If you want to “grow” your business 20% or more in the next year… what is your plan to make it happen?
Do you have an achievable sales plan? Great!
Now:
What about a People Plan to handle the additional work and keep your customers happy?
Are you planning any changes to your process or technology to be more efficient?
Do you have a plan to handle the increased cash needs that always come with growth?
Most companies focus on the sales side of growth and just let the People and Operations side just figure itself out… this approach causes the “growing pains.”
You might be surprised to know that I speak to business owners every month who want to grow 20% next year, but they don’t have a plan to get the sales and/or handle the extra work.
“More companies die from indigestion than starvation.” – Dave Packard, Hewlett Packard
According to the book “Scaling Up” by Verne Harnish, these are 4 warning signs that you aren’t ready for more sales:
Your profits are at or below the industry average [or you don’t know what that is]
Processes are not running smoothly now
There is drama on the team or from customers from missed deadlines, increasing mistakes, lack of resources, and “communication” issues
People are working overtime to fix problems
At the very time when the focus becomes more important, your key people start being “too busy” putting out fires to work “on” the business.
Maybe you are doing this too…
Getting dragged into daily work instead of setting aside time to evaluate, plan and work on the key projects that will improve the business.
A few real-life examples:
I spoke with three business owners this week who are living this right now.
One almost doubled the revenue but the profits plummeted.
another doesn’t have the hourly staff in place to handle several new clients so she is filling in and training $12 an hour staff.
A third added more customers but one technician team “burned out” and quit… now he is back in the field and everyone is working 50+ hours handling the overload, and revenues are down 20% and profits are zero. Ouch!
What is the solution?
Build the 4 Foundations to Scale Up– Strategy 6 People + Execution + Cash– all TOGETHER.
Changes to one of these four impacts the other 3– so you need to look at the “whole picture” of your business.
[from “Scaling Up” by Verne Harnish- graphic from book summary by Readingraphics]
Description is too short or BORING– if it sounds corporate or not interesting most people will not apply
Not tracking and evaluating your results (such as measuring your cost per application /candidate by paid advertising source)
Posting your jobs with the same ad at the same sites as you did last year (without researching the “competition” and updating the title/ description to be found and stand out)
Using national job posting sites when a local site might provide fewer better applicants
Sending applications to a specific person’s email (less professional and easy to get lost or have a slow response)
Providing limited or no information about your company (except “good pay and benefits”)
Including qualifications that are nice to have but not essential (degrees, certifications, specific/ industry experience, provide their own tools, work Saturdays)
Sending applicants to an initial application method that takes more than 3 minutes and is easy to do on a phone (on paper, too long, multiple clicks to start the application, confusing or just plain ugly)
Not responding immediately with an email confirmation that includes more details about the job and company
Being satisfied with less than 10 applicants worth a call when you post a job
Treating recruiting like an event and running an “ad” when someone quits, rather than running continual advertisements in your proven sites year-round to build a “virtual bench”
Ideally you should conduct a “user experience” audit at least every 6 months or when you have a key position to fill.
Click through all the pages and fill out the forms and see what works great, what is broken, what is frustrating, and think about the messages you are sending to prospective candidates.
With such a tight labor market, you can’t afford to alienate the good prospects.
If you need qualified People to maintain and grow your business in 2019– you need to believe that applicants are your “customer” too and market your job opportunites with as much effort as you do your customer sales process.
Ideally you should conduct a “user experience” audit at least every 6 months or when you have a key position to fill.
Click through all the pages and fill out the forms and see what works great, what is broken, what is frustrating, and think about the messages you are sending to prospective candidates.
With such a tight labor market, you can’t afford to alienate the good prospects.
If you need qualified People to maintain and grow your business in 2019– you need to believe that applicants are your “customer” too and market your job opportunities with as much effort as you do your customer sales process.
