[caption id="attachment_1525" align="alignleft" width="300"]
When planning a company strategy be prepared for nothing or extremes.[/caption]
If you read my blog, you know we work with and support act!, a CRM tool that is going on 26 years old. It's a great product and one I believe in strongly. I can't imagine a company, particularly a small one, trying to survive without a tool like act!
Recently, act! was purchased by Swiftpage. Note that I am showing act with a lower case letter - that's by design. Swiftpage's new icon for act! is with a lower case letter. It doesn't mean it is less of a product - to me it means it is going back to basics - and remembering why act! was created in the first place. It's a new beginning and we as a company are ramping up to be prepared for what we believe will be exponencial growth.
In fact, this week I got all of us together to hold a strategy meeting. And that's the theme of this blog. Don, my ever loyal skeptic, being the cautious person he is, said - "so what happens if all we hear are cricketts."
What he meant by that was what happens if nothing happens - and all we hear are cricketts. That is indeed one outcome. However, the other outcome is the phone starts ringing a lot and we are not prepared. That's the reason for our meeting.
My thoughts are if you put in place a structure that can handle both growth and drought, you have something viable that will endure. Oh, I'd love the phones to be ringing off the hooks and we have a plan. The phones have been slower that we would like because of the economy - we had a plan for that as well.
Like the topic of some other articles I will be doing - if you build your business like a building or house and provide a strong foundation and sturdy walls, you can add on another floor when you need to. Or wait it out living in one of the rooms you created for "just in case" - you all know that room - the one you keep the door closed to when company shows up unexpectedly.
The next few months will be interesting. I think what we have in place will be good for us no matter what happens. I guess the moral of this story is once in a while - at least once a year - take stock of your company and re-evaluate where you are. Look at data trends - be proactive and not reactive. It cannot hurt - and as my staff said - it's great to be all in one place coming up with strategies. They feel engaged - I hope so as I couldn't do this without them - and we all have a strong sense of togetherness and excitement about the future.
Time will tell. Ok, Swiftpage. Do your stuff. We are ready.