Winning Strategies key differentiators? Are they understood within the company and are the differences being communicated regularly to clients and prospects? What has changed with the competition in the last nine months? What are they doing better or worse, what strategies are they using to grow their business? What can be adapted or adopted from the competition that can be applied to how your company operates? Fourth, review your own calendar for the last nine months. How much time is spent riding your desk and ruling the business versus investing time with clients, prospects, employees, vendors and other business associates? The more time spent with clients and prospects and the people in the company that generate revenue, the more revenue the business will gain. Strengthening existing relationships both internally and externally helps. Creating new relationships is how your future is established. As an employee, I know from firsthand experience how impactful spending time with the printing owner can be. It’s a chance to listen, to learn, and to understand what is important to the employee. The owner can link the needs of the business to that of the employee, creating a loyalty and a bond that will yield dividends for years. Fifth, whatever the greatest opportunities might be for your business in the last quarter, make the decision to assign your best people to tackle them to bring the opportunities to fruition. Buy, build, or borrow the tools that are needed to make these efforts a success. These next three months, work on—and not in—your business. Push hard, finish strong, and end the year on a high note! Find this article at PrintingNews.com/12111930 Mitch Evans is a director and senior team member at Graphic Arts Advisors, LLC (GAA), concentrating on working with quick and small commercial printers and mailers. Contact him at 561-351-6950 or mitch@ graphicartsadvisors.com. Printing- News.com/10108365 Steps to a Strong Final Quarter Take a breath and appreciate your hard-fought victories from the first nine months of 2015! By Mitch Evans By this time in the fall, everyone should be back at work from their vacations, getting the kids back in school, and back on a more normal routine. Now is the time to take action to have a great last quarter. The first step is to take the time to identify and celebrate successes earned in the first nine months of the year. Americans are funny people; we set goals, strive hard to meet them, and, when we achieve them, we rarely take the time to truly appreciate the effort and energy expended for these hardfought wins. In fact, most people in business (and life) downplay their successes lest they make others feel badly. Don’t do this: celebrate successes! The process is easy; sit down and make a list of all the things you are grateful for having accomplished between January 1 and September 30. Write them all down—big and small—in all functions of the printing business. Be sure and identify any significant breakthrough achievements that might warrant special thanks. Often this kind of progress is identified only in hindsight as a game changthe er. Take the time to share the good news, and allow others to share the spotlight. Sincerely thank others, including employees, vendors, clients and business associates. If you can’t do it in person, do it with a telephone call, an email or a handwritten note. The kindness you display will be remembered for a very long time. The second step is to take a list of all the projects and assignments that you have begun since the first of the year, but are not yet completed. Measure the progress and list those that can be quickly finished. This will enable the feeling of success to continue right to the end of the year. You will feel much better about setting goals for 2016, knowing that you accomplished most or all of your goals for 2015. Those projects that can’t be finished quickly need to be prioritized and new focus given to complete them before the end of the year. The third step is to review the sustainable, competitive advantage of the business. Take the time to find out and compare how your printing company is performing versus the competition. What are PrintingNews.com Printing News | October 2015 27
Printing News October 2015
To see the actual publication please follow the link above