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#BestofFSCBlog : 4 Things Every Manager/Entrepreneur Needs to Do the First Week of the New Year.

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Now that the holidays are over and the new year is in full swing, it’s time to head back to the lab to formulate fresh, smart, and effective ideas that will grow your organization.

Whatever the size of your firm, whether you’re B2B or B2C, and regardless of the industry in which you operate, here are four must do’s that you need to launch if you’re aiming to increase profits and market share over the next 365 days:

1. 100-Day Plan.

Since the 1930’s when Franklin Roosevelt pioneered it as a means of gauging his effectiveness in the Oval Office, the 100-day plan has become a tradition for newly elected American Presidents. The plan consists of achievable short term goals that adhere to a President’s long term vision for the country. Entrepreneurs should write their own 100 day plans as blueprints for advancing their organization’s productivity and profitability. Such a plan establishes 100 tasks, and requires managers/business owners to consider the specific steps and resources that are needed to bring them to fruition.

While there’s a time and place for visionary long term planning, the 100-day plan allows managers/entrepreneurs to craft and pursue attainable objectives and start the year off with a burst of energy. When the 100-day finish line is reached mid-April, entrepreneurs will know if they should be celebrating or if they need to recalibrate their efforts.

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2. Declutter

Whether you want to improve the feng shui of your office or just make it easier to find and store your stuff, a comprehensive tidy up of your company’s work space is a laborious yet necessary task. To make it happen, set aside a Saturday when your team can come in, rent a dumpster and high capacity paper shredder, and destroy unnecessary documents, presentations and files, and toss out old equipment, brochures, books, product samples, and other unproductive items.

Once your space has been tightened and tidied, implement a cloud-based backup system that allows for fast and convenient recovery of your organization’s electronic files. The decluttering will not only allow your team to operate more efficiently, it will also help your office to look more streamlined and professional.

Related: 5 Marketing Essentials for Your Business to Appeal to Millennials

3. Fire the person you know you have to fire.

Maybe you’ve tried to intervene to help turn things around, or  you’ve ignored the problem in hopes that it would eventually take care of itself. But however you’ve handled the challenge of having weak members on your team, you know that they’re there and that they’re dangerous the to the health of your company.

If you didn’t have the heart to do any purging during the holiday season, delay no longer. The costs to your firm in reduced productivity, low employee morale, additional supervision, damaged client relationships, and lost revenue that are caused by substandard employees can be as high as $190,000 per year, so make a decision now to either remedy a situation that’s fixable — or to clean house.

Related: Pay Yourself: Why Founders Should Set Aside Profits Every Month

4. Get high or higher.

While 26 states and the District of Columbia have laws legalizing marijuana, the suggestion here isn’t that entrepreneurs should light up more. Instead, the first week of the new year is a perfect time to review and possibly raise the prices of your products or services. Too many small business owners try to compete by lowering their prices, and that’s often a mistake.

Instead, devise a plan by studying your competitive landscape; looking at your firm’s pricing history; reviewing the calendar to determine the best time to bump up your rate, fees, or prices; and thinking about how you can enhance the value of your offerings in order to justify price revisions. If you detect some white space that would allow for small yet profitable increases, you should absolutely seize it.

After the joy and frenzy of the holidays, it’s understandable if it takes a minute for business owners to snap back to attention and keep their ships moving forward, but the upside to getting started is significant. Entrepreneurs who have the discipline to leverage these four steps as an annual early January organizational “reboot” will help to energize their teams, inspire exciting ideas, and generate new opportunities for innovation and growth.

Entrepreneur.com | December 29, 2016 | Lyneir Richardson

#Leadership : 10 Tips for Planning a Successful Company Conference…A Conference that Isn’t Planned Well can Impact your Career Like a Lead Balloon. If the Speakers Don’t Impress Attendees, or You Run Out of Food, It can be Talked About for Months Afterward…And you Might Shoulder the Blame, or at Least Share It.

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Planning a company conference can boost your career and visibility. It can strengthen company sales and morale, depending on its purpose.

Networking Diverse Group

Conferences are complex, though, and can be tricky to plan. A compelling agenda and great speakers are a must. But so are food, comfortable seats and a myriad of elements behind the scenes. Think air conditioning. Heat. Morning coffee.

A conference that isn’t planned well can impact your career like a lead balloon. If the speakers don’t impress attendees, or you run out of food, it can be talked about for months afterward … And you might shoulder the blame, or at least share it. 

So plan your company conference thoroughly. Don’t leave anything to chance. Here are 10 tips for planning successfully.

Initial steps:
1. Decide on a clear purpose

Successful conferences have a clear purpose. Do you need to motivate the sales force? Introduce a new product? Engage in team-building activities? Bring separate geographical regions together? The purpose determines much of the rest of the conference: its size, its speakers and the agenda.

 

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2. Brainstorm a wishlist

Once you have a defining purpose, begin to brainstorm. What would you — and the meeting committee, if there is one — most like to see? Do you want to engage dynamic and well-known speakers? Do you want plenary sessions, where the entire group of attendees gathers to hear speakers? Or do you need a series of break-out sessions on multiple topics? What about the conference venue? Should it be near the company? In an area convenient to attendees throughout the U.S. and overseas?

3. Create a budget

Once you have a purpose and wish list, set up your budget. Be sure to include all the categories you need. Set up a line item for each thing on your wish list.

Will you need paid speakers? Will meals be part of the meeting? How about the venue? What kind of conference rooms will you need? Plenary session rooms may have to accommodate several hundred people, while break-out session rooms may only need to accommodate 20 or so. Will you be hiring vendors to create printed or web-based material? For meeting-related information?

Create a list of everything you need and how much each item will cost, roughly. Then begin your search for a venue that can accommodate all of it. Look for meeting places that offer flexible meeting packages and are well equipped to handle your needs.

4. Narrow down the wish list and budget

Once you’ve paired your wish list and the budget, one of two things might happen. One: Your available budget and the wish list are a match! You can now start the planning stage in earnest.

If you have a shortfall in the budget for your wish list conference, revise the plan so it fits within your budget. If you planned eight breakout sessions over two days, for example, streamline it into four sessions over one day. If your desired speakers quote expensive fees, scout around for an equally good one who will speak to your business for less — or pro bono.

5. Research Available Dates

The planning period of a conference needs to be at least one year, and preferably more. Why? Because meetings have a multitude of logistics. You need a venue, vendors and speakers all available on a particular date. If your planning period is less than a year, availability of one or more of these elements may be limited.

You will need to place a tent pole in the form of a date before all the planning is complete. It’s a good idea, though, to research availability dates for 1) venues that can accommodate the number of people and type of meeting you want, 2) well-known speakers and 3) vendors. Once you have their dates of availability, decide on the meeting date(s).

The Rubber Hits the Road: Planning in Earnest
You’re now ready to begin planning the conference!

6. Book the venue

Set up commitments for the place where the conference will be held. If the venue will be responsible for preparing and serving meeting meals, set up commitments for those as well.

7. Hire the speakers and vendors

Make arrangements with any speakers. Send them the meeting date, time and any other material needed. Hire any vendors you will need.

8. Develop the agenda

You may have a good sense of what the agenda is from the initial brainstorming sessions. Or, you may at this point need to sit down and draw it up, point by point. Developing a firm agenda should begin immediately once the date for the conference is firm.

Related: Need Help Networking? 4 Rules to Remember.

Be sure to circulate the agenda so that all relevant parties have seen and contributed to it before it is finalized.

9. Publicize the conference

All meetings, whether internal or external to the company, should be publicized. If attendance is mandatory — say it’s a motivational meeting for the sales force — publicity will excite the attendees and let them know what the meeting is all about. If it’s not mandatory — rolling out a new product, so employees can attend or not — publicity can provide reasons to attend.

Publicity should provide reasons that the meeting will be beneficial for attendees. Use it as an informational channel as well, to let people know the dates, the agenda, the venue and any surrounding attractions.

Decide what the publicity methods should be. Web site? E-mail blasts on a regular basis? Flyers and brochures? A story in the company newsletter? A mix of all these?

10. Evaluate the conference

This post-conference step is sometimes skipped. It shouldn’t be. You need concrete and measurable feedback on the conference for attendees. A short questionnaire asking what participants gleaned from the conference is a good idea. Go back to your purpose here. If the purpose was motivating the sales force, what was their take-away? If a new product launch, did attendees learn valuable information about the product? Were they comfortable during the meeting? Did they find it valuable to their careers?

Conference planning is a great way to build your visibility and profile within a company. Because conference planning is complex, it needs to be handled with an overall plan in place and specific steps to execution. These 10 tips will set you up for a memorable conference.

Entrepreneur.com | July 30, 2016 | SARAH LANDRUM