What One Quality = Success?

I’m a member of a study group on exit planning for organizations. In our group are the following business people:

• Attorney
• Accountant
• Company valuation expert
• Business banker
• Strategic planner/business coach
• Process guru (me)
• Financial planner/exit planning specialist
• And a few more that attend on a non-regular basis

The following question was posed to all of us as business consultants: “what have you seen as the one quality that kept the businesses you work with successful through the recent financial crisis?” No one had a quick answer…in fact we were all silent for a while until someone piped up, “conservative.” In fact, as the rest of us started thinking about our own clients, the following were the characteristics of our most successful clients:

• Conservative
• Disciplined
• Healthy balance sheets
• Healthy personal balance sheets
• Regular monitoring of key performance indicators (KPIs such as budget vs. actual numbers, managing travel & entertainment expenses, sales goals and quotas, decreasing days in accounts receivable, etc.)

We realized it’s been the clients who have spent money, but only on the things that brought a return on their investment. When times were good they didn’t buy the corporate jet, but saved or reinvested into technology or systems that would have a greater payback. Now that the financial recovery isn’t going quite as quickly as we all would like, those companies are thriving – maybe not as much as they would in better times – but unlike many of their competitors, they aren’t cutting back on staff or other resources.

In the times when things are going well, we all are tempted with luxuries. Habitually planning for the not so great times will keep our businesses going strong and growing. It takes:

1. strategic planning
2. systems and
3. discipline to regularly monitor KPIs and correct when we’re off track.

Stay tuned to my blog each week this month for simple tips to set up, improve, and maintain all three of the above in your business.