It's common for business advisors and coaches to suggest that each year, business owners or CEO's should build a business plan. Often this is an activity that takes place in the September time frame, perhaps earlier or later depending on the size of the organization.
As a matter of business practice, we have done that for years. Included in the plan is a revenue target for the coming year. There is also a discourse on what activities we will engage in to develop new clients, as well as our estimates as to the source of the new clients.
What I find interesting is that we hit our revenue targets. However, when I review the source of the new business, it seldom comes from the sources we identified in the planning process. In many cases, the source of new business appears to be totally random.
That has happened again in 08. What we expect to be one of our larger clients came through a referral to someone I'd met six months earlier, and had a very pleasant conversation with. Over the course of almost 30 years in business, that type of conversation has occurred thousands of times. Why would this time be different?
Perhaps it would be nice to have some answer, or to identify some logic behind this randomness. On the other hand, does it matter? Maybe the best approach is simply gratefulness.
What is your experience?
Until next time,
Randy
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