To maximize your driving power, no matter how busy you are, you need to slow down in order to speed up business. Take the time to create an accurate road map to lead you to the best route for your business.

Take a good hard look at your business with the eye of an outside, unbiased consultant and gather honest answers to the hard questions on the High Performance Road Map below. Include your team, and keep their involvement ongoing.

HIGH PERFORMANCE ROAD MAP

What are our three greatest strengths as a business?

How can we leverage our greatest strengths to grow our business?

How’s our reputation in our community?

How’s our reputation in our industry?

Do we need to make a bigger effort to develop a reputation customer service excellence?

Are our advertising, sales, and marketing strategies working?

Do we need ads and visuals on our website that are more eye-catching than any competitors’?

Do we have enough video on our site to draw traffic to our site and show customers what we can do?

Are we obtaining business and inquiries from our website, or is it time to obtain the services of an SEO specialist?

Are we using online marketing to draw more traffic to our business?

Do we have a newsletter we send out with great visuals, ads, and the latest information on new products?

What are we doing that is different from other retailers that will make us stand out in the minds of our customers and promote word-of-mouth advertising?

Where are there opportunities to obtain more referrals or drive more business to us?

How much of our business comes from referrals? Are we asking for them?

How can we promote our business in a way that is different than the competition?

Can we depend on each other, so we can focus on the most important person to our business—the customer?

How can we improve communication on the team and with customers?

How would customers rate the level of service we provide?

Are we obtaining feedback from our customers, or should we start calling after every job or major sale?

Are we consistently working to improve our service?

How quickly do we respond to calls? Is it easy to do business with us?

Are we making a conscious effort to be friendlier than our competitors?

Do we make our customers feel like “family”?

What have we done to exceed expectations, and what practices can we put into place to exceed expectations in the future?

What three areas need the most improvement?

How is our pricing?

Do customers feel they receive value from the price they pay?

Do we consistently strive to be a better business?

Do we consistently work toward being better than our competition? Do we make an effort to be better than our competition in every aspect of the customer experience?

Do we strive to under-promise and do everything we can to over-deliver?

Who is performing well? Who is not?

What should be our major strategic initiative for the remainder of 2015?

Once you finish compiling answers, which may take some time, you'll be in a better position to see things more clearly, make decisions, and create your winning race strategy. This can be hard work, but your biggest challenge will be to implement necessary changes to sustain the momentum of the drive.  

So after this session take a good hard look at your answers, and then create an action plan that will help drive the growth of your business and improve profitability. Unfortunately, we sometimes (even unknowingly) put up our own roadblocks to success. We make an action plan with a road map to follow and we don’t follow it. We go back to “business as usual.”

Smart business professionals, however, understand that,

“Knowing what you should be doing and doing it are two very different things. Execution must be a strong part of your competitive strategy!”

Here’s another key: Put Knowledgefest as one of your destinations. There, you will obtain the knowledge and skills to accelerate your business.

Keep in mind:

 •    Always maintain a clear focus on your customers. Encourage everyone who works in your business to embrace an obsession for customer service excellence with every customer encounter.

 •    Follow your race strategy. Once you have completed the road map stage, you will have your own plan. Follow it as closely as you can in order to stay on course. But if something is not working, do what any smart executive or business owner would do—shift gears fast!

 •    You will always have to find ways to be better and smarter—and drive faster—than your competitors.

Once you decide what needs to change in your business, implementation is crucial. Attend my session, What Needs to Change in Your Business – 10 Steps to Successful Change Implementation, sponsored by the Consumer Electronics Association.

See you there!

To hear more of Carelli's insights, attend her KnowledgeFest seminar. Details are available at http://knowledgefest.org/exhibitors/item/95.