It’s important that you see where your business is headed. To do this, you need to consider where it has been. Why?
Let’s take a moment to pause and reflect.
The pandemic changed everything, making the last couple of years something like trying to train a new dog.
In the world of dog training, when a dog begins to struggle, it is common practice to go back to the previous lesson and start again from there.
If the dog is really struggling, you go back two or three lessons: Return to the point where the learner was consistently successful, then move forward again.
Every dog learns differently. This goes for horses, cats, and business owners as well.
Because of the pandemic, business owners have had to go back to the beginning. The game changed that much. We had to learn the new rules of business survival.
And that’s ok. In fact, it’s an opportunity.
To take advantage of this opportunity, we need to review the new rules and make sure we’ve got them straight as we head into 2022.
At the end of this blog, we’ll link back to a number of previous posts. They all work together in preparing you for the upcoming year. They will also allow you to reflect on how your business fared during the pandemic, and how it will fare after.
It doesn’t matter if you’re a startup owner, a business veteran, or somewhere in between. This exercise is for all owners.
With one exception. This is NOT for owners waiting for “normal” to return, for the old-school demand/supply/job model to reassert itself. That world is in the history books. It’s not coming back.
We’re doing business in a brave new world.
So, let’s get started.
Getting Up to Speed
You might remember when we went over The Operational Scorecard back at Jumpstart Operations 2019. It has turned out to be remarkably relevant for 2022, now updated as The Management Scorecard.
The scorecard outlined the evolutionary stages of a business. Here’s a refresher:
The scorecard broke business into categories that allowed owners to assess what stage of evolution their business was in, so they could transition into the next.
The evolutionary stages of a business range from Beta to version 3.0.
For example, a business in the Beta or Startup stage has no choice but to outsource almost everything, while a business that has evolved into the 3.0 stage uses outsourcing as a business strategy rather than a band-aid.
The categories for assessing your business are:
- Outsourcing
- Scalability
- Branding
- Forecasting
- Centralized Services
- Management
The 2019 scorecard was used by owners as a roadmap leading to the goal of success.
And then came 2020.
Massive Reset
2020
When the COVID pandemic hit in 2020, no matter what evolutionary stage a business happened to be in before, everyone suddenly found themselves back in the Beta stage.
Outsourcing became a necessity across the board.
And because outsourcing was once again a necessity, the remaining categories fell back toward the Beta point as well.
There was some good news to be found. Beta wasn’t new anymore. Everyone was already familiar with the Beta stage, even if that’s where they were when the pandemic hit. That meant we were a whole lot smarter navigating Beta than the first time we set sail.
2021
Because of this familiarity, businesses made rapid progress to shift from Beta to 1.0 in the first half of 2021. Owners realized that instead of trying to save money on outsourcing, they should be selling better, which brought scalability into play.
In the second half of 2021, owners realized they needed to get things together to transition to 2.0 by the end of the year. According to the scorecard, this meant making outsourcing a core competency. They developed processes to take care of details since they couldn’t throw people at problems anymore.
This is also when owners realized that our brand is why people come to us. We have more customers than capacity not because our salesforce is out there finding more business but because so many clients are seeking out our brand.
Owners also came to understand that we have to plan for the unexpected because forecasting is unreliable. Who saw the pandemic coming?
They also began developing centralized services where a core team acquires, plans, and manages the execution.
(That’s a big one to note. The core team manages the execution; they don’t execute it.)
Owners are putting this all together to make the leap into 2.0 by the end of the year or soon thereafter.
2022
From Beta to 1.0 in one year. Check.
Now you’re starting off the new year in 2.0. Excellent.
Where do you want to be by the end of 2022? Will you be able to fully transition to 3.0?
That’s the idea.
Circling Back
In order to achieve the goal of 3.0 by the end of 2022, it will be helpful, even critical, to review some earlier posts so you can begin 2022 with a clear plan in mind.
Many owners learned how to run their businesses from their predecessors. There’s nothing wrong with that. Wisdom comes from experience. But how many of your predecessors were familiar with doing business in world that operated largely through computer technology during a pandemic?
You are the new normal. Experience is the best teacher, and you’re in on the ground floor of the post-pandemic world.
But some things never change.
You are your brand.
Leadership is all about motivation.
Planning trumps reacting.
These are age-old principles that still apply today.
The principles are the same, but the game has changed. Review the posts provided below. They’re important chapters in the new rule book. You need to know the rules if you’re going to win the game.
When you feel you have a solid understanding of the principles and practices in these posts, it’s time to play ball.
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