Businesses are run mostly on auto-pilot and any problem areas are only dealt with when they are already critical, but by then it may already be too late. Most business managers are too busy with day-to-day work to sit back and look at business critically in terms of its context and direction it is going. Brian Tracey's Turbo Strategy provides a checklist of areas that should be regularly examined by all businesses to ensure that it remains on right path towards success and profitability.

In book, author introduces practical techniques that will help you come up with strategies and more importantly turn up profit quickly:

1. The answers have changed – most businesses operate way they do because they are “tried” strategies, not because it is efficient and profitable. 2. Flexibility is essential – from time to time, it is important to take a step back and reevaluate situation, then do something about it. 3. The one true measure – two basic questions you need to ask everyday “What is working?” and “What is not working?”

Conduct a Basic Business Analysis Whenever you go in for a complete medical exam, doctors and nurses follow a set procedure. In same way, there are basic business examination questions that you need to ask and answer continuously to determine overall health of your organization. Remember following:

a. The Customer as Centerpiece. b. Determine What You Sell. c. Define Your Competitor. d. Set Clear Goals.

Design Your Ideal Future Practice Idealization. To do this you must think of what your company would look like five years from now if everything were perfect. Then think in terms of possibilities. Are goals you set achievable in five years?

Create a Mission Statement and Determine Your Values A mission statement is essential to an organization because it gives meaning and purpose to people in their daily activities and work. It inspires loyalty, commitment and become a key factor when making business decisions and when you are clear then you can easily revisit your mission statement and follow its guidelines.

Select Right People The two key qualities in finding best people are that they can be counted on to get job done well and to get it done on time. Another quality is that they should be good team players.

Market More Effectively The four essential elements of marketing are: specialization, differentiation, segmentation, and concentration. All marketing elements are important but you should constantly evaluate what you are doing. Remember that market is changing and changing fast! You may have to change one of your strategies or more than one at same time.

Analyze Your Competition You have to know your competition. You have to find out why customers buy from them, what values and benefits do they get from buying from them. The biggest mistake you can make is to belittle your customers. You have to study them and learn from them.

Three Potential Areas of Superiority

1. Operational Excellence 2. Lead Field 3. Be Close to Customer

Change your Marketing Mix

1. Product – define your product or service in terms of what it “does” for your customers. 2. Price – be open to possibility that you may have priced your products or services wrong. 3. Promotion – this encompasses everything you do in process of marketing, advertising and sales. 4. Place – this is location where sale of your product takes place.

See full color web version at: http://www.SeniorManagementServices.com/pvt-104-success.html

Success is no accident. Success leaves clues. You can create success on purpose.

Let's say you pick 100 people at random. How many of those people do you think could bake a great chocolate cake? A few? Many? Most?

Wouldn't you say success depends on whether they have a good recipe? Without a recipe, most people would not be able to bake a chocolate cake!

"94% of failure is due to lack of a proven system."

A good recipe is a proven system that "works" every single time. Obviously, cook does actual work.

============================================================ Can you develop a recipe for success in business? ============================================================

Here's problem (I mean, challenge): 95% of all businesses fail within 10 years of start up. The primary cause is management incompetence. The solution is for management to build success into business by developing a "recipe" to make business work.

In round numbers, let me show you business failure statistics.

40% fail in first year 80% fail within 5 years 95% of all new businesses fail within 10 years

Still, small business is, and always has been, backbone of our US economy.

Today, about 33 million (1 in 4) Americans run solo practices or micro-businesses with a max of 9 employees.

Further, mill'ions of other small businesses employ ten or more people.

Surprisingly, small businesses employ MOST of workforce, create MOST of new jobs, and produce MOST of private gross domestic product (GDP).

Hard to believe, right? Typically, we hear about BIG business in "news"!

Why do most business fail?

Compelling research shows repeatedly: "management incompetence."

Many people who start businesses make this fatal assumption:

"I am an expert in doing technical work of a business. Therefore, I will be an expert in managing a business that does technical work."

However, knowing technical work of business becomes new entrepreneur's biggest liability! Why? Because most entrepreneurs snap right back into doing technical work (tactics) and forget about strategy (as I discussed in last week's PVT).

They get so busy baking chocolate cakes that they forget to build company, innovate, and watch market. They forget BIG IDEA, and their Entrepreneurial Dream turns into a technical nightmare!

Doing technical work of a business is way different than managing business of doing technical work! For example, I have seen very few great salesmen make good sal'es managers.

============================================================ 14.3 million more business failures? ============================================================

Economic forecasts predict that self-employed people will increase by up to 50% by 2010. Why? Corporate downsizing and human desire for independence.

But, more people going into business means even more business failures.