When I was in college I worked for Franklin Covey selling personal and business productivity solutions. Most people that came in wanted help being more organized (some just wanted a $30 calender). I would talk about the productivity system with them and discuss the development of goals and aligning their daily tasks to their goals and what was most important to them. Almost every time they would say "That makes sense I should have know to do that, it is common sense". The thing about it was that it was common sense but they had never taken that to a "conscious level". They were being driven by day to day priorities or disasters. They had never taken the time to sit back and think about what needed to be done thus they may have been busy but weren't productive.
The same thing happens in small businesses that don't have a plan to guide their actions. Without a plan you really don't know where you are going. Even if you have some plan stored away in your brain more than likely you are not able to consciously know what are the right things to do to really grow your business. Even if your business is growing without a plan you may be missing out on opportunities because your actions aren't consciously tied to your mission, vision and strategic goals.
Here is what I recommend:
- Take some time to refect on and, if you have one, revisit the mission and vision for your business. Use that to guide as a guide for your business.
- Set goals and develop milestones for your business. These should be critial to the success of your business. Note, this should include some financial milestones in addition to operating milestones.
- Set the intermediate steps required to reach each milestone. Also, decide how these steps will be executed and by whom.
- Put all of this into a format that you can use as the road map to run your business. Having it typed, bound and neatly sitting on the shelf won't help you run your business.
- Execute...I assume this is clear.
- Review, re-set and keep moving: As you work your plan some things will work and some won't. By reviewing results and comparing them to the plan you can make needed adjustments to keep you on track and moving toward your goals.
I know some of you are saying "This is to much work and I don't need to do all of this". For those saying that re-read this because you missed the point.
The rest of you are saying "That makes sense I should have know to do that, it is common sense". That's right, now you have elevated it to you conscious thoughts and you can begin to apply it to your business and really start to achieve the results you want.
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