Creating a Blueprint for Growth

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If you’ve ever watched a house being built, or had an addition put onto an existing house, you know that the standard method of communication is a blueprint.  Anyone who knows how to read blueprints can clearly see a vision of the finished product. The blueprint tells a story about what is being built, and what it will look like when it’s done. 

Imagine the chaos that would ensue if the team building a house didn’t have a blueprint to reference, or if the carpenter had a different version of blueprint than the bricklayer.  Ridiculous right?  It would never happen—no builder would ever imagine building a house without a blueprint. 

Building a business is no different--everyone on the team needs to have a blueprint to reference and it needs to be the same blueprint.  The same chaos and disconnect between the carpenter and the bricklayer happens every day in businesses who lack a blueprint that tells the story of what is being built.

Everyone Needs a Coach

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While talking with a colleague recently I was reminded of this truth, “everyone needs a coach.”  Heck, even professional coaches need a coach!  I was telling this person about how engaging a social media consultant/coach was positively impacting my marketing plan.  Positive in the sense that I was finally executing on it!  

The proverb “physician heal thyself” is true in all professions.  Yet as any consultant knows, it’s harder to apply your expertise in your own business because as is the case for our clients, we get in our own way!   It’s harder to get perspective on our own situation because we’re knee deep in it and we need an objective perspective to bring clarity, focus and accountability. 

So if you’re struggling to execute on an important initiative in your business and you feel frustrated and stuck, you might want to consider engaging that business coach.  If you bristle at the thought because you’re technically competent to do the necessary tasks on your own, then ask yourself, if it’s so easy, why isn’t it getting done?

Vision Without Systems Leads to Chaos

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We’ve probably all been in that situation at one time or another.  We have a clear vision of where we’re headed in a particular situation whether it’s the direction we want to take our business or a vision for a new product or service.  In that flash of inspiration the outcome is so clear to us that it seems impossible not to accomplish.

Fast forward 60 days and how often is it the case that the initial vision and clarity around outcomes is looking blurry and feeling chaotic?  According to Peter Senge, “Vision without ‘systems thinking’ ends up painting lovely pictures of the future with no deep understanding of the forces that must be mastered to move from here to there.” 

The key to fulfilling any vision is being able to distill it into an actionable and measurable plan.  The challenge of course is that creating the vision is often the easy part—it’s creative, fun and intellectually stimulating.  Taking the next step though is where the rubber hits the road.  It’s what separates good ideas from viable and sustainable successes.  

A Prospect Won't Buy Unless a Need is Met

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It may sound obvious, but it’s a fundamental truth in sales: a prospect won’t buy unless they have a problem the purchase solves.  It’s actually a very liberating truth in sales, because it eliminates the idea that selling is about convincing someone to do something they don’t want to do, which is akin to forcing a child to take medicine-- not a pleasant experience.

There are basically three states that a potential buyer may be experiencing, and only two of them will make them receptive to your solution.

1)     Pain-if a prospect is experiencing a negative situation and your solution will help them get out of pain, they will be receptive.

2)     Growth-if an organization is experiencing growth or wants to grow and your solution is perceived as being able to drive that growth or manage it more effectively, they will be receptive.

3)     Even-keel-if a prospect is even-keel, and they perceive no positive or negative change as a result of taking action, they will not be receptive to your solution.  Complacent prospects though may cycle into a state of pain so it’s smart to maintain a relationship.

The good news is, if you’re frequently in touch with potential buyers and maintain a relationship based on trust, mutual respect and demonstrated expertise, chances are at some point that prospect will have a need and you’ll have an opportunity to present your solution.

Do you find that these three categories of buyers ring true in your business or industry?

The “Un-Strategic Plan”

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Mention the words, ‘strategic’ and ‘plan’ in the same sentence, and many people conjure up the image of a high cost, low value exercise.  Often those plans have included the commensurate three-ring binder—the fatter the binder, the more expensive the plan. 

Many of us have also had the chance to suffer through a strategic planning ‘retreat’; a day-long exercise rich in brainstorming, flipcharts and sticky dots, but short on Objectives, Action Plans, and Follow Through. 

Hopefully those feel-good but unproductive planning experiences have not deterred you from tackling a planning exercise in your own business.  In every case, it’s not the concept of strategic planning that’s flawed, but rather the process used to conduct the exercise.  Actually those negative experiences can inform us on how to better conduct an effective planning exercise.

In reality, effective strategic planning is not a yearly event, but rather an on-going undertaking in your business.  It just makes common sense when you think about it…we need to be strategic every day of the year, and it’s the well designed plan that’s referred to on a weekly if not daily basis, that guides us in our decisions.