ast week, in part one of “Rating yourself as a strategic business person,” you began to take a good long look at yourself and determine how you are currently performing in each of the critical elements I discuss below. As you go through this exercise, it will be beneficial for you to rate yourself on a scale of one to 10, where one means you do very poorly and 10 means you do very well. Your score on each of these will help you to determine your strengths and weaknesses. As you’re evaluating yourself, still keep in mind these words of Eric Hoffer: “We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves,” and be brutally honest with yourself.
Once you’ve assigned an honest numerical value to each of these criteria, you have a starting point for making improvements. You also will discover where your strengths are, and can then develop plans and systems in which you can leverage your talents quickly and more effectively use the energy you devote to them.
The goal of this exercise is to help you identify and prioritize the things you need to change in order to become more strategic and effective as you re-engineer yourself from who you are to who you want to be. Also, as you are prioritizing them, ask yourself which of these when changed will have the greatest potential to significantly and quickly deliver the greatest results.
Now is the time to start evaluating yourself. On a scale of one to 10, how do you rate yourself in:
• Developing an operations manual: Do you have an operations manual that fully defines the level of effort, accuracy, conduct, dress and so on you expect of your employees? Do you have a written description of every company system and process, why it’s important to follow them, and the ones each employee needs to observe to successfully complete their jobs?
• Developing yearly business plans: Every year, do you ask yourself, “What changes have occurred over which I have no control, yet have a direct or indirect impact on my business or how I need to manage your business? What changes or refinements do I need to make to make the upcoming year more successful than the previous one?”
• Managing your employees: Are your employees performing their duties to the best of their abilities? Are they happy? Is morale high? Are you retaining your best employees and replacing under-performing employees with new, better qualified, employees?
• Selling: No business is successful without sales. What were last year’s sales? What needs to be done to increase sales? What’s your competitor doing that generates the sales you’re not getting? What can you do to minimize or eliminate your competitor’s sales advantages?
• Utilizing marketing: What are you currently doing to educate your target market of the advantages of doing business with your company? Are there marketing venues not currently being used that you can utilize? Which marketing strategies are best suited to helping you reach your target market?
• Having fun and enjoying the process: Have you developed a system that allows you to operate your business effectively while you grow it? Is using the process fun?
• Achieving financial success: Are you able to live the lifestyle you desire while investing in your retirement and without incurring debt?
• Keeping a balance in your work and personal life: With the time you gain by becoming more strategic and effective, are you able to accomplish what you need to in your business in less time? If so, are you able to enjoy a more fulfilling personal life by doing those things you consider fun to do? Can you now spend more quality time with the people who are important to you?
Now that you have identified your strengths and weaknesses in your part two areas, add last week’s part one area results to them. Now you are ready to take the next step in your journey to achieving the success you want and enjoying life more as you succeed, which is ranking and prioritizing the order in which these things, if worked on, will yield the best results. The biggest question you will face during this process is “Am I willing to totally dedicate myself to making all changes needed to get to where I want to be?” As I have written several times, all progress is the result of change.
“Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement and success have no meaning.” -- Benjamin Franklin.
Rick Brines is the owner of The Growth Coach of Chattanooga. He can be reached at 423-886-6095 or R.Brines@TheGrowthCoach.com. v