Laser like focus

Hopefully you will have read our latest Business Bitesize newsletter and will recall the story of  Scott and Amundson’s race to become the first person to reach the South Pole.

Everyone knows the outcome of the race – Amundson won and not only did Scott fail in his goal of being first to reach the pole, he also failed to come back and died on the expedition.

So what can we learn from this story?  Well it is used to illustrate the point of having a single minded determination to focus on one goal and one goal only.

Scott had two things on his mind – getting to the Pole AND scientific research

Amundson had only one goal –  to walk 15 nautical miles a day, whether the weather was good or bad.  This allowed rest, recuperation and maintenance of equipment on good weather days so the team was better prepared for the bad weather days when conditions were tough.

That’s all very well for Antarctic explorers but what about your business and how is it relevant for you?

Well let’s take the example of two businesses: –

Intel and AMD, starting off making both processors and memory chips.

Intel took a decision to focus only on processors and set a goal to double their processing speed every 18 to 24 months.

AMD continued to produce both processors and memory chips.

In the good times AMD enjoyed spectacular growth but struggled in the bad times, Intel’s growth in the good times was half that of AMD, but grew by 10% in the bad times and delivered a 3000% growth in shareholder value in the 2000’s, a success by any measure.

Now look at your business, what is your single long-term goal that would have the biggest impact on your business?  Not profit because that is a consequence of doing the right things right in your business.

Initially you may have 3 to 5 main things; write them down and assess their impact on your business of making them the sole focus.  It may help to speak with a business mentor or associates that you know, or your mastermind group if you belong to one.

Once you have decided upon the one long-term goal, decide what you can measure every day, week or month that will let you know if you are on target to achieve your long-term goal.

This will become your main Key Performance Indicator, your “15 miles a day” yardstick, the one thing that you and your team will focus upon regularly.

You should publish this number throughout the business and ensure everyone knows of the importance to them and the business.  If you are brave enough and it is relevant you may wish to share your goal and target with your customers, suppliers and partners that you work with.

We often hear from business owners that there are too many things that they need to do that can’t be ignored rather than just one goal.  Of course there are many balls that business owners juggle and they all have an impact on business success.

However having a key measure that you judge your performance by and make decisions against, whether it hits the daily, weekly or monthly target or takes you closer to or further away from is the key to long-term success.

If you are having difficulties in deciding what your Key number should be or measuring its impact then please contact us on 01634 298238 or email us on team@aspirationsaccountancy.carciofinodev.co.uk

We look forward to hearing what your key focus is.

2015-08-17T15:28:41+01:00