Set achievable goals
In the past 10 years, Wilson has met his numbers every single quarter, but that’s not because they were easy to meet. Instead, he takes a unique approach to setting goals that are achievable while also being a stretch for his people. He has what he calls an open-based planning model.
“Before you build your plans going forward, I set a system in place where we actually quantified all of the opportunities in the market that we currently don’t capture,” Wilson says.
That may be selling more to existing customers, expanding the customer base or even expanding brands.
“Use the idea of an opportunity approach to say, ‘What are some of the opportunities that are out there?’” he says. “If we are successful against those, how can we capture those? What are the barriers to capturing those types of growth objectives? Then you say, ‘If we can capture X percent of that goal, what would it look like?’ Then it becomes a quantitative objective that needs to be tested for reason.”
This kind of approach is very empowering to your team.
“It creates a sense of optimism in the employee base, and it allows your people to wrap their minds around going and capturing the opportunity versus comping success,” Wilson says.
He says that oftentimes leaders and their teams will psyche themselves out with the types of goals they set. For example, if you have a business that traditionally grows at 5 percent a year, and then you grow at 6 percent, there is now a goal to grow at 6 percent.
“That’s the wrong way to think,” Wilson says. “Six percent or 5 percent growth is just what you happened to get last year over the prior year, but in terms of the opportunity that’s out there, we have a tremendous ceiling of growth.”
For example, he looks at the number of consumers who go to McDonald’s and don’t order a drink.
“You have 56 million consumers coming in a day, and any percentage of that number is big,” Wilson says. “So how can we create offerings that would meet the needs of these consumers that, for whatever reason, are not buying a beverage versus saying, ‘How do we grow 3 percent?’”
Then you have to look at what are the barriers to getting there, what strategies you can use to eliminate those barriers and what quarterly targets you would need to meet to make it happen.
“Then, bang, there’s a plan,” he says.
“Then we focus on the execution of that plan, which is the other part. In my world, it’s not real unless it’s real in a restaurant. Everything that comes before that is just interesting discussion.”
The key to this entire process being successful goes back to the people and involving them in the process.
“Bring them into the goal-setting process, and you let them identify the opportunities so they can see it and discuss it,” Wilson says. “Then we determine what percentage of this is real.Then we put a stake in the ground, and we go do it. It’s really the idea of getting buy-in the entire way as you create the goals. That’s where the excitement comes in.”
HOW TO REACH: The Coca Cola Co., www.thecoca-colacompany.com
