Throughout this series of articles, we've been examining the questions:

• What is strategic planning?
• How does it work?

In other words, how can you analyze your business's performance, then perform “business reengineering” to get it performing more effectively? Brian Tracy outlines this process of analysis in his book The Way to Wealth Workbook, Part III: Blueprints for Success.

In Part 1 of this series, we tackled the question, “What could we simplify?” Part 2 of this series addressed the questions, “What could we outsource?” and “What could we eliminate?” This article dives into the final question in the series.

Ask, “What could we discontinue?”

While the previous question focused on getting rid of activities that waste time, this question is about making bigger cuts. You're basically asking, “What should we just flat-out stop doing, or making, or providing?”

You might be making a product that costs you more than it's worth. Maybe you're offering a service that requires costly equipment maintenance, but that very few of your customers ever request. When you find these things, the simplest solution may be to cut your losses and simply dump these activities from your company.

As mentioned in Brian Tracy’s book Eat That Frog, “You can get your time and your life under control only to the degree to which you discontinue lower-value activities.” The same is true for business, the more you discontinue low-value activities, the sooner your company will beat the competition. Every day you persist in devoting resources to low-value activities, on the other hand, is another day your competition has to pull out in front of your business.

Walk around your facilities and ask yourself, “Which of these things could we drop altogether without losing much sales or revenue?” Those activities don't need to be re-engineered, or outsourced, or even eliminated in favor of alternatives; they just need to be dropped.

This can be a tough decision to make because it may mean losing an activity you loved, or one that inspired you to start your company. Trust the numbers, grit your teeth, and get rid of it anyway. If it's not making you money, it's holding you back. Maybe you can stop them right now, just call a meeting with the production manager and announce it, or it might be something you need to roll back over time. Either way, today's the day to begin the discontinuation process.

That wraps up our list of four ways to re-engineer your business, by asking critical questions about how you operate, and what activities you choose. Brian Tracy goes into much more detail about the strategic planning process, especially in terms of business reengineering, in his book The Way to Wealth Workbook, Part III: Blueprints for Success. Focus on the steps outlined here, and you'll gain a clearer picture of what your business is doing right, as well as what needs to be improved, and what steps you should be taking to oil the machine.

For lots more tips on managing and growing your business, check out more of Brian Tracy’s articles on the FocalPoint website or call for your free no-obligation consultation with a FocalPoint Business Coach.