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Are you on pace to accomplish your important sales and financial goals this year?

The truth is, a good majority of US Organizations have been unable to grow their businesses this year. They are not reaching their sales and financial goals and many have all but given up.

Is this you? Are you now looking to next year to be the year you shatter previous productivity, sales and revenue records?

Regardless of whether you are on pace to meet your goals or not this year, it's a great idea to start preparing for your best year ever; but you will need to prepare.

You've surly realized, it takes much more than just setting a goal to accomplish it. The mere act of putting the goal on paper, sharing it with your managers and giving the extra effort to accomplish the goal is really secondary to the preparation required.

Before you begin to work toward an objective, you must insure all of the past barriers that stood in the way of prior goal accomplishment are eliminated. If they aren't, the unfortunate fact is, you'll fail to meet the objective once again* for the same reasons as before.

The following are the three keys market leading organizations have used to grow their businesses. I suggest you consider them to take your organization to the next level of success also.

1. Operational Systems

There are two types of systems in your organization. The first is your operational systems, including:

1. Vision & Mission 2. Financial & Budgeting 3. Production, Manufacturing & Distribution 4. Sales & Marketing

All four of these systems are in place for one reason: to efficiently grow your business. They are the standards to how your organization operates from day to day. More importantly, they are the standards to how your workforce operates from day to day.

To improve productivity this quarter and prepare for your best year ever, it is vital to analyze your operational systems. In the next month, recognize what current productivity barriers must be eliminated, what operating expenses must be reduced, what unique cultural standards must be maintained and what marketing promises must be upheld.

2. Managerial Systems

In answering the previous questions, most organizations realize an important fact. Changes to operational systems are almost always made to improve the productivity of their workforce. But the truth is, these changes alone rarely help.

Organizations failing to accomplish their goals tend to make irrational decisions. They feel if they rewrite a vision, increase spending on technology, reorganize production procedures or alter their marketing messages, workforce performance and profits will magically improve.

However, the opposite is usually the case. The changes usually end up harming efficiency, production and morale. The usual outcome is, those employees who naturally performed the job they were hired to do before the changes, still naturally do. Those who failed to produce before the expensive operational modifications, still underachieve.

The second type of system in your organization is your managerial systems. The five most important processes of your managerial systems are: recruiting, hiring, training, developing and retaining (productive employees). When you create a successful managerial system, your hiring success rate, employee motivation and the effectiveness of your leaders will naturally improve.

To prepare for your best year ever, there is only one question to ask yourself: Why haven't we been able to hire, develop and retain TOP Performing employees in every position.

3. Focus on People

Market leading organizations realize "people" are the key to growing a business and meeting goals. The more productive their individuals are, the more productive their teams have become.

A recent study of over 2,200 managers by Watson Wyatt Worldwide in Human Resource Executive Magazine found: Of the hundreds of management functions, "Selecting Staff" and "Retention" are the second and third most important management functions in business today. Recruiting was rank fifth.

Since almost three of four new hires fail to meet our expectations within the first year and managers are forced to constantly replace underachievers, recruiting is the number one management expense in business today. Although selecting staff and retention are rated very important, they rank 36th and 44th in management effort and spending respectively.

Although executives understand the importance of Top Performers in every position, their time, energy and financial priorities have become operational. With the amount of organizations failing to meet their goals or grow their businesses, it should be apparent that this strategy just doesn't work.

Hiring Top Performers for every position in your company, the first time, is the only way to insure your productivity and profits will improve. Traditionally, Top Performers are five to eight times more productive then their counterparts.

You've probably learned the hard way, no modification to an operational system will ever increase your organization's performance five to eight times. If you are like the most effective executives, you'll understand this and will double or triple the productivity and profits of your organization by giving your managers the tools to hire, develop and retain your greatest value; your people.

Great customer service, work ethic, motivation, productivity and sales success comes from employees that fit your culture, their team and the job they were hired to do. Whether it takes developing your underachievers or replacing them with someone who will naturally produce, it is now time to focus on your people to prepare for your best year ever.