Where will your company be this time next year? Will you be celebrating record profits or planning a bankruptcy strategy? The answer depends on what you do now to prepare for tomorrow. Business as usual doesn’t exist anymore. Our marketplace has changed from a multichannel environment to a maze of channels and platforms that distract buyers and stretch limited resources. Maintaining a presence on all of the relevant networks is impossible for small businesses and fiscally irresponsible for large ones.

The economic downturn combined with an influx of new opportunities to connect with customers is overwhelming to even the most seasoned marketing teams. When faced with so many choices and dangers, running seems to be the only answer. Some dart from platform to platform hoping to catch a viral wave that will rain a revenue stream. Others run away from everything new seeking comfort in the tried and true tactics that have delivered past successes. Both strategies are fear driven paths to failure. When everything is said and done, a divided house cannot stand and those rooted in the past will be left behind.

Change is hard. People naturally resist it until the pain of remaining in the status quo exceeds the fear of the unknown. Vision of a better tomorrow shared with the passion of a believer is the only way to move some from the comfort of days gone by. The team responsible for the future of the company has to share the vision. They don’t have to agree on the path, but the final outcome is dependent on their ability to see a better tomorrow.

Maybe the real question is where do you stand? Are you so rooted in the past that the future will pass you by? Or, are you waiting with an open mind, willing to walk through the door of opportunity and do the heavy lifting? The tactics that got your business where it is today won’t take it to the next level. Change like you’ve never seen before is required.

Positioning your company for growth requires a solid plan that encompasses every corporate function, department, and person. The business has to work like a well-oiled machine where every gear provides leverage to the one next to it. The process won’t be easy but nothing worth doing is ever easy. Here are some steps to get you started on moving your organization to the next level:

Assemble

Start with an open mind, blank paper, and the people you need to make it happen. It is helpful if you do this at another location but if that isn’t in the budget, clear your conference room of everything that reminds you of the status quo. List your corporate strengths and weaknesses and then do the same for your competitors.

Analyze

Dig deep into your customer file so you have the best possible understanding of their behavior, buying patterns, and preferences. Keeping customers active longer is the best thing you can do for your bottom line. It increases the return on acquisition costs exponentially.

Brainstorm

Where can you improve service and satisfaction without significantly increasing costs? What do you need to do to offset weaknesses? How can you be more accessible to your customers? What channels are you missing that can make a difference in your business? What customer needs are unfilled?

Eliminate

There are always more ideas and opportunities than there are resources. Select the best and prioritize them by commitment and return. This will help you choose when and what to do based on available resources and potential return.

Strategize

Effective action requires planning. The survival rate of companies managed by knee-jerk reactions and seat of the pants methodology is extremely low. Having a plan provides vision and direction. There may be detours and rerouting along the way, but mapping out the strategy is the best way to keep your business moving forward.

Implement

The best laid plans are worthless without implementation. Executing your strategy inspires confidence and provides feedback that can be leveraged into growth and profitability. Don’t finish the year with a list of things we could have done. Finish it with a compilation of “this worked, that didn’t”. This is the foundation that supports sustainable growth.

Revise

Perfection is impossible. The very best strategy will have components that don’t work. Continuously monitor the progress, eliminating the things that don’t work and expanding the ones that do. In the end, everything may be completely different from the plan but it will be tested and successful.

Celebrate

People need wins to remain motivated. If you are constantly pushing your team to move forward without celebrating the progress, they will burn out. You’ll be left with a failed strategy because it didn’t reward the people who make it happen. Celebrations must be inclusive, crossing departments and divisions. It is only when everything and everyone works together for the greater good that your company will reach its full potential.

Remember

Moving a company to the next level is a process. Trying to plan it in a few days won’t deliver the results you want. Give it time to gestate and expand in your mind so you and your team have full ownership of the process and results.

Business is cyclical. Inevitably, there will be times where there is little to do except wait for the phone to ring or email to ping. During these periods, you can watch dollars fly out of the window in the form of lost productivity or you can position your company for growth when the cycle ends. Here are five things that will help you get ready for the next boom. They might even shorten the wait!

1. Read a good book.

   And, share it with your team. Require every team member to read a book and share the information with the group. Yes, you read that right, REQUIRE them to read and share. They can choose what they want to read, but they have to answer three questions when they share the information: What did they learn? How does it apply to your business? What is the first step towards implementation?

2. Clean house.

   Janitorial services clean surfaces. They remove trash, dust, and keep your space looking presentable. The roll-up-your-sleeves deep cleaning that brightens a room, clears out inboxes, and organizes files is best done by the people using the space. Make it a fun project by having a friendly competition where the best job wins a prize (gift cards, dinner out, extra vacation day, etc.)

3. Clean your company’s digital house.

   Managing multiple databases is a part of every business. Over time, records get duplicated, data becomes corrupted, and information loses relevance. Work with the people who use the data across channels, departments, and divisions to combine, repair, and streamline acquisition and management. Time invested will be returned many times over.

4. Cross Train

   Exchange team members with other departments and divisions so they can learn about the processes and the challenges. When possible, make the “borrowed” members responsible for working with their own departments without access to inside information. Eyes get opened when people are moved to the blind side.

5. Offer Earned Mental Health Days

   A business slow down combined with the gloom and doom that permeates every news channel can destroy corporate morale. People need purpose to be fulfilled. Earned mental health days aren’t vacations. They are the opportunity to work on pet projects that are lower priorities in busy times. Challenge your team to brainstorm ideas to improve sales and reduce costs. Give them the time and resources (within reason) to outline the implementation plan. And, if their plan has merit, implement it and reward them with a percentage of the revenue generated or money saved.

If you were expecting a hunker down and wait for the storm to pass when you read this post, I hope that you aren’t disappointed. It is impossible to move forward from a defensive position. Using the ideas listed above positions your company for growth and profitability when the slow period passes. Your team members will work better together, productivity and efficiency will be improved, and you may find the next big idea!

Wouldn’t it be nice to have a single marketing tool that allowed you to reach all of your customers and prospects? Think about how it would affect your marketing efforts. You could invest your time in optimizing every aspect of the tool instead of searching for new ways to connect with the people most likely to buy your products and services.

There have been times that we have come close to finding this holy grail of the marketing world. When Montgomery Ward decided to mail catalogs to rural residents, he expanded his reach and created a new industry. He found a magic bullet that opened stores in individual’s mailboxes. It took over a hundred years for another magic bullet to appear.

The Internet was the next magic bullet. It expanded marketing’s reach from the mailbox into the home. More importantly, it changed the functionality of marketing from targeting to attracting. Successful advertising and direct mail campaigns were the result of extensive research to find the people most likely to buy specific products or services. The Internet was a game changer because it provided the opportunity for those people to find the companies. Instead of searching for the proverbial needle in the haystack, marketers could focus on making their website easy for the people looking for their products or services to find.

When social media emerged the magic bullet cry was heard around the world. The new game changer was supposed to replace traditional marketing, but it was missing a key component – the ability to stand alone. It turns out that social media doesn’t replace other marketing tools, it simply makes them better. Adding a good social networking strategy to a solid marketing program improves customer retention, increases sales, and reduces costs.

Marketing is continuing to evolve. Searching for the magic bullet that forever changes the way we do business is a waste of time. There are two many options available to confine a marketing strategy to one channel. The time people spend in one place is fractured. They shift from home to work to play to television to Internet to social networking platforms. There are multiple options within each of those places. Finding customers and prospects is much more challenging and expensive than it was five years ago.

Micro-marketing is the future. We have to implement strategies that economically create a presence for the company in every channel the customers and prospects visit. Doing it well requires vision, planning, and discipline. Doing it well also binds customer to company increasing sales and reducing costs.

Direct mail, ecommerce, bricks-and-mortar stores, and mobile are the most important channels today. Integrating them so customers have a seamless experience is a top priority. Adding social to the mix is next. If the foundation is solid with flexibility built in, creating a presence on new channels and platforms is simple. Customer acquisition and retention is natural. If the foundation has cracks in customer care, inventory management, employee morale, and any other aspect of managing the business, it will fail.

What are you doing to solidify your foundation?

The ability to motivate people to do what is necessary to accomplish goals and overcome challenges is a key management skill required in every successful business. The willingness and skills to lead are especially valuable in a social company. Social marketing is a new frontier with opportunities to discover, tools to learn, and communities to build.

There are no paths to follow. There are two options available – create your own success strategy or wait to follow your competition. Top prizes go to those who find the best strategy for their company, customers, and team members before their competitors.

Social media was introduced as a new marketing channel more than a decade ago. Now there are more platforms, tools, and opportunities to connect with customers than anyone could have imagined. This channel provides unprecedented access to customers, friends, family, and preferences. It is truly one-to-one marketing and service that allows brands to reach across natural barriers to connect with people around the world. Two decades ago, the idea of sharing real time experiences across continents was something for a sci-fi flick. Today, this amazing technology is available, affordable, and portable.

The technology is also underutilized because people are more interested in creating viral content than resolving customer issues.

Somewhere between the vision of a channel of conversations and today’s reality, people got lost. The channel that was supposed to set the commerce world on its ear by replacing traditional marketing has become a haven for bickering, innuendo, and gossip. The communities of social media “leaders” lob word bombs at each other in an effort to unseat the rival King/Queen from his/her paper throne. People outside the communities shake their head in amazement at the juvenile behavior in a public forum.

Some outsiders resist participation because they can’t get past the prevalent ugliness. Others treat it as an advertising media with a constant stream of promotions. Opting out or trying to adapt the channel to traditional marketing is a mistake. A better option is to use the unique characteristics of social media to touch your customers and prospects.

The best way to connect with the people that matter varies by company.

And, that is where leadership is needed. Finding the way that works for your business requires vision, testing, analysis, and change from the status quo. The change part is the hardest. Your company has to work together as a team to harness the power of social media. Departmental rivalry has to be replaced with shared communication and shared responsibility.

The first step is accepting social media as a way to connect with individual customers on the platforms of their choice. Customers rule here. They get to decide where, when, and how they communicate with you. This change is a little scary, but it is worth the effort. Individuals actively participating in our clients’ communities have higher average orders and more frequent purchases than their non-social counterparts. This increases lifetime value and customer return on investment. Who doesn’t need a little more of that?

Next, put on the blinders so you don’t see the drama in surrounding social circles. Controversy drives traffic so people keep one-upping each other to get their fifteen seconds of fame. Apparently they don’t realize that the instant fame is quickly followed by distrust. Your goal is to inspire trust and confidence. Participating in online snarky competitions derails corporate success.

Finally, create a flexible strategy that includes testing, analysis, revisions, and celebrations. You’ll go down a few paths that aren’t right before you find your way in the social channel. If every step includes a lesson, you are always winning.

Social media success is a simple process but it requires time and commitment. Reaching out to customers to solidify your relationship and encourage loyalty optimizes your return on investment. Don’t be afraid to try new things as long as they fit within your corporate culture and customer expectations from your brand.

I was a much better manager before I became one. I knew who was doing a great job without recognition and who was taking credit for other people’s work. I knew who should be fired and who deserved a promotion. I didn’t understand how the people in charge of leading the company could be so blind. I promised myself that one day I would become a great manager who governed with the wisdom of King Solomon.

When that magical day came, something unforeseen happened. The view changed. I could still see the great employees, credit thieves, slackers, and unrewarded people. But, I could also see the one year left until retirement, the family members (who knew nepotism was so prevalent?), the team players, and the laws/policies affecting management decisions.

I thought I was ready to be a manager. I’d read all the best books, been mentored by a great leader, and watched what others did. But there is nothing in a book or external view that prepares you for firing a man with seven children to feed because he stole from the company. Or, dealing with a man who is deaf and mute terrorizing the women in his department. Or, keeping a manager under control who knows that he will not be fired regardless of his behavior. Or, the 3:00 AM call from the jail when one of your team members decides that your number is the best for his one call (apparently, he was right because I trekked down to the Atlanta jail before dawn.)

People will surprise you (or maybe they just surprise me.) They will zig when you expect a zag, give when you expect them to take, and fail when you expect them to succeed. Through my trials by fire, I’ve learned a few things. They won’t prepare you for the long list of challenges that you face as a manager. At best, they may give you a little insight to the traits required to succeed. Great managers have:

1. A genuine care and appreciation for others. If you care about the people in your life, they will care about what happens to you. Not everyone, of course, but the majority will and they can influence the ones who don’t.
2. The ability to listen and hear what’s not being said as loudly as what is being said. People naturally tell their stories in a manner that puts them in the best light. The subject doesn’t matter. There is always an angle. Finding it so you can filter it out is the first step to the right decision.
3. Vision to see challenges before they become problems. Much like listening, what you don’t see may be more important than what you see. Regular customers that don’t visit as often; employees that don’t smile as much as they used to; and vendors who are less responsive are signs that something is wrong. Don’t let them go unseen.
4. An open mind and willingness to listen to everyone’s ideas. The best ones come from people doing the job every day. They know how everything works and will share their knowledge when asked nicely. Invite people to teach you. It will expand your views.
5. The right balance of ego and humility. It takes a strong ego to withstand the criticism that comes with unpopular management decisions. It takes humility to accept that everyone knows something that you don’t.
6. Wisdom to know when to manage with your head and when to use your heart. Sometimes they disagree and the one that is the loudest is wrong.
7. A sense of humor. Use it freely when looking in the mirror.

What traits would you add?