Ready for Success
Series Intro:
This is the third post in a twelve-part blog series on how we help industrial companies generate business-to-business sales leads. There are four steps in the process: Assess, Plan, Build, and Profit. In this series, we dedicate three posts to each step, providing the reader with one complete year of inspiring monthly content.
3. Ready for Success | Assess
The biggest obstacle to a proper assessment is a big ego. So many managers and owners don’t want to be assessed. They say, “Who are you to tell me? How could you possibly know my business?” They think they’re unique; they’re special, that their reality is unlike any other reality. But I have yet to hear more than about four stories in forty years. Most people’s problems are the same, because the marketplace governs the problems.
If people are too proud and won’t listen, then that’s the path they’re on. I can’t help them. In truth, no one can, because they’re not willing to be helped; they’re not willing to learn or change based on what they have in front of them.
However, if you want help and you’re willing to change, and willing to let go of your ego, then the growth potential is limitless.
Let’s say we look into the marketplace and see ten businesses, and nine are happy with where they’re at. They don’t want to change. They don’t feel the need to grow. They’re just maintaining. The saying is true, “Good is the enemy of the great.”
However, there’s one company out there that’s hungry. They want change, they want to grow, they want to be better. And they’re willing to do what it takes to lift their business to the next level. That’s the company we want to work with. That’s the company that is forcing two or three of their competitors to take a hard look at themselves, because they see what success looks like.
So, if you’re the company that stopped at good, then just make yourself shiny brochure, tune up your website and just look good. You can probably hire a kid in Grade 10 to do that for you. A cool $300 can buy you a great website, and you’ll get your money’s worth. Pay a little more for a new logo and some flashy business cards, and now you’re feeling really good about yourself.
But we want to help that one hungry company take their business to the next level. We want to help them ask the hard questions and together do an honest assessment of their business. Because we know, if they’re willing to do that, then they’re ready for the work that success requires.
Willing to change = ready for success.
Preparation
To explain our process, we keep coming back to the metaphor of hiking. If you want to go on a hike, you have to be prepared. That’s what we learned in Boy Scouts, right? Somehow, we tend to forget those things we learned as little kids. So, what do you need for your hike? Have you got the right footwear and the right clothing? Have you got enough food and water? Is this a day hike or an overnighter? What if there’s a problem along the way, do you have the right emergency supplies? These are not unrealistic questions.
Of course, the big question from the beginning is: Where are you going? You have no idea how to plan for a hiking trip if you don’t know where you’re going. You can’t prepare anything until you’ve done some research about where you’re going and what it will require. That research is critical.
So, before you go hiking, you do the research and you figure out that you need to pack warmer clothing, a good tent and something better than running shoes. Because you’ve done the hard work beforehand, you know exactly how to prepare.
It’s no different in business. If you do the research, you’ll know exactly what you need to succeed. But it starts with a proper assessment.
That takes work, but it’s worth it. Once you’ve done the assessment, the planning phase makes sense, as your goals and objectives emerge from your research.
I talk to so many business people who tell me that they have a vision of where they want to go. And I say, “Great, tell me how you’re going to get there.”
“I don’t know,” they tell me, “I just have a vision.”
That’s not a vision; that’s a dream. The difference between a vision and a dream is planning. And you can’t get to the planning phase without assessing where you are and where you want to go.
If you’re ready to plan for success, talk to an expert today at Wiebe Industrial. 604.556.6032
This concludes our first round of three blog posts, which have been focused on assessment, the first step in our proven process. Next, we will tackle Planning. In our first post in that series, we talk about planning to win. See you then.