One of the eight vital areas of a business model is creating proven sales and marketing process. I heard an interesting story from a former Nestle Purina sales superstar. She told me that Purina required all major account reps to spend every Friday planning. At first glance, this seemed extreme. I am a fan of planning, but 52 times a year seemed extreme.
I asked her if the weekly planning was typical corporate garbage pushed downstream by someone that had just read the latest best-seller or if the weekly planning worked. She swore that carving out a day a week with no email communication, no texts, no phone calls or other interruptions raised her production significantly. She went on to clarify, specifically; the planning raised my productivity of my most important activities. What she was saying was that the planning forced her to focus more on the high-impact activities, not just more volume of work.
Entrepreneurs are notorious non-planners, so I asked myself, “Could planning lead to a better business model or is planning an implementation program for the business model?” My answer is that planning better does not change your business model. I believe the Nestle Purina example is more about creating high-quality thinking time and non-doing-time than actual planning time. Too many entrepreneurs are so busy doing the busy-work in their business that they miss significant opportunities.
I recently finished a book entitled “The Winners Brain” by Jeff Brown et al. Years of scientific research yielded the conclusion that the winner’s brain was significantly better at tuning out distractions and focusing on a single task. Certainly, a planning retreat or quiet thinking time meets these criteria. I challenge you to carve out some planning time at least once a month. Track your results for six months and see how you do. Quiet time may not be a change to your business model but it may be the genesis of it.
