Business planning can seem really intimidating. I know well established business owners who still haven’t mastered the ‘art’ of business planning, let alone entrepreneurs who are starting their first business. Regardless of where you are on your business ownership journey, consider the following steps when planning for success.
What is a business plan? Your business plan is a written version of ‘the big picture’. In simple terms, it is a guide to what you want your business to achieve in the long term. Planning a full year ahead can be tortuous if you get too detailed. By breaking it down into 90 day segments it becomes easier to execute. If you break it down even further into months/weeks/days, it becomes the step by step execution guide for your goal achieving to-do list.
Use a 90-day planning cycle. Although you need to know what you want to achieve in the longer term, planning a whole year in detail can a waste of time. Too much can change during a year, and it takes too long to plan a whole year in detail. So armed with long-term goals, take one day each quarter to work on a plan for the next quarter. In your planning day, remind yourself of your 12 month goals and think which parts you could work on in the coming quarter. Shortlist about ten possible goals, then narrow it down to five. When choosing five goals, ensure that at least half of the goals focus on making money. The goals like staff training or developing systems are necessary, but make sure every quarter you keep some focus on increasing profit! For each step assign one person who will be responsible and a completion date.
Set SMART goals. Once you have the five goals, make sure each one of them is SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and with definite Time scales). Then break down each goal into a series of the steps that will be needed to implement them.
Set milestones. Part of your planning will be setting deadlines to make sure the business plan stays on track and is successful. In addition to these deadlines, set key milestones to work towards – positive check points which mark shorter term achievements. It’s motivational because everyone doesn’t need to wait 3 years to celebrate progress.
Get buy-in. The goals should be for the whole organisation to work on during the coming quarter, not just what the senior team focus on. To get your team fully engaged with your grand plans for the business they need to buy in to your vision. As the leader, you should be open about the business goals and explain how valuable each individual contribution from your team is to achieving them. You already know that the survival of your business is dependant on a great team, but does your team know that? Do they really believe it? Do they know the role they play in it? Make sure they do, because a team who believes in the plan will be more motivated and committed to its success.
Know what success is. The thing about success is that it is subjective. What looks and feels like success to one person, will be completely different to the next person. So what does success look like to you? Is it being able to pay your team a monthly bonus? Is it being able to grow your team? Or increase your profits? Is it taking a 2-week family holiday and being able to truly switch off? Only you will know the answer to this. Once you achieve your success, be sure to acknowledge it, embrace it and celebrate it before you turn your attention to the next goal. Get others involved too – your family, friends, colleagues – use your success to motivate and engage with the people who matter in your life and watch how the positive ripples begin to influence their lives too.
Commit to your planning cycle. setting aside a day to plan prior to the start of a quarter – and by the end of one year doing that you’ll see that your business has gone further and faster than ever before! Failing to set aside a full day is where most businesses go wrong before they even start. If they plan at all, they cram it into a couple of hours or avoid involving everyone that needs to be there.
