5 Steps to Getting The Results You Know Are Possible
- Brainz Magazine
- 1 day ago
- 4 min read
Written by Jennifer Layman, Small Business Strategist
Jennifer Layman is the founder of Forward Thinking Consulting, a strategic advisory firm for small business. She is an engaging speaker and author of the entrepreneurial marketing book, Forward Thinking For Your Business. A strong competitor, she draws on her experience in professional golf to create ways her clients can win, over and over again.
In addition to being someone who grows businesses, I am also a golf pro. As a member of the PGA of Canada, I often say my best training for being an entrepreneur came from the golf course. There are many similarities between golf and business, and the one I use in speaking engagements and consulting with clients is around strategy. Golf pros have strategies for competition; businesses should have strategies too.
Why do strategies matter?
Often, when I ask a golfer what their strategy is at a certain hole on the golf course, they will answer, “Make par” or maybe “Hit the green.” Those are results you want to achieve. Strategies are how you’re going to achieve them.
For example, a strategy might be hitting an extra club because the wind is in your face or laying up to a certain yardage because it’s a better position to approach the green. Strategies help you achieve the results you want; that’s why they matter.
Five steps you can follow to develop a game plan to achieve results
1. Set the goal
This is the step you probably already have in mind – the thing you want to achieve. For example, a hotel that has meeting rooms is looking for ways to boost room reservations during the week. Their goal is to focus on attracting multi-day business events that would use the meeting rooms and require accommodations.
2. Know the opportunities
The hotel has to decide what business events, conferences, or conventions are most likely to consider it as a venue. This involves knowing exactly what they offer and comparing it to what types of events are best suited to those needs. The hotel will need to look at a few things:
The size can capacity of meeting rooms plus the hotel amenities that support events (i.e. meals, social events, equipment, etc.)
The opportunities for non-conference events such as festivals, attractions and other activities that can be built into the experience.
Logistics concerns such as transportation, shipping and receiving of materials, business services and related hotel and area needs.
Once this information is gathered, the hotel can create a profile that helps them compare appropriately to other venues that are attracting the type of business they wish to increase.
3. Choose the customer
Based on events they have held previously, and the reason for weekday business accommodations, there is some valuable information as to the customer base. Guests who visit businesses in the area provide an opportunity for hotels to reach out to those businesses and present options for additional or larger meeting needs.
These customers also provide a profile of other types of businesses that might be interested in off-site meetings or industries that could bring a conference to the area, based on the businesses already located here.
Finally, the hotel has an opportunity to pursue new events based on what it can easily provide.
4. Do the outreach
Outreach involves making current and potential customers aware of what you can do for them. This can take many forms, from industry advertising to joining networks to sponsoring events. When you have a working customer profile, your outreach options become easier because you can target more strategically, saving time and money.
5. Stay the course
It’s important to give your strategy time to work, and this is very different from guessing and reacting, which is in the moment. For many business owners, adjusting to the longer-term commitment is the hardest step of the process. If you can stick with it, you will reap the rewards and build a better foundation for this new revenue.
For the hotel, most events are booked a year or more in advance, so their strategy must recognize that timeline. Staying the course means being consistent and doing something every day that moves you in the direction of your goal.
Where’s the guarantee this will work
There is never a guarantee that something will work, but there are things you can do to increase your chances of success.
The golfer who wants to shoot par is never guaranteed that it will happen. However, his commitment to a strategy of how to choose the best club given the situation, or where to aim on the course, will give him a better chance of shooting par than just grabbing any club out of the bag and flailing away at the ball.
Strategies always pay off, sometimes exactly how you planned, other times in ways you hadn’t anticipated. You never lose anything by building a good game plan, and it can often have results in different areas of your business as well.
You can do strategy work on your own, and there are some chapters in the book Forward Thinking For Your Business that can help you when it comes to customers and finding time for marketing.
You can also work with me to develop a strategy to grow your business. Or you can seek out another strategy professional.
My goal is to encourage you to build a strategy so you can get the results you want. Make pars. Grow your business. Leave the competition in the dust!
Read more from Jennifer Layman
Jennifer Layman, Small Business Strategist
Jennifer Layman is a speaker, author, and strategist for small businesses. For 20 years, Jennifer has been at the helm of Forward Thinking Consulting, working with businesses and entrepreneurially-minded organizations to develop strategies that drive results. Jennifer draws on her experience in professional golf to bring elite performance techniques to small business owners around the world.
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