The Critical Steps To Implementing An Idea For Your Organization

By: Bill Sifflard

Ever read a thought provoking book or attended a seminar or marketing meeting, excited to return back to work with tons of fantastic ideas that you know will have a tremendous impact on the future profitability of your company?
The problem is six months later none of those ideas that you knew would make you more money and expand your company have been implemented or were tried, deemed a failure by your employees, abandoned and quickly forgotten.
Was it the idea that failed you, or was it you that failed the idea as the owner and leader of your organization?
This past week I was a guest at the Tony Robbins 4 Day "Business Mastery" Conference in Las Vegas. The conference featured Tony Robbins and included Chet Holmes (who wrote The Ultimate Sales Machine and a variety of other dynamic motivational, marketing, sales and operations related speakers, who captivated the the hall for four amazing days.
Whether they were the CEO of a large corporation, a chiropractor, small business owner, restaurateur, real estate broker, or solopreneur looking to turn an idea into a new venture, everyone I spoke to on breaks spilled over with energy, excitement, ideas and innovation, that they knew would impact their business once implemented upon their return home.
The important question is, will they follow through on their return this week and start to implement what they took away from the conference, or will they be sucked back into their day to day routine and fail to facilitate the positive change that they know will impact their future business? Seems like a easy question, but in reality, most will do nothing without out some type of coaching or consulting help to push them forward.
A theme that many of the speakers emphasized was that any great idea that they took away from the conference would not succeed without six essential elements. They were:

One Thing At a Time

An Effective Implementation Plan

Policies and Procedures

Proper and Consistent Training

Unyielding Commitment

Accountability

One Thing At a Time!
We return from a conference or even pick up a book and it ignites a variety of ideas that we want to complete immediately. We are fired up and impose our ideas upon our organization, with all the best of intentions. What we end up with though is confusion, natural resistance, inconsistency and in the end no positive change.
First we need to prioritize what you want to accomplish and follow the five preceding steps to address one idea or innovation at a time. When you have planned, implemented, trained and woven this new policy or procedure into the fabric of your organization, then move onto your next idea.
Patience is essential and many are unwilling to wait, but one successfully implemented policy or procedure that brings positive change to your organization, is worth a hundred great ideas that are never effectively implemented.
An Effective Implementation Plan
It does not matter if you are talking about a new marketing strategy, sales presentation, changes in inventory control or expanding your product or service offering. You need to plan it out, discuss and utilize the talent you have on your team and develop a plan that will achieve your goal, while playing to the strengths of your organization.
Take the time to get input and ideas from your people as they are your greatest resource and are critical to making any idea a profitable jump forward or a dismal failure for your company.
Consistent Policies and Procedures
Implementing a new marketing strategy, product development, sales plan or operational initiative without clearly defined policies and procedures that support the effort is a recipe for failure. You need to spell out not only the goal, but each of the steps required to achieve it. Whether that is a sales script for a new product, order filling procedure, how the phone is answered or the process that each new lead travels through the office, it all needs to be defined.
Here again your greatest resource is getting your people actively involved in defining the most effective way to implement a plan and create the policy and procedures that all will follow.
Proper and Consistent Training
Here is a black hole that many of us fall into when it comes to implementing change or even maintaining consistency within our organization as it grows. If we establish policies and procedures to guide our organization, but do not effectively train our people, educate new employees and re-enforce what has been taught on a regular basis, people will turn to either what they know or what is easiest.
Handing someone a new printed procedure for their policy manual is not effective training. Effective training requires understanding, role playing and repetition. Effective training makes policy and procedures second nature and the natural response to a particular situation, whether that is sales, marketing, manufacturing, accounting or administration.
Unyielding Commitment
Chet Holmes calls this "Pig Headed Determination" in his book that I mentioned above. You can not implement anything that will have a meaningful long term impact on your organization, unless you are committed and unwavering in your determination and expectations that the plan will be followed.
Sometimes a new sales or marketing plan can take weeks or months to begin to bear fruit and the usual reaction of your sales team is to go back to what they know and take the path of least resistance. This is where you need to remain firm, lead and hold your people accountable, that the procedures are followed and the results are achieved.
Develop and review on a regular basis metrics and reports to track and quantify that the plan is being followed as developed, implemented and trained.
Accountability
Speaking of holding people on your team accountable. The first and most important person you need to hold accountable for any effort to be successful is yourself and that can be the hardest step in the process for some. If you do not have Unyielding Commitment to the plan, do not expect anyone else to.
Excuse Number 1 that most use when I discuss accountability is that they do not have the time to effectively implement the steps I have outlined above, but the truth is that as the boss, no one requires them to make time and so they never do.
Think through what you need to do to ensure that every one of these 6 steps are followed in order to achieve real growth and success for your business.
For some it may just mean commitment to better personal time management to facilitate implementation of a new idea. For others it may mean hiring a business coach to help keep them focused, discuss strategy and help them through the process (even the greatest athletes have a coach). Maybe your organization is to big to lead and manage the types of changes you want to implement, which may mean outsourcing the process to a consulting group, who can facilitate all or part of the process to ensure success.
The bottom line is that their is no excuse that should prevent you from driving forward to implement positive change in your organization, no matter the size of your business, the industry you are in or the current state of the business economy.

Bill Sifflard has thirty years experience as an entrepreneur, an executive, a business coach and as a consultant. Bill has a long history of experience bringing innovation, efficiency and success to large and small businesses adapting to evolving markets. As a premiere Sales and Marketing Innovator, Bill is changing how business integrates traditional marketing strategy with the power and potential of the internet To learn more about how Bill and Bssential Solutions can help you grow your business, you can visit www.bssentials.com and register for the Bssential Solutions Free eNewsletter or follow all of his blog posts at bssentials.biz

Article Source: http://www.leadershiparticles.net

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