Now
that you’ve decided to go this route after some serious and heartfelt
consideration, it’s time for action.
The first step to finding your ecological niche is making sure you
practice what you preach. While you
don’t have to be 100% done with your changes before you start marketing your
new product or service, you will definitely need to have your plan fully laid
out. The process of defining the way
you’re going to do business will help you get your marketing strategy more
clearly in focus.
All
business operations (and probably all personal ones) should have a mission
statement. It should be straight and to
the point. If you’re already in
business, odds are you have one already.
Dust it off and take a good look at it.
·
Does it need to
change?
·
How can you most
clearly define what you hope to accomplish?
·
Why are you making the
change?
·
If you’re coming up
with a new mission, what can you do with this organization?
·
Are you providing
something new or better?
·
How will you gauge
whether you’re staying on mission?
Careful
planning at this stage can help everyone stay focused on what’s important and
not get bogged down in the details.
What
can you really hope to accomplish in the first year? Do you have any way of really delivering as you hope to? Now is the time to sit down and do some
figures. Even if you don’t have to
approach a bank with a financial plan, you’d better have one. How many organic veggies can you put on each
pizza and still make enough profit to keep up with the level of service you’ve
determined is ideal? Get out a scale
and a calculator and find out. This is
research and development time. Since
you’re not going to compromise on quality, something else may have to give.
Are
you in an industry where your movements are constrained by market or regulatory
forces? Will you be constrained by
operational capital? Not only should
you plan out your best case scenario but you’ll also need to figure out what
you’re going to do if everything goes wrong all at once, too. Don’t make all your changes or put all your
sales eggs in one basket until you know you can keep things going if your
potential customers don’t respond right away.
Can
you really do this? All the
ecologically friendly practices are for naught if your business folds after 6
months of being over-extended. Will the
cost savings you receive from conservation efforts be enough to fund an
expansion of your product or service line?
How quickly can (or should) you implement changes without alienating
your existing customers?
Now
that you’ve identified the forces that are acting against your goal, what can
your business do to be more ecologically friendly? There’s a lot of opportunity (as you’ll soon see); much of it can
have an impact on your bottom line immediately.
The
rules for personal goal setting are applicable in a business situation. You need short-term goals that you can
attain and cross off your list and some long-term goals to keep you
hungry. They should be stated as
concisely as possible so there’s no ambiguity.
Since
this is a business operation, you’ll need to establish some clear
benchmarks. This may be in terms of
cost savings, milestones in your plan or even money earned. Figure out what these will be ahead of time,
as you’ve deciding what green will mean to you.
All
but the smallest start-ups will have an employee or two or two thousand. The success of your new initiative will
largely depend upon their support and cooperation. Now is a good time to get their input on how your initiative will
be received by the workforce. Solicit
ideas from them – they might have given this a great deal of thought
already. Spending 40 hours per week on
a given task allows most people the opportunity to gain insight into its
nuances.
While
some of your employees may be 100% behind the your eco-plan, others may need
convincing. This is an opportunity for
education and motivation. If there’s
one thing people hate it’s being forced into doing extra work for the boss’
most recent hot idea. Don’t force
it. Find out what they have in
mind. You may discover some fresh ideas
you hadn’t thought of.
Of
course, you’re still in charge and have the final say, but this is a good
chance to gauge where you stand in the process. Having spent some time outlining exactly why you want to do this,
you’ll be in a good position to answer any questions they might have.
If
you do have employees that are, for some strange reason, vehemently opposed to
your plan, find out why. “Just
because,” isn’t a sufficient answer and shoulder shrugging won’t do. If they still refuse to cooperate without
reason, you will want to make sure they’re not in a position to make extra work
for everyone else with their bad attitude.
On the other hand, if they do have legitimate concerns, now is a great
time to address those fears.
Anything
you can do at the earliest stages of greening-up your business to get everyone
on the same page will be invaluable in making sure the plan goes smoothly.
Along
with setting goals, you’ll want to make sure you keep things moving on pace,
too. Once you’ve gotten a feel for what
sort of support you’ll have, you can make informed decisions about how quickly
you want to jump in to the changes.
Make a list of clear milestones and when you’d like to have them in
place.
For
instance, let’s say you want to make sure there’s 80% compliance in recycling
paper products in your offices after 1 month.
If it’s just you, that’ll be easy.
If your organization is much larger, you may need to enlist the help of
someone else to keep tabs on your company’s progress. It is probably wise to assume that the larger your operation, the
longer it will take to make changes. A
car can stop on a dime, but a long train takes a mile. Be realistic.
If
you’re just starting out, you no doubt have all sorts of plans on some type of
timetable. If there are things you need
to grow to be able to afford, it might be best to build some slack into your
plans. Slack doesn’t mean indefinitely
delayed -- just a bit of a range.
Should
you find that you’re not making the timetable you’ve set out for yourself,
there’s no need to panic or decide that you might as well give it all up. It’s just a guide to give the goals you’ve
already outlined some urgency.