Identify Business Strengths and Weaknesses with This Easy, Team-Building Activity

Thursday, August 18th, 2011

Team-building activities are a great way to have fun while developing solutions to your business challenges.

Here is a great exercise that you can use for your next strategy or team building meeting. We developed this idea when trying to come up with a new way to do a company SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis. Below you will see an overview of how to run an interactive session with your team or business.

Goal:

In a fun and lighthearted way, identify real strengths and weaknesses of your business team and develop actual future process improvements and recommendations. Groups perform parody skits that describe their business or team function, for example a job flowing all the way from the customer to the office to the shop and back to the customer. Highlight your group’s theme and remember to have fun and keep it entertaining!

Time:

1 ½ hours of group time and prep
10 minutes for presentations (3 min skit 1 + 3 min skit 2 + process improvements and discussion)

Rules:

1. Each group is given a unique open-ended theme to analyze. This should be a well-documented, common occurrence in your business for which you would like to find a cause and eliminate. Keep your theme from the other groups, as the other groups will be guessing what your theme is.
2. Groups discuss the issue among themselves and how it relates to everyday business.
3. Each group develops a 3-minute comedy skit depicting the problem. This does not have to be scripted, but everyone must play a part and speak. Wear a name tag depicting your role or roles if you play more than one. The skits are intended to be a parody of your business or team’s common strengths and weaknesses.
4. You cannot only play yourself in the skit. Try and mix it up; you can play more than one role.
5. If time allows, groups could also develop a 3-minute skit depicting how things would ideally run.
6. Following the skits, groups present 2 or 3 possible process improvements or recommendations that relate to their assigned problem.  These solutions, if implemented, should be ideas that would benefit the team.
7. Use any and all things available to you as props.
8. Have some fun. There are no wrong answers! If we can’t laugh at ourselves, who can we laugh at?

These exercises will likely end with a lot of new ideas in addition to some great laughs with your group. The key is presenting it in such a way that everyone is willing to participate and step out of the normal day-to-day a bit. Good luck!

Has your company tried similar team-building activities?  If so, how did they work?  Were new ideas generated?

11 Steps to Starting Your Own Company

Sunday, June 26th, 2011

With the current economy, it’s easy to get caught up in all of the negative media and doom and gloom, but even with the dynamics of our economy, there are great opportunities for new business start-ups.

Many of us have new business ideas floating around in our head, sometimes for years before putting any serious thought into it.  Then one day someone or something spurs us to take it to the next step — what would it take to make this idea reality?

As with any project or undertaking, the key to a successful business start-up is having a good plan.  What makes your idea unique?  How will you generate sales?  If this is a traditional “brick and mortar” type business, you need to take a serious look at your overhead costs.

For example, if you’re opening a coffee shop, how many cups of coffee does it take to cover the water or electric bill?  What about that custom $8,000 latte/cappuccino whiz bang percolating machine?  All of these should be considerations when you’re thinking through your plan.  Nevertheless, don’t get too bogged down in the details initially.  Although details are very important, start out thinking big picture.

1. Discover your unique selling proposition

Really, the first place to start is sales.  Without sales there is no business plan and ultimately no business.  You need to look at the competition in your market.  What has made them successful?  What are some areas you think you can do better than them?  Do some research to estimate how much revenue you think you can carve out of the market.  You also need to start formulating your brand, which incorporates some of what we already discussed.  It’s what makes you stand apart from your competition.  Basically, you need to decide if there’s room in the market for you. What will you provide that the competition doesn’t?

2. Decide how you’ll sell

The next big question is where are your sales going to come from?  Is this door-to-door, retail, Internet?  Who is going to be your sales person?  Typically in start-up businesses you are going to be in charge of sales at least starting out.  If you don’t have a sales background I would strongly recommend some sales training.  This will prove to be valuable not only in the beginning, but as you hopefully grow your company and build a sales force.  Unless you plan on being a “one man band,” you will likely have to delegate sales responsibilities in the future.

3. Decide how you’ll deliver

Execution comes next. How are you going to deliver your product now that you’ve sold it?  No matter what your business, you are going to need to align yourself with good partners.  Discuss your idea with potential suppliers and partners to make sure they are on board.  Also, you will likely need to hire some help once you can afford it, so now is a good time to scope out who you might want to join your team and have a brief discussion with them to see if there’s interest.

4. Make it official

Now it’s time to put it on paper.  Come up with a business description of what you are looking to do with this venture.  Start off the business description with a mission statement.  Follow up with a list of products and services you envision offering.  Next, create a list of key success factors — what is going to make this new business fly?  What are you going to have to excel in to make it?  Be descriptive, but some general ones that always apply are taking care of your customers and building relationships for future repeat business.

It is also good to look at key failure points.  What are the pitfalls that could cut your new fledgling business short?  This can be items like disgruntled customers, cash flow, poor quality product, no after sales support, etc.  Again, we don’t want to focus on the negative, but we do need to make sure we’re not wearing rose-colored glasses.

5. Anticipate when you’ll need to hire

Next, look at what personnel you anticipate needing.  It is good to look at this in a phased approach.  List who you will need out of the gate, then define milestones at what point you will add to your team.  Milestones should be based on revenue and profit, not time based.

6. Create a list of goals

You should create a list of goals you would like to accomplish with your business.  Who will be your key customer or demographic?  What will be your corporate culture?  It’s good to have this list of goals to use as a guide in making business decisions.

7. Identify the competition

Who is your competition?  What are their specialties and what makes them unique?  Why have they been successful?  List them by name and provide these attributes for each.  This helps bring to light what makes your business different from them.

8. Plan out your financials

Now that you have your business description completed (or first draft anyway!), start thinking in detail what the financials will look like.  Start with revenues and estimate how much revenue you can generate in the first year.  You then need to estimate the cost of sales (i.e. the salaries and materials to create your product).  What are your sales expenses?  This is likely where your salary will go, at least starting out.  Then the fun part — operating expenses!  This is all of the overhead it takes to get your business off the ground.  Obvious costs are rent, utilities, equipment, etc.  Also look at other costs, such as healthcare, telecom costs, and office supplies.

9. Think thrifty

What is your cash outlay?  The leading demise of new start-up companies is running out of cash.  You may require a loan to start up your business, but anything you can do to use your own money and eliminate getting in with the bank will help the financial health of your company.  Think thrifty and cut costs where you can.  You can always buy that new piece of equipment later, after you are up and making money.  Be conservative on spending when starting out until the business supports spending on its own.

10. Get feedback

At this point you have a pretty solid rough draft of a plan.  It is always a good idea to run this past another business owner that you trust.  Get their feedback, and ask them to be blunt and not pull punches.  You are likely going to put a lot of effort, sweat, tears, and capital into this venture and getting constructive criticism upfront is very wise.  Make sure you keep an open mind here and not let pride take over if someone has some feedback.

11. Find Your Support Group

Whenever you embark on a new business you need to make sure you have a strong support group.  You will likely be working a lot of hours to get this off the ground and your friends and family will need to be on board and supportive.  The last thing you want to do is jeopardize your family support — no business or amount of money is worth that.  You may also need some of their help in the beginning to get product out the door!

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If you follow each of these steps, you will be armed with what should be a pretty solid business plan.  You have consulted with suppliers, potential partners and employees, accountants, and other business owners.  It’s time to get started.  The next few years will involve a lot of late nights and weekends, but if you work hard and work smart, with a little luck it will all pay off.  Good luck!