Rewired For Success

If you are a business owner and you are getting yourself ready for growth this year, then most likely you are getting ready to scale up.

When putting your tech strategy together, it's really important to make sure that you don't make costly mistakes.

Growing as a business is good, but you need to make sure that you are ready to accept growth in your business.

Can you cope with new customers? Do you have the processes and plans in place?

The last thing that you want is to grow at a pace that you cannot handle, and fall flat on your face!

In my blog post and podcast last week I took you through a 5 step process to develop your tech strategy.

To recap, the steps are:

1. Select somebody that you trust who is not in your business
2. Set-up interviews between them and the members of your team
3. Ensure they ask your team the right questions - what is their biggest challenge? How would they do it differently? What is holding them back? They need to repeat the questions until the team member runs out of ideas – 20-30 minutes per person
4. Don't get stuck in technology – look for patterns in the processes
5. Create a list and rank it in importance

If you have done this already then hopefully you gained a considerable amount of clarity on your business. You will have a good idea of what you need to do this year at a strategic level, but now you need to put a plan in place.

How do you get your plan together?

There is a 4 step process to creating your plan.

1. Define your mission: What is the single mission for your business? For example, if you are an online shop selling garden furniture then your number one mission is to sell garden furniture. It may seem simple but people can get hung up on distractions and forget what their mission really is. Look at your mission as your annual plan.
2. Define your objectives: What are the objectives that are going to make a really big difference this year? I recommend choosing 4 key objectives – 1 per quarter. For example, coming back to the online shop selling garden furniture, one objective for quarter 1 could be to get a single view of the customer. Look at you objectives as a way of setting-up as your quarterly plan.
3. Work out your strategy for achieving your objectives: You have defined your objective, now it's time to work out how you can achieve it. Coming back to the online garden furniture shop, if they want to obtain a single view of their customer, this may involve interrogating their multiple customer databases and creating a single database. As a tip, I recommend having (at least) 12 strategies – 1 strategy per month. Look at them as your monthly plans. 

1. Develop tactics – what are you going to do on a week-by-week or day-by-day basis to achieve the goals set out in your plans? You have a strategy but how are you going to implement it? For example, coming back to the online garden furniture shop example again, you may need to define the various steps involved in migrating customer records from one database to another – who is going to do what, when and how? Look at this as your daily tasks.

 Get your team aligned

Every week you should meet with your team, and ensure that they take tasks forward for the week ahead that are aligned to the overall plan. This is a critical step in moving forward.

The process that I have taken you through here is nothing new. It may be considered 'old school'. But I promise you, it's the simple stuff that works!  These methods are tried and tested and have proven they work over many decades. I have seen this first hand more times than I can remember.

 Get my free Tech Strategy Planning Guide

I have developed a free downloadable guide that takes you end-to-end through the entire process. My template will help you to get your strategy defined, as covered in episode 1 of my podcast and in last week's blog post. 

Plus, it takes you through everything covered in today's article and episode 2 of my podcast – turning your strategy into a plan.

You can use my Tech Strategy Planning Guide to get your tech plan in place for 2018 – click here to download.

I would love to see what you are planning for the year. Please also go ahead and join my Facebook Group. In the group I am available to answer questions and I go-live on a weekly basis.

To find our more please head to http://rewired.co/tech-plan-in-hour/

This week, in episode 1 of my Rewired for Success podcast, I share lots of great tips and advice on how to build a simple tech plan in under a day.

Sounds crazy right? I can assure you it's not. Let me explain. 

Businesses don't run on technology alone

Firstly, we need to remind ourselves that businesses don't run on technology alone. There are many businesses that seem so focused on technology that it may feel like decisions are dictated by the technology. 

However, when it comes to making decisions, we need to bring our focus away from the technology. 

Technology wouldn't exist without people

Do you see a new shiny piece of technology, or an all singing, all dancing piece of software and you simply have to have it?

Stop! Hold back on the urge and look at your overall tech strategy.

It's really important to steer clear of making irrational technology decisions.

All businesses need customers and money coming in, of course. But, there are three key ingredients that make up any successful business.

1. The best people

Without people there is no knowledge in your business. You need the right people doing the right roles.

1. The best processes

This is your DNA. It's what makes your business unique and what glues your business together. This is where you delight your customers

1. The best tools

Your technology. Select the right tools for the job.

It's all about timing. Bringing in the right people, tools and processes at the right time.

If you are starting out and you want to set up a good foundation for growth, then they are the three key areas to look at.

How can you put a simple plan together?

It's important to look at this from an internal and external perspective. Internally is what I'm focusing on in this article (people, processes and tools). External would be more about how your customer views you and your business and how can you provide a better service (something I'm going to focus on in future articles, videos and podcast episodes).

I have a 5 step process for developing a plan in a day and it goes like this… 

1. Select somebody who you trust who is not in your business – e.g. a mentor, trusted advisor, potentially even a customer
2. Set-up interviews between them and the members of your team – if you are a solopreneur this can be a 1:1 meeting with you. If you have 5-10 people then everyone should be interviewed. If you have over 10 people then 50-80% of people should be interviewed
3. Ask them to ask the following three questions

What is their biggest challenge?

How would they do it differently?

What is holding them back?

 Repeat until they run out of ideas – 20-30 minutes per person

1. Don't get stuck in technology – look for patterns in the processes
2. Create a list and rank it in importance

Important tip: Make sure you create the right environment for people to feel comfortable sharing.

You now have the start of a scale-up tech plan.

Take one item from your list, starting at the top, and implement each week. This may involve just doing one different thing each week.

Resist the urge to invest in tech 

First and foremost, resist the urge to invest in tech. First off make changes involving your people and processes. Potentially tweak your software but don't invest in new technology. We don't want to make costly mistakes.

Do not be that business that invested in new technology then it crashed and burnt and you lived to regret it.

By following my process, you may not get to all of the answers but you will understand your business better and you'll be one step closer to making the right technology decisions.

To find out more please click here

Welcome to the Rewired for Success podcast hosted by Torben Anderson.

The podcast where small business owners and solo entrepreneurs take control and rewire their businesses for scale-up success. Learn to make the best investments in people, tech, and tools for your business.

In this introductory episode find what the podcast is about, who it is for, and what to expect.

Find out more at http://rewired.co