The early months of the year; an interesting time for business owners. A time for reflection, when we trawl over the things that went right during the previous year, and the things that went wrong.

Then the optimism kicks in; it’s a New Year so everything will be fine from now on!!

New beginnings, New Opportunities. To quote Del Boy, from “Only Fools and Horses”, “This time next year, Rodney, we’ll be Millionaires!”

This is what I call the Rodney Syndrome, and let’s face it we all do it. We look at that wide open space which is the coming year, and everything looks so much better than the last year did, so we get buoyed up by optimism.

But what is different as we look towards 2013, from where we were this time last year, when we were buoyed by the optimism which was 2012? Very often the answer is

Nothing

I spoke to a business owner last year who had a ten year plan to grow the business sufficiently to sustain the cost of hiring a Manager as well as giving her a good return, then moving with her husband to live in comfortable retirement in Italy.

When I asked how long ago had she put this plan together she answered “Three years ago”. And when I asked how long before the plan would bear fruit she said “Ten years”.  So her plan had slipped three years in three years already.

“This time next year, Rodney, we’ll be Millionaires”

The truth is, unless we change something, nothing will change. We get involved in the day-to-day muck-and-bullets of running our business and so don’t have the opportunity to see the bigger picture. And unless we do that, unless we define clearly what our plan is in measurable terms, we have no way of knowing if we will achieve it. And the plan needs to have small, definable, manageable steps.

We all want more customers, so:

• What is our offering?
• How many sales do we need to make?
• Who specifically are we targeting?
• How many are we going to contact?
• What response rate are we looking to achieve?
• What specific marketing activity are we going to undertake to attract them?
• How are we going to followup?
• What will we do if we need more responses?
• What will our sales process be for those who express interest?

So, Rodney, do you know what turnover you need to make sufficient profit to be a millionaire? Do you know how many clients you need and at what price you need to sell to make that turnover? Do you know where the people are that you will sell to?

At Smartsupport we can help you to work out what you want to achieve and specifically what steps you need to take to get there. Contact us today for a free Business Review to find out how we can help you avoid the Rodney Syndrome.