhaps you should get your key team members together to re-brainstorm your mission in light of the shifting reality of the business world today and in the future.

I wonder if buggy whip manufacturers had thought outside the box more. Would they have concluded that their business was helping people move faster from point A to B by improving the performance of the horse? Would that have made them interested in making the newly developed internal combustion engine run faster or more efficiently? If they answered that question positively, would they then have had the courage to set off in that new direction? I don’t know. But the point is to really think about what you are helping your customer do, and how will you need to help him do it in the future.

Your mission statement is generally worded so it can be stated publicly. Sometimes it needs to be simplified so it becomes a “tag.”

Once you have reevaluated your mission, you need to revisit your vision as well. While a vision statement needs to be forward looking and expansive, it should have a reality check every few years. Especially now that we are struggling in a recession, the incremental steps you may have taken to sustain your cash flow to keep the business viable may have shifted your direction enough so that your vision is outdated. And if your vision statement fails to recognize the new realities of communication such as social networks, constant e-communication, personalized marketing, etc., it is time for an update.

Vision statements can be more expansive and should describe the structure of your business. This can include the resources you employ to deliver your product or service, the size and structure of your business over the next several years, and clarification of your markets and products or services. As a basic ground rule, if you have not integrated the latest generation of web design and functionality into your business you are behind the eight ball.

In structured planning, which is the way you should approach the project of clarifying your mission and vision, I am a strong advocate of the value of process over product. Thinking through everything with a group of key employees and working with flip charts to preserve even the most off-the-wall ideas is the process that ultimately produces the product: a clear, creative mission statement that helps customers understand why your business exists, and an expansive vision statement that helps all your employees understand where you want your business to go. But the process of coming to these statements is critical to getting the team buy-in that promises future success.

As the leader, your job is then to articulate the vision and the mission continually so that all your stakeholders have the “picture.” You need to sound like a broken record: stick to your guns, keep the priorities clear and lead the business ahead into the reality that will be the second decade of the 21st century.