Build your plans
Entering a new market, whether it’s a new product or a new geography, takes time and careful planning in order to do it successfully. You must be willing to listen to the advice of your team members.
“When it comes to identifying a new area in which to grow, you have to trust your executive management,” Ouellette says. “When they are giving their expert opinion on where to go, you have to believe in them. People who have been in a leadership position for a long time, I think their real expertise comes in being the experts in what has happened in the past, but that may not be the path to the future. To be able to listen to and not have all the answers on where you want to go in the future and trust those people who might have a better vision of the future is really critical.”
Because of a big pillow company going out of business, there was plenty of room for American Textile to come in and pick up the slack.
“When we first had an opportunity to ship some pillows in 2005, we knew that there would be some good growth opportunities — or assumed that there would and that turned out to be true,” Ouellette says. “An important ingredient in identifying when and how you want to grow is making sure you talk to your customers. Identifying an area that might suit your competencies is only really good if the customers are ready for another company to come into that market.”
Once it is clear that you can expand into a new market, planning must be the next priority. You have to have the ability to plan for further out than just your initial launch.
“I think the biggest thing is to have a strategic plan,” Ouellette says. “You generally plan for just one year and you have to force yourself to look out further than that, like three years. To look out any further than that is difficult to really come up with good, solid ideas. I would advise actually following that strategic plan and making certain that there’s the right group of people. Once you have that plan, you have to make certain that everybody in the company knows what your goals are.”
Once a strategic plan is in place, it is to your advantage to continue to follow and update that plan. If you create it and never look at it again, there is little point to it.
“I know a lot of people talk about strategic planning. I think there’s a couple of ways a company can go,” Ouellette says. “One is to have a plan and just (put) it away. The other, which I highly recommend, is having a plan and really working it every single month. It requires an individual in the company to have responsibility for that plan and have responsibility for making certain that everybody’s working toward it. Finding the time to work on the longer-term strategy takes a lot of discipline.”
