The end of another year ushers in a new holiday season and if your holiday plans include gift-giving (and receiving) then you’re preparing a wish list. We’re checking it once, we’re checking it twice, and we realize that some of our wants are a bigger ask than expected.

Maybe your list has a brand new pool to cool off in during the summer months, or a new sports car to show off to your friends and satisfy that adrenaline fix you need every once in a while.

These wants can be exciting and we think we can afford the sticker price when planning the budget to afford these purchases, but often overlooked are the associated costs to properly maintain them.

A pool requires weekly cleaning, maintenance routines and most often a higher insurance policy on your home.

A new sports car requires a more expensive, higher octane fuel, more costly insurance premiums, and additional planning around driving conditions and storage options for when you’re not driving.

Companies, like people, have a wish list for the new year. However, companies filling their wish list with the latest tools and resources should initially focus on whether the proper foundation is laid to enable the desired tool or resource to thrive, instead of only looking at the additional expenses added and ROI.

If the sales professional selling your business these new tools is any good, I’m sure they will articulate the amazing ROI for the tool, but how do you achieve it? Do you have the personnel internally to stand the tool up and implement it? Is there a framework for how the newly acquired data will be leveraged to inform future decisions? Are the right strategies already in place to facilitate the ability of the tool to impact the business?

These types of questions should be asked and answered before you put pen to paper to avoid buyer’s remorse. Below are some of our recommendations for tools that can improve your business and items to inspect to ensure a successful implementation.

Sales Automation Platform

Foundational Needs:

• ICP
• Buyer’s journey
• Known conversion rates

A sales automation platform is for businesses who have a talented sales team, a proven process and are looking to provide their sales reps with more volume and consistent timing in certain stages. Without the underlying foundational knowledge of how a customer is acquired and the speed at which it happens, throwing more activity at the problem will only lead to congestion and greater frustration.

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Tool

Foundational Needs:

• Tasks able to be automated
• Business Processes are mapped
• Dedicated technical resource to support the implementation

The benefits from automating your processes are abundant. Automation is already creating a huge separation in efficiency and bottom-line impacts between those adopting and those lagging behind. While the benefits are immense if the proper foundation is not first established, adding RPA will cause extreme headaches and frustration with your stakeholders and staff.

Social Media Management

Foundational Needs:

• Clearly articulated strategy
• Defined target audience
• Content backlog and resources to produce additional content

As traditional advertising models become less effective for companies and brands looking to get in front of the right audience, the need for organic social engagement to build brand awareness is more critical than ever. While social media is table stakes in today’s world, the ability to successfully convert social leads into clients will be reliant on your social media management foundation.

Inspect what you expect. It is our business mantra for a reason. Before you add a nice new toy/tool, it is important you have the right foundation in place to support it. Otherwise, it’ll be getting returned, although it is tough to return a 6-foot-deep hole in the backyard or a 12-month-long contract.

Let’s get to work.

Prescriptive Profits #14