Day Seven of Microsoft Partner Learning Series: Partner Profitability (The Gift of Accountability)

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Today is the seventh day, as well as the first day of 2016 and coincidentally, seven was the number of possums I saw last night at Cremorne Point whilst watching the firework extravaganza on Sydney’s Harbour Bridge! Happy 2016 to you all, I hope it is incredible! For the mathematicians, you will also know that seven is also the first integer reciprocal (multiplicative inverse) with infinitely repeating sexagesimal representation – and for those of you that have no idea on what this means, perhaps you could casually drop it in your BBQ conversation today and see what reaction you get ;-)

Today’s post centres on the Gift of Accountability.

With it being the first day of 2016, what a unique opportunity to turn a new leaf and set our stall for the year ahead as well as reflect on 2015. When thinking about accountability we need to consider accepting responsibility for both the good and bad elements of the year gone; not blaming others for setbacks or using the external environment as an excuse as to why performance wasn’t what we had planned. There are always things we could have done to change the outcome.

Accountability is a key factor in management being the cornerstone of empowerment and personal growth.  If no one is accountable for an initiate, new venture or a project, no one gets to grow through the experience of the responsibility.

Holding people accountable allows them to sign their name on success, no matter how big or how small.  It gives them a growth challenge on a defined and measureable basis.  To hold them accountable is to treat them as equals.

So how was your 2015?  Better than 2014 and your forecast or worse? Either way, we can’t change last year’s performance now so let’s focus on looking ahead to this time next year.  Do you have both the desire and ambition to improve your personal and company performance… nobody else is going to so let’s take complete accountability and rather than find out at the end of the year how we did, let’s define our success!

We will all define our company success in different ways but perhaps it’s made up of…

  • Specific profit targets split by product/service/IP lines for net new business versus recurring
  • Increasing our recurring revenue ahead of our annual billed revenue
  • Reducing the cost of customer acquisition to a defined number
  • Acquiring X number of customers per month via digital marketing channels
  • Growing our sales capability X number of heads
  • Minimising the time to value of new sales people i.e. the lowest number of days for new hires to deliver profit to the company and pay for themselves
  • Growing our modern marketing capability by X number of heads
  • Having a 0% churn rate on customers
  • #A specific number of awards / case studies / certifications to demonstrate your capability

 

…and then how about our people?  The measures defining our company success should naturally cascade down into the teams which are reviewed on a regular basis most likely to be monthly so we can amend our plan as necessary as the year passes.