Will 2012 Be Better than 2011?

January 12, 2012 Dan Lacy

 Will 2012 Be Better than 2011?

The first 10 days of January are over.  Are you going to nail your business objectives for January without fail?  Or are you still trying to catch up from the Christmas holidays and get the year end wrapped up.  Well don’t feel bad if you haven’t reviewed and finalized your business goals and objectives for 2012, there is still time to make 2012 one of our best years ever, but time is flying away.

Setting key goals and objectives for your business in 2012 will not only be important for 2012; but it also sets the stage for success in future years.  Success breeds success.  Consider the Harvard MBA students of 1979:

• Only 3 percent of the graduates had written goals and plans
• 13 percent had goals; but they were not in writing
• 84 percent had no specific goals at all

Ten years later, the same students were interviewed to see where they were in their lives. The 13% who had goals were earning, on average,twice as much as the group that had no goals.  And what about the 3% who had clear written goals as well as written plans to achieve them? They blew everyone out of the water by earning ten times as much as the other 97% – put together.

So, if you don’t have your business goals and objectives set for 2012, here are 31 pre-planning questions that will help your business be more successful in 2012.  If you cannot find the time and energy to set your goals and objectives for 2012, but you know your business would grow and be more profitable if you did have a road map for 2012; see the special one-time offer at the end of this article.

1. Where are we likely to finish (sales/cash flow/profits) in 2011?
2. What went right in 2011?
3. What went wrong in 2011?
4. What should we have done in 2011 that we didn’t do?
5. What did we do in 2011 that we should not have done?
6. What are our three biggest remaining sales problems?
7. What will be the consequences if we fail to overcome them?
8. What new initiatives (sales, marketing, organizational structure, cash flow, financing) should we explore in 2012?
9. Besides solving problems and launching new initiatives, what must we do better than we’ve done in the past?
10. What can we do, for example, to insure that we will attain 100% of our monthly revenue targets?
11. How can we increase margins?
12. How can we reduce Account Receivables on a monthly basis?
13. Where are we wasting and/or spending too much money?
14. What can we do to maximize non-traditional revenue streams?
15. Where is our largest “growth market”, how are we going to identify that target market, and how are we going to sell them?
16. How can we do a better job of prospecting for new customers?
17. How can we improve the revenue from our regular and biggest-spending accounts?
18. How can we up-sell smaller accounts with big-account potential?
19. Should we consider any changes in organizational structure?
20. What additional people do we need for 2012?
21. What additional resources do we need for 2012?
22. What additional training do we need to improve performance?
23. What “unique expertise” that is not available from our competitors – can we offer our customers?
24. What standard of performance have we set for our salespeople?
25. How do we get the sales staff to buy into our 2012 goals and strategic game plan?
26. What can we do better to manage each salesperson for the good of the company?
27. How can we make our employees jobs more enjoyable?
28. What monthly profit targets should we set for 2012?
29. What monthly cash flow targets should we set for 2012?
30. Does this management team believe our goals are realistic and therefore achievable?  Why?
31. Am I willing to commit, without reservation, to hitting my targets and planning for them?

TIP: In talking with hundreds of business owners, bankers and accountants over the last few years, they indicated that only 8% to 12% of business owner have a written financial plan for the year ahead of them.  They DON’T have monthly revenue, gross profit, expense and profit goals or targets.  A larger percentage don’t have a cash flow projection that show how cash flows in and out of the company on a monthly basis and if there will be enough to fund operations, payroll and bank payments.

SPECIAL OFFER.  We will create a financial plan for your business for 2012; by month that will:

1. Evaluate the current financial condition of the business
   1. Last 3 years review: revenue, gross profit, gross profit margin, operating expenses, profit, working capital, current ratio and debt to worth
   2. Bench mark the company against peers in their geographic market – compare key financial statistics against over 100 businesses in the same industry and the same size
2. Evaluate the accounting system for: accuracy, functionality (does it help management attain financial goals and objectives), cash or accrual, timeliness, format, department break down,
3. Develop a forward looking set of financial forecasts (management input needed) consisting of:
   1. Monthly revenue, expenses and profit by month by department
   2. Projected balance sheet by month
   3. Projected cash flow forecast

Price ranges from $1,995 to $2,995 depending on he size and scope of the business.  Offer is good until January 31, 2012.  We only have the ability to do about 5 of these so first come, first served.

To your business success in 2012

Dan Lacy

Founder

Contact Info

Dan Lacy

Dan@DynastyBuilder.com

765-644-8887