CEO Advisor Newsletter December 2012
Your Business Performance
CEO Advisor can help you assess and address your business needs hands-on.
It's easy to focus only on the day-to-day running of your business, especially in the early stages. But once an established company, it is critical to focus on longer-term strategic planning. You need to set business goals, sales goals, gross margin targets, identify new opportunities and better understand what drives performance.
Assessing your business performance and conducting strategic business planning will be useful especially if:
- Your business is moving in a direction different from what you had planned.
- You are unsure if your are keeping up with changes in the marketplace or making the most of marketing opportunities.
- You are uncertain about how well the business is performing, especially versus your industry or direct competitors.
- You are not using or able to understand your financial statements.
- Your Business Plan and Forecast are out of date.
- The business may be becoming unwieldy or unresponsive to marketing demands and margin and profits are slipping.
- You are unsure how to grow your company to the next level, or growth is low (in the 5 - 10% range).
Critical to your business performance is to understand where you actually excel - your core competencies and strengths, the products and services you offer, the level of success of your sales team and marketing efforts. You need to focus on the goals that drive success - what needs improvement, better reporting, what differentiates your products and services, how to capitalize from a sales perspective, how to launch new or complementary products or services to increase sales and profits.
It's vital to address these key questions about your products and services:
- How effectively are you matching your products and services to your customer's needs?
- Which products and services have strong gross margins? Which aren't performing as planned? Which are not profitable at all?
- Pinpoint which products and services offer both a high percentage of sales and high profit margins.
- What critical issues do you have with sales, pricing, sales coverage, marketing and growth.
As you build sales and profits, you want to ensure that you are also building value in your business.
This includes highly important factors such as:
1) Growth Rate2) Gross Profit Margin3) Recurring Revenue Model4) Intellectual Property5) A Strong Sales Team that meets or exceeds sales goals consistently and other key factors.
CEO Advisor, Inc. is a specialist in helping companies grow to the next level. Contact us today at (949) 629-2520 or email Mark Hartsell at MHartsell@CEOAdvisor.com for a free initial consultation.
GROW YOUR BUSINESS TO THE NEXT LEVEL
- Have a Clear Vision. Know where you want to go and be very clear about it. This involves strategy and defined goals to realize your vision. Without this, there is a tremendous loss of time and money.
- Know Your Market. Understanding your market and your competitors is critical. Do the necessary research to know what's important to your customers and prospects in your target markets and know what the trends are.
- Forecasting. When forecasting, refine your business model, your pricing and gross margin targets. Relook at operating expenses and targets for the right level of profitability. Get objective expertise in this area.
- Select Your Team. Don't do it all on your own. Make sure you have a reliable and competent management and support team around you to complement your own skills and expertise. If you cannot afford the management team you need, bring in a seasoned business advisor that can do some heavy lifting for you - hands-on work for an interim period of time to achieve your goals.
- Put Systems in Place. Document your processes and procedures. This will make it easier to run your business, easier for new employees to get trained faster, will make the business more profitable, and will make your business more valuable and attractive to investors and acquirers.
- Innovate. Innovation is important for all businesses. Ask how you could do something differently to generate a higher ROI for both you and your customers, make your customers happier and more profitable, take less time, be better than your competitors, or develop a more effective business model.
- Build Value. Ensure you have a pricing and business model that maximizes sales, margins, profits and value for a successful exit when you decide to sell your business.
- CEO Advisor, Inc. has the expertise, coupled with hands-on advice to help you increase sales and profits. Contact Mark Hartsell, MBA, CEO of CEO Advisor, Inc., for a free initial consultation at (949) 629-2520, by email at mhartsell@ceoadvisor.com or visit us today at www.CEOAdvisor.com for more information.