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Business planning – How companies achieve business plans
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Business planning – How companies achieve business plans
In spite of what we read in the papers not all businesses are suffering from a major downturn. Some are fortunate because of the specific industry segment they are in but others are just quietly doing well, irrespective of how badly many are doing in their industry segment. Very little of this is down to pure luck. It’s usually due to understanding what their customers want and implementing successful marketing plans to give it to them. As we start the holiday season it’s a good point to review what’s worked well and what you need to do differently when you return. Look at the numbers to see if you are achieving your business plans but don’t spend too long on them. Just stay with the facts, not the reasons why. Are you on-plan or off-plan and by how much? Now you have the scale of the task that you have to come back too. Whatever the outcome do not go off on holiday yet. You need to get two questions on the table for people to think about while you are away. The first question to ask yourself and your staff is: “How well do we all understand what is really important to our customers and what do they think about their relationship with us?” You might want to leave your staff to think about the answer to this question over their holidays whilst they become customers of other organisations! The second question is: “What have been the best marketing tools for acquiring new customers and growing revenues with existing customers?” And of course, what hasn’t. This key information will help the energy in everyone’s recharged batteries be used to best effect. Getting the views of your staff on both of the questions will help you decide what you should do differently but it remains an internal view and that’s not enough. It’s also important to learn from the experience of other companies. Business in Berkshire has been working with Simple Plans to find ways to help you learn about the experiences of other companies. As a result we have developed a simple electronic survey so that companies can share their experiences. Fill in this survey now, before you go on holiday, it will only take 5 minutes. When you get back we’ll give you the results and how they compare to some of our benchmarks. Add this to the feedback from your staff and you will be off to a great start for the last quarter of the year. Complete the survey The survey is sponsored by: Malcolm Wicks of www.simplebusinessplans.co.uk 0118 989 1107 SimplePlans specialise in Customer Relationship Surveys that discover what your customer really care about. It’s rarely what you think! |
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