Will your business be as profitable in 2008 as you need it to be? Do you have a clear idea of what the business needs to produce to meet your needs? Do you have a good plan in place to make sure you will “get there” in 2008? Don’t leave it up to chance. It’s time to plan your trip to a place called “Success”.

Technology is great. It has given us many tools to be more productive in operating a business. GPS is a technology that we use in business and personally to get where we are going. Your role as a business owner, organization director or other leader is to be the GPS. So, let’s take a ride…

What is the first thing we do when we are going to take a trip? We decide where we are going, specifically. And, to enter that information into our GPS to start the trip, we need a specific destination. In my career, I have seen many business owners and organization leaders have not clearly, specifically defined where they want to go. They may know that they want more sales, more customers, less cost, better cash flow, more free time, whatever. But the net result is not specific. The problem with this is this is somewhat like trying to set your GPS to “somewhere north of here”.

The value of the GPS is that it knows exactly where you are. As a leader, do you know exactly where your business is? Is your accounting accurate and up-to-date? Do you understand the financial statements? Do you have daily performance measures to know if you are on the right track? What is your profit margin on each product or category? What does it really cost to deliver your service? Which marketing activities is producing results? How effective are your employees? How many new customers are you getting per week or per month? Without this information, you do not know where the business is right now.

Once you have clearly defined your destination and know where you are, the real leadership challenge begins. If you take a wrong turn or miss an exit on a trip, your GPS will tell you are not on the right route and calculates a new one. It re-works the route, by comparing where you are now (after your wrong turn) and what you need to do to get back on the route to your destination. The key to business management is to closely watch those business performance indicators so that when you are off track (sales are down, costs are rising, margins are low, etc) you adjust by creating and implementing a plan to get back on the route to your destination. This is a continual process and the essence of every management position.

It is easy to get off track. There are so many factors that will cause this to happen. But, just like on a road trip, it is not a big deal to adjust course if it is done very soon after getting off track. Unfortunately, many businesses are not clear in their destination, do not know exactly where they are or do not quickly adjust to “wrong turns”. The daily demands of operating a business can sometimes keep you from managing it.

If you were to leave Baltimore headed to a specific location in Boston, it only takes a few wrong turns early on in the trip and you could end up in Chicago. The key to good business management is to recognize these wrong turns and make corrections long before you see the signs “Welcome to Chicago!”.