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Planning – Back to Basics

To be a true service directed and quality-oriented organization, you should recognize that people and companies: “Can and do expect to get things right.”

“Can and do expect to get things right.”

By being close to the customer and addressing each sales/service customer contact as a solution to the specific customer problem you can expect to achieve a positive positioning (remember that?) in your customers’ minds as the leading supplier to meet their drumming and percussion needs. This is the true added value equation. Starting with a marketing document, or business plan will assure a groundwork for a quality management organization. “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”

The marketing document should answer the following questions:
Where are we now?
Where do we want to go?
How do we get there?
When do we want to arrive?
Who will get us there?
What will it cost?

The need for a well defined written plan will enable you to set goals, measure your results and effectively target new products/services with a focus on sustained growth and profitability. The plan will also enable all of your staff to share the same vision; the same focus. Additionally, budgets must be developed to ensure achieving profit projections. Banks love em!

Some companies communicate their goals and some do not. Some companies announce their goals at annual meetings but do not communicate them to their employees. More companies are recognizing the benefits of ensuring that employees know what the organization is trying to achieve and the reasons why these goals are important.

Goals must be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Tangible. (S.M.A.R.T.) There must be company benefits from achieving set goals and the individual managers and their staff must reap personal benefits. In identifying the goals, the internal and external obstacles and their solutions and/or alternatives should be mapped out. Along with this goal setting are a well-defined action step program and the appropriate method of tracking progress.

ideas create attitudes, that prompt actions, that deliver results.

By tracking accomplished goals this, in effect, becomes the individual’s trophy case. The critical factor to the growth and future success of your people. It is a belief that ideas create attitudes, that prompt actions, that deliver results.

I strongly believe you can’t manage people, only their commitments.

Following the development of a marketing plan staff should be encouraged to write down their personal goals. These sets of goals would then be incorporated into an action plan to achieve the short and long-range objectives as set out in the company plan.

It is recommended that a program of tracking and charting progress be developed to assure personal scorekeeping.

Tracking and charting are most effective when:

  1. It is self-administered.
  2. It measures important elements.
  3. It is developed with the input and commitment of the users.
  4. Results are used for appropriate recognition and correction.

Furthermore, the benefits of tracking and charting are:

  1. Identification of quality and effectiveness standards.
  2. Establishing expectations.
  3. Generating feedback.
  4. Avoiding problems.
  5. Providing information.

All of these processes combined with progressive management tactics will ensure your future growth.

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