Are People the Key to Your Success?

August 16, 2013 Company Development Comments Off on Are People the Key to Your Success?

By Bill Phillips, Strategen, Inc.

Last month we concluded the Five Essential Components to a Strategic Plan series with “Define Your Current and Future Resource Requirements” and discussed the fact that recruiting and retaining people will be your biggest challenge and potentially will have the most affect on your ability to operate and grow your business.  Let’s dig a little deeper into this and see how this affects your business and more importantly, you as the owner.

When you look at the core of what separates your business from the competition you will find it is typically you and your people.  You own the business and many times the business is a direct reflection of your values and your skills and an extension of things you really like to do.

Your business was started to fill a need in the market that required the skill set you have.  You were successful and more people wanted you to do whatever you do for them.  Then came the day that you needed additional people to maintain the support your customers had grown accustom to, so you started hiring people.  Now things were different and they continue to be so today because a great deal of the company’s success is derived through the efforts of your employees and complexity to the deal.  So, let’s look at your people.

We believe recruiting and retaining people is your biggest challenge to your ability to operate and grow your business.  YOUR PEOPLE are what separate you from your competition.  You have to believe this simple concept and then decide how you are going to take the actions required to build and manage your team to the fullest extent possible.

Do you believe that your people are what separate you from your competition and do you understand what it takes to recruit, mentor, train and retain the quantity and quality of people you are going to need to grow?  We do and we work daily with our clients on this exact issue.

Do you really understand what you are going to have to do to maintain the people component of your business as you grow?  Have you thought through the supporting resources to provide the tools for the people to do their job?  As you grow will you be able to balance the needs your people will have with your customer’s expectations and demands? All of these are important and critical questions that need to be answered by you and your management team if you are going to capitalize on this resource.

Compare your situation to a professional football team, say the Packers.  Do the Packers approach the season and take the field each week without knowing they have done the absolute best job possible to recruit, mentor and train the best players possible?  Of course not, but they know there are other players on other teams that could help them improve and that there are things they need to do to be a better team.  They also play each week to win and when they lose they work hard to modify the plan for next time.

Even a team like the Packers has limitations.  They can only have so many players at each position and they can only pay a certain amount for players and they have a limit on what they can do for coaches and management.  But they work within these limits and they play each season and week to win because that’s how they are measured.  Your business is similar.

You are graded by the measureables you have established, total sales, margins, target account development, new products to market, reduced time to market, … and you play to win but you have  limitations.  You have limitations on how many people you can hire, how much capital and space you have available, how many customers you can support and so on.

Your people are the key to your success and influence most, if not all your measurable.  So do you follow through with the actions required to make people the key to your success?

• Do you work to constantly recruit good people so you have people to handle growth?
• Do you have training programs to quickly bring new hires up to speed and continuously develop existing team members?
• Are your people mentored so they can develop the skills that are needed to help maintain and grow your business?
•  Do you work as hard on the people side of your business as you do on the sales and operating sides?

If you do all of these and feel good about your progress you are in the minority.  We will continue from here next month. Coaching these skills is a critical part of what we do.  We are here to help you develop and implement your Strategic Plan and coach and develop the skills to implement the plan successfully.

About Strategen, Inc.

Bill has over 25 years of experience in manufacturing organizations.  Bill will go into a company and develop tailored strategies to assist with management and growth and then help implement those strategies.

We are having great success coaching and implementing these methods and skills and our clients love it!