Labour Day is an annual holiday celebrated in many countries for the achievements of workers. In Canada, we celebrate Labour Day on the first Monday of September which usually corresponds with back-to-school and the unofficial end of summer. In business though, Labour Day is a good reminder for executives and managers as to where their results are vs. budget.

Managers who are “on or ahead of budget” will want to stay the course while those who are behind will need to implement a plan to drum up business more forcefully.

Waiting until Labour Day to figure out what can be done to close a revenue or profit shortfall is risky as there isn’t enough time left, especially with December Christmas festivities and the year-end rush. A mid-year-review back in June would have been better timing. Whether you are ahead or behind, you need a plan to better reach your business goals by year-end.

So, what can be done? Here are ten suggestions to consider. Let’s start with sales and revenues:

1. Review your list of the Top 20 customers and evaluate with your salespeople if new opportunities have emerged for the last quarter.
   
   
2. Extract the list of customers who have not placed an order in XX months and brainstorm with your salespeople about new initiatives to bring them back. Consider new products, faster service, pricing, joint promotions, discounts etc.
   
   
3. Highlight those customers who have significantly increased their purchases in the current year. Are there any opportunities for year-end ordering?
   
   
4. Ask your salespeople for their top 15 list of hot prospects and discuss what could be done to win these accounts before year-end.
   
   
5. If you have more than one product or service, review your penetration by customer. This is usually done with a simple table listing the customers on the left side and the various products and services in columns on the right side. At the intersection of the customer row and a specific product column, you put a simple check mark showing that the customer has purchased this product or you have a blank space showing no purchase. Why no purchase? Customer has no need, or they simply did not know we offer this product.

If the shortfall is profitability, you may want to add the following to the above suggestions:

1. Review your Gross Margin YTD. Did your Gross Margin decrease in the last 8 months? Why? Was it pricing softness, discounts, or costs over-run? Once you know the reason, you can respond appropriately.
   
   
2. Identify any expenses and costs that are over budget YTD and assess which were seasonal and will not continue at the same level of expenses. Then adjust your forecast for the remaining 4 months.
   
   
3. Brainstorm with your operations people new tools that can result in lower expenses for the last 4 months. If you can make the investment and the initiative’s payback is immediate, then these new tools are worth looking into.
   
   
4. Are there any expenses planned for the 4th quarter that could – legitimately – be postponed to the new year? These should be re-assessed.
   
   
5. When distributing objectives to your team members, divide the dollar gap number by the remaining 4 months so team members have a monthly objective rather than a 4-month objective. Monthly objectives are more encouraging because they are bite-size rather than a big lump sum.

Not all ten suggestions would be applicable to your business, so pick out what can be applied to your situation and circumstances.

My Mom loved soccer. She used to say “ while it is always better to start the game on the right foot, it does not matter how you start but how you finish the game ”. Maybe this is applicable for business. Lots of things can happen in 4 months, so keep your attitude positive, plan well and aim for excellent execution.