Keep more cash by focusing on execution

Top line revenues can provide you with a thrill and an ego boost, particularly when you're growing your business. Revenue growth is an indicator of the strength of your strategy. But as your Mom used to say to you, "It doesn't matter how much you make - it's how much you keep that counts." When you want to keep more of the cash that's coming in, focus on your execution.

Profitability - and specifically cash - generates the oxygen that fuels growth and sustainability in your business. It also helps your business withstand variations in the business cycle, even when other businesses can't afford to keep their doors open. Today we're going to do a brief touch on some of the ingredients that will enable outstanding execution. 

Working ON the business, not just IN it

Working IN the business, your daily activities generate revenue, and there are costs associated with generating that revenue. Smooth, reliable execution of the basics is important so your customers come back and refer others. 

Rocks, or quarterly priorities, are the working ON the business projects that make working IN the business better. What are you doing to become smoother, faster, even more reliable to attract and retain customers?  These projects can't happen all at once without interfering with daily activities. Companywide, limit yourself to no more than 5 priorities (projects), and know which is your top 1 of the five. If your #1 is a biggie, maybe that's your max for the quarter. It's not necessarily about doing more. It's about doing what is the most important. Focus!

Metrics

How do you know how well your business is doing? How can you predict its health 3 or 6 months from now? Do you know how good you can be? Many businesses use metrics, but many of the old favorites are views in the rear view mirror. They tell you where you have been, but don't help you see where you are going. You need to develop some leading indicators - metrics that tell you what your revenue opportunities are going to be.

In addition to sales and production metrics, people metrics are also important for you to assess company health. Staff turnover rates, for instance, help you identify whether your culture is healthy and hiring and training costs within reason. It's hard to grow a company, even with the coolest products, if the team is a revolving door of newbies. 

Rhythm for Communication

Communication is one of the top three issues our clients talk about in their companies. It absolutely impacts execution.  In general, the faster you want to move, the faster your meeting rhythm needs to pulse. Faster pulse means meeting more frequently.

How fast do you learn about problems, and how responsive are you with solutions? What if you didn't have to wait so long for questions to be answered, problems solved, and ideas shared? What is your current mode of communication costing you?

Meetings have different purposes and different participants:

• Daily huddle - synchronizing activity and identifying sticking points - 10 minutes!
• Weekly departmental - solving problems
• Monthly management - assessing progress on priorities, training, strategic discussion

Strategy and priorities are updated quarterly - a look at the really big picture and the company's foundations, differentiators, and big strategic moves is done annually. You might be under the impression that the big planning meeting is they key to success. Actually, the execution magic is in the daily-weekly-monthly rhythms.

If you only want to dip your toe in the water on new meeting rhythms, start with the huddle. That's the closest to the action that you can get as a leader, and you'll find a lot of material there for helping your business move forward. In the huddle you'll also find a new (or renewed) appreciation for how your staff is leaping tall buildings in a single bound for your business. Every. Day.