David’s book Wind In Your Sails has ten strategies. Many companies make bold marketing promises, but few back it up with a Promise Delivery System. There is lots more in my video on Operational Strategy.

Audio

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Transcript of Operational Strategy

Hi, I am Coach David J. Greer and today I want to talk to you about operational strategy. Here I am standing on a dock that is floating and you may see me moving up and down from time to time. That’s like your business. Things go up. Things go down. You need to be measuring at all times so that you know exactly how your business is operating.

Use key productivity indicators to tell you what is going on. For every business there should be at least four leading indicators and two trailing. Financial statements are always trailing indicators. They are like trying to drive your car by looking in the rear view mirror.

You need at least four leading indicators that are like your headlight showing up the next corner. That could be something as simple as the number of conversations your sales people are having every day to give you an indication of how many leads and prospects you are actually following up with.

Many companies make bold marketing promises and then are unable to deliver on those promises. That is why I think we need to build a promise delivery system. That is an operational execution engine that brings all of our people and processes together so that we actually deliver on the promises that we make to our markets.

Can you describe for every person in your business on the back of an envelope the key drivers that make your business go? How a lead comes in, how it gets processed, how it turns into a sale, how that moves through your operations, how it’s actually delivered, and then received by the customer. I think you should be able to do that simply on the back of an envelope and that model should show you how you make your money.

How do you gather customer feedback? Many times I’ve met entrepreneurs who think they are doing a great job with their customers. When I dig into it, I discover that they don’t actually go out and ask their customers what they think of the business. Many times they are quite surprised, even shocked, to learn that they are not delivering nearly as well on their promises as they thought they were. You need to build feedback systems into everything that you build.

In my book, Wind In Your Sails, I show how operational strategy can show whether you are having a little minor blip in your business or whether an earthquake is disrupting everything.