Three things to do over the holidays for a successful 2011

Last week I shared my predictions for things that are likely to happen in 2011. This week I want to switch to professor mode and give you some holiday homework—do these three things before 2011 to turn “ho-ho-ho” into “dough-dough-dough.”

Create a business plan. I’ll say it bluntly: if you’re not doing a business plan… you’re a monkey. Creating a business plan is one of the most important fundamentals for success, yet I would bet that the majority of people (business owners and sales professionals) don’t take the time to do it. Don’t tell me you don’t have time or you don’t know how. A quick Google search will land you hundreds of guides and templates that you can work from. I beg you. This is absolutely essential.

Create an account plan for your top five customers. In general, your top five represent a whopping 80% of your business, so this may be one of the most important things you can do to ensure you maintain your competitive advantage. The key is building value with the resources that you offer as a distributor or sales professional. I would suggest focusing on three areas: 1) Use an organization chart and focus on building programs/partnerships with other divisions within the company; 2) leverage technology wherever you can to build “stickiness” with the client; and 3) connect all promotional products spend to a specific metric.

Fire the bottom 20% of your accounts. This is more about increasing your profitability per hour. I would suspect that the bottom 20% of your relationships/accounts account for 30-40% of your time. By firing these low producing/high time intensive accounts, you could free up a good chunk of time that could instead be used for prospecting or further developing your top accounts. Add this activity to your “stop doing” list. It may be a difficult thing to do, but you’ll be thanking me this time next year!

Hopefully these three assignments will provide you with a roadmap for success in 2011. Best of luck finishing the year strong!

Be Boundless,

-JB

Posted by Jason Black , CEO and President of Boundless Network in Austin, Texas

About Jason Myers

Jason Myers is the editor-in-chief of the Texas Entrepreneur Network and can be reached at jason@txenetworks.com