Ready Your Business for 2005

This is the time of year we naturally find ourselves focusing on selfimprovement
“?heading off to the gym early in the morning, staying
away from the chocolate-chip cookies, resolving to study every
article of The Big Picture this year. This, of course, is good. It's even
better if we are still doing these same things later in the year”?say,
April or May.

I wonder, however, how often we go through the same process
for our businesses. Let's review a few things that may help us set
up a better roadmap for our businesses to follow in 2005.

Evaluating last year

The first step involves a critical
review of last year's performance.
Be tough on yourself, but
be fair. What things did you do
right? What went wrong? If you
did establish goals and budgets,
how did you perform? Be specific
in documenting your successes
as well as your failures. Without
exception, every business during
the course of each year suffers
some dose of failure while also enjoying some measures of success;
the trick is to experience more of the latter than the former.

The process of gathering this information will assist you
greatly in planning for 2005. If your company is like mine, holding
a comprehensive review of the prior year will provide, for better
or for worse, some amazing revelations about yourself and
your company. Make sure you formally document all of this
information”?you should use it as a starting point in your plan
for the new year.

If you're a sole proprietor, you may be tempted to go through
this process yourself. But make certain you don't”?you need to
involve others in the process. It may be your most trusted
employee or perhaps a group of managers. It may be a spouse or
partner”?as long as they are involved in the business, understand
what you are trying to accomplish, and can provide an
objective view. If you are using some of your employees, make
sure the lines of communication are wide open and no one feels
threatened by any repercussions from being honest.

Setting goals for '05

Now it's time to get to work on this year's plan. The blueprint you
are now building should flow from the information gathered from
your discussion of the past year. Build on the successes and figure
out a way to avoid the failures.

While every business has different methods of setting goals
and measuring subsequent success, I've listed below some questions
to ask yourself while setting your 2005 business goals.

Marketing, capital expenditures, HR, and cash flow:

• What are my sales goals for the year, and what are my plans
  to get there?
• Where do I find myself in the marketplace with regards to my
  primary competitors?
• Is my market expanding or contracting?
• Do I need to diversify into new areas?
• Conversely, am I involved in so many product offerings that
  I'm unable to focus my efforts in my most profitable products?

Capital expenditures and your physical plant:

• What kind of capital expenditures do I need to budget for to
  accomplish my marketing goals?
• Is my machinery and equipment still technologically capable
  to allow me to compete aggressively?
• Do I need to make changes to my physical facilities?

Human resources:

• Do I have the sales force to accomplish my sales goals?
• Am I understaffed or overstaffed?
• Am I too heavily staffed in administration? How does my ratio
  of “administrative-to-production personnel” compare to prior
  years?
• How do my “net sales/employee” compare with other years?
• Do I have the proper personnel in management positions?
• Am I so involved in the daily affairs of the business that I miss
  the larger picture (which I should be focusing on)?
• Conversely, am I am involved enough?

Cash-flow and profitability concerns:

• What changes should I make to better manage my cash flow?
• Has my “average days outstanding” on my accounts receivable
  gone up or down?
• How are my relationships with my suppliers?
• What are my expectations for profitability this year?
• What expenditures can I cut to become more profitable?
• Have I budgeted for capital expenditures during the coming
  year, and how will I pay for them?

Marty McGhie ([email protected]) is VP finance/
operations of Ferrari Color, a digital imaging center with Salt
Lake City, San Francisco, and Sacramento locations.