Make a list of your seven strongest competitors over the last three years. Odds are at least two of them are out of business, and one, while still in business, is no longer a competitor. If you can figure out why they went out of business, and prevent these situations in your company, you may have a long future. Let's try!
So, write down seven top competitors to your broadest lines over the last three years, ignoring if they are currently in business or not. For each one, take a few minutes and write out all of the strong points of each competitor, and in a second column, write out the weaknesses of each. You will find the ones that are no longer in business have a longer list of weaknesses, or one weakness so overpowering that you wrote it in CAPITAL LETTERS.
Combine the lists of weaknesses, and on another page, a list of the strengths.
Do the same thing, honestly, for your company. Stand outside your own shadow, and write honestly. You don't have to show this to anyone, so be as candid as you can be. Include your own personal strengths and weaknesses right along with the company's.
Bake in the oven for 45 minutes. Oh, wait....that's another recipe.
If the weakness you wrote for your company match the weaknesses of the companies that are out of business, you now have a blueprint to change your company as quickly as you can.
If you see that your strengths are in the same categories as your competitors weakness, go after these areas. Promote and advertise your strength. Invest in your strengths to improve your facilities and your people. Your weaknesses will probably be the strengths of the current companies. Start a 'weakness-of-the-month' plan, trying to improve one area a month within your firm. Look at the other's strengths, and use those as benchmarks for your growth.
Make a list, check it twice, and suddenly, your company is better, (translate=more profitable). This is not rocket science. You can do it. Sometimes you need an outsider to help you understand your own strengths and weaknesses and to help you lay out a path to improve. No matter---it is up to you to do it the improving
Nobody knows your strengths and weaknesses better than you do. If you are honest about your company and your competitors, you will have a handy checklist for a year's worth of improvements in your hands.
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1 comment:
Dear Paul,
I believe I have known you for at least 20 years, although you may not recall me. I called on you at Floral Glass and Mirror to serve your company with our line of separator pads for protecting your glass during shipment. You referred me to your boss, Chuck, but I still remember our meeting. I have been reading you column, and often send copies of it to our staff since you began it at the end of 2006.
I had on occasion thought of commenting to your blog, but never was sufficiently moved to take the keyboard in hand. After reading this entry, I feel so compelled.
I think if you ask those who lead companies past a silver, not to mention golden anniversary, I truly believe there is one characteristic that must prevail.
It is not the desire to return stockholder value, although that is a byproduct which is critical to longevity, and it is not the family approach to employees, vendors and of course customers, as that has almost past being a cliché, but rather it is the integrity of the management. It is the desire to succeed in business and always maintain the steadfast ability to look in the mirror of one’s conduct and be PROUD of whom it is that looks back at you. Companies are only a mirror of those that lead them.
When I purchased a small 20 year old converting operation in 1975, I had the mission to prove that one could run a successful business and be full of integrity in all of one’s business dealings; with employees, suppliers, customers and everyone we dealt with. Certainly it is easily said, but rather often difficult to pass the test and remain focused to always deliver that level of conduct. A wise associate forever defined for me the meaning of the word INTEGRITY. He simply stated, “Integrity” is what one does when NOBODY is looking…
There is an old expression which states, “that which goes around, comes around” and from enormous respect of that truth I have run The Frank Lowe Rubber & Gasket Co., Inc. these past 33 years.
I do believe that there are companies that survive and even thrive in the short term, but when it comes to longevity, only the integritous will be here tomorrow.
Paul, thank you for your blogs and please keep on writing.
Ira M. Warren
President
Frank Lowe Rubber & Gasket Co., Inc.
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