A Simple Exercise To Make Sure Growth Initiatives Are Part Of Your Quick Start To 2017

Written by Mike Shapiro | | December 28, 2016

You’ve probably had your goals, objectives and budgeting for 2017 locked down for a few months. But in the past few weeks you’ve been reading all those end-of-year articles about how everything’s changing and every industry is going to be challenged and disrupted by some unseen emerging forces, etc., etc.

With those gritty images in mind, your 2017 goals might not look as exciting or invigorating as you’d hoped. You probably see some projects to be carried over from 2016, and maybe the work your folks are going to be doing looks a little too much like last year’s.

Here’s an exercise that will help you use what you already know about your company and its products and services to shake things up a bit. You can do it with your team at a bagel breakfast or brown-bag lunch during the first week of the New Year:

  1. Focus on your strong points. Recall a few compliments you received during 2016 about your products or services. Identify the features, advantages and benefits underlying those compliments, and brainstorm ways to promote them early in 2017.
  2. Look for ways to do more with your best clients. Identify your 3 – 5 “best” clients. Brainstorm 1 new initiative you can propose to each of those best clients.
  3. Plan ways to find more clients like them. For each of your best clients, name 3 reasons that make them your best. Brainstorm a plan to find and engage 1 new client like each of your current best clients.
  4. One new thing. Recall a few complaints about your products or services and brainstorm one or two fixes you can take back to disappointed customers.

Prepare a table so you can set target dates and assign someone to head up each of the initiatives you develop from the discussion.

It’s important not to let the carryover of important projects to the New Year put a damper on your enthusiasm or distract you from some new thinking about what’s special about your company, your products and services, and making some concrete plans to capitalize on them for growth.

Team having trouble coming up with actionable compliments and complaints? Our earlier article, Time To Offer Customers Something New?, provides some ideas for another kind of initiative — one that involves going out to customers for some useful feedback.