Clear out those cobwebs It’s spring!

Spring is in the air! Have you started to do your spring cleaning?

Naturally you’re thinking of all the Christmas lights still on the house, and the piles of dust bunnies collecting in the corner, but I’m talking about your on the job spring cleaning.

The other day I was at a meeting for an event organizing committee I belong to. It’s for an annual event that has run every year for 20 years, which, in the grand scheme of events being run by a volunteer group, is pretty impressive.

This year, after evaluating everything: finances, publicity, attendance, product, volunteer numbers and the willingness of the organizing committee to continue running the event; we decided the event had run its course.

It was a tough decision. We were all emotionally tied to the event. We all had worked hard for it, investing money, knowledge, time and yes, a lot of sweat equity, but all the evidence pointed to the hardest but most logical solution.

Like the song says, “giving up is hard to do,” but sometimes it’s necessary so that the group can focus their efforts on something that is more worthwhile. Maybe you’ve reached a goal, or a milestone, or, as is often the case, it’s just not worked out like everyone thought it would.

In this case we realized that the purpose of the event when it was started had been met. The original organizing committee had wanted to draw awareness to the international fair trade products that a non-profit was selling in North America.

The city the event was running in had not seen these products and the committee wanted to create a demand for these products. Well fast forward 20 years and there are six of these non-profit’s stores in the Greater Toronto Area, and many more right across Canada. Our group declared it “Mission Accomplished!”

Maybe your board of directors is facing a similar issue, your mission is accomplished. Great! So what are you going to do now?

But, maybe there’s a fundraiser, event or activity that has been running for eons and no one remembers why it’s done or maybe it just happens because it’s always happened.

Well, there’s no time like now to reassess those events and activities that just always happen. If the winter quarter was all about making plans for the new year, and putting them into action, this quarter should be all about spring cleaning.

In basic business marketing textbooks you need to make a situation analysis. It answers the question “Where are we now?” It’s a pretty simple question to ask, but really it’s the part that will force you to ask the tougher questions.

After you’ve determined where in fact you are, you then need to weigh the pros and cons for the item in question. Basically it’s like Survivor but minus the warm location, starvation, and bikinis. The technical marketing term for this is a SWOT analysis: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats.

Now this is where things sort of diverge from the usual marketing SWOT analysis. You’re not looking at R&D and manufacturing or even a competitor...although you could be looking at what they do if it has been affecting what you do.

List the strengths and weaknesses of the item, take a look at the opportunities that you have while still doing the item in question and the potential opportunities you have without it. Also investigate what the threats or problems could be if the item is changed, abandoned or reinvented. A renewed and revitalized version of what you’re already doing could be just the thing that is needed.

Once you’ve evaluated every aspect of a program then you can work out whether it’s still serving its purpose for your company and therefore whether it should survive.