Now...Build A Great Business

When you start reading Mark Thompson’s and Brian Tracy’s book called, Now…Build a Great Business!, you may feel like you are reading 200 pages of Blog posts, but the bite-sized approach to providing tools, practical steps and ideas, rather than theory, is precisely the authors’ intended approach.

The book thoroughly explains the seven keys for how to achieve business success:
1.  Become a great leader
2.  Develop a great business plan
3.  Surround yourself with great people
4.  Offer a great product or service
5.  Design a great marketing plan
6.  Perfect a great sales process
7.  Create a great customer experience

You’ll find a checklist at the end of each step (each chapter) where you can write down your action plan for applying what you’ve learned.

Particularly interesting is the chapter on strategic planning, where the authors recommend you should ask yourself these important questions before you act to create or reinvent the direction of your organization:

•  Where are you now? What is your current situation?
•  How did you get to where you are today?
•  Where do you want to go from here?
•  How do you get from where you are today to where you want to be in the future?
•  What obstacles will you have to overcome? What problems will you have to solve?
•  What additional knowledge, skills, or resources will you require to achieve your strategic objectives?

When it comes time to surround yourself with great people, Thompson and Tracy remind us that great people are:
•  Good team players.
•  More concerned with what’s right rather than who’s right.
•  Intensely results oriented.

And, great people accept high levels of responsibility for the outcomes required of them, and consider their company a great place to work.

Mark Thompson is an entrepreneur who sold his last company for $100 million and today coaches executives on how to lead growth companies. Brian Tracy speaks throughout the country about the development of human potential and personal effectiveness. I thank them for sending me a copy of their book. It’s a worthwhile read.

How To Prepare For The Next Recession

Even though the business environment is improving for some companies, don't close the book on the recent recession until you've set a game plan for how you will lead your business between now and the next recession. And, for how you will lead during the next recession.

Write down the lessons you learned over the past couple years and determine how you'll apply each going forward.

You can also take note of the suggestions from savvy business leaders that offer this advice:

•  You have to build trust with your colleagues before a crisis comes or no one will follow you when it does.
•  There is no substitute for preparation. Access your company's strengths and weaknesses at all times.
•  Conduct an annual risk review that encompasses both financial and non-financial risks.
•  When removing employees from your business, be courageous, quick and fair.
•  Pay attention to those who leave and those who stay. And, for those who stay, remove work so the employees left behind don't feel punished for staying.
•  Talk more about values more than rules.
•  Reward not only the performance, but also how that performance is achieved.