Strategic Planning isn't hard. It can be broken down to 3 simple steps.
Strategic Planning
Strategic planning is often surrounded by a cloud of mystery. But it's really not that complicated. In a nutshell, here are the three basic steps to create your own strategic plan:
1. Define Where Your Business is Today
Simply describe where every aspect of your business is today. Your description can include:
- the revenue your business generates
- the profits that you earn
- the number of employees that you have
- the number of customers that you serve
- where you are located
This gives you a starting point. It's like looking in a mirror. Now that you know where you are, you can better determine where you want to go.
2. Decide Where you Want to Go With Your Business
We will rarely get to where we want to go if we never decide on where it is that we are headed. Take some time to set some clear and measurable goals. This is when you can create SMART goals or use SWOT or STEEPLE analysis templates to help you define opportunities that exist for your business.
3. What Do You Need to Get There
This is where the rubber meets the road. This is where you put some steam in the train to get it moving. You need to take every goal that you listed, and determine what you need in the way of resources to achieve that goal. Then you can attach timelines, responsibilities and accountabilities to each goal. If you want to increase sales by $250,000, then you need to walk that back and decide if you need to invest in on-line marketing, or hire a salesperson, or do the selling yourself but delegate some of your other responsibilities.
Strategic planning isn't that hard. Most of my customers enjoy the process because it clarifies things in their mind and makes the future more certain and less stressful.
If you need assistance with your strategic planning, please reach out to our strategic planning specialists at www.familybusinesscoaching.ca
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