Cash is King!
Strategy is important, execution is essential, building a healthy culture is critical, but cash is king. It trumps everything else, and without the proper cash flow, you will never achieve your vision. Your coach should help you understand what a healthy cash position is and enable you to make the necessary business decisions to improve your cash position. One key metric that provides a clear understanding of your current cash position is Days of Cash.
Is your culture truly alive?
Creating and maintaining a healthy organizational culture is easy to say and hard to do, but the key is to start at the top of the organization. Culture sits firmly in the CEO or Owner seat. It isn’t something that you outsource to HR or some other function. It is important to be purposeful in defining your culture. Think of it as Core Ideology-it is who you are and where you are going. The three essential tenants of Core Ideology are Purpose, Vision, and Core Values.
A quality coach can help you create your Core Ideology, but more importantly, help you integrate it into the day-to-day operations. Too many companies have created a Core Ideology and posted it on their walls, but they don’t drive it through the entire organization. They do not live it; it’s words on a page, but not put into action. Your coach should help you integrate Core Ideology into your hiring and performance management processes
Do you have the right team?
In a recent webinar, Jim Collins, author of the business classic, “Good to Great,” received questions about the most important priorities in growing and scaling a business. His response was quick and decisive— “Get the right people; this is more important than anything.” Organizations get better at strategy and execution when they get better at getting the right people. This starts at the top, and frequently, leaders become blinded by the effectiveness of their teams and the individuals that make them up. It’s lonely at the top. Working with a coach who gets to know your organization provides an outside perspective. They help ensure that you have the “right people on the bus and in the right seats on the bus.” This focus is essential, and it never ends. You’re never done building your team and working with a coach holds you accountable for finding the “right people.”
Are you working closest to the money?
Quarterly rocks and priorities are essential, but are your teams focused on converting your effort into revenue, gross margin, and profit? Another way to think about this. You can spend a lot of time working hard, making a significant effort, but are you working urgently on the activities and priorities closest to the money? If you aren’t, consistent success will be difficult. Your coach should help you create a Key Function Flow Map (KFFM) that identifies the functions in your business that drive revenue, profit, and cash. An identified owner and well-defined metrics for each function provide insight and data on how well your organization is performing closest to the money.
Do you have a differentiating strategy?
Organizations are continually working on getting better at execution. Execution is essential to organizational success. The problem is that many organizations have not defined their unique place in the market, so they compete on features, benefits, and ultimately price while working hard on executing a poorly defined strategy.
Think about it this way. You are mining for gold. You have a shovel….and you dig and dig. You may find a little bit of gold, but not the treasure that you’re looking for. So, we have an execution problem. We are not moving enough dirt. We fix that by buying a backhoe. We can now improve our execution by moving from manual labor to leveraging technology and moving massive amounts of dirt. Surely, we will find more gold! So, we start digging again, and after moving massive amounts of dirt, our performance improves, but only minimally. We are working hard, and our machinery is working perfectly, but why are we not seeing the success that we envisioned?
Here is why: THERE ISNT ANY GOLD THERE! If we haven’t conducted the appropriate geological studies, we can move all the dirt we want, but we will not find the success we require. Running a healthy, profitable business is the same. Your coach should help you understand your core customers, discover the needs of those customers and then develop a comprehensive strategy that outlines your 3-5 key differentiators that create a unique and different approach to the market.
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