A Simple Path to Strategic Planning
Photo Credit: Patrick Tomasso https://unsplash.com/@impatrickt
You recognize the value and importance of developing a strategic plan for your business, but you don’t know where to start. Great news! I have a simple technique to help you jump start your planning process. This technique works whether you have a team or you are a solopreneur.
STEP 1: Get clear on who or what is at the center of your “Why.”
The best way to start a strategic plan is to begin with a clear purpose. Be sure you and everyone involved in the strategic planning process is crystal clear on why you provide the services or products that you are offering. You should be able to simply describe the fundamental reason you're in business. Your purpose or the “Why” will be your North Star throughout the rest of the process.
STEP 2: Identify the problem that your business is solving.
Every business should be a solution to an unresolved problem or need. Starting with your purpose, define what problem your product or service solves. Then, dig deeper to spotlight what it is about your business or solution that is unique in comparison to other offerings. This is your value proposition.
STEP 3: Assess your effectiveness at delivering on your value proposition.
This assessment can be done with three simple questions:
What am I not doing that I need to START to have more of an impact?
What can I STOP doing that will free up more time to focus on reaching more people that need my product/service or to deliver the best product/service possible?
What things am I currently doing that must CONTINUE in order to sustain the business?.
While the questions are simple, getting to the right answer can often be challenging. A great way to tackle this activity is to start with a blank piece of paper. Make three columns—one labeled START, another, STOP; and the final column should be CONTINUE. Spend 5-15 minutes listing out activities that fall under each category. Write the first things that come to mind. Don’t worry about limits or second guessing your list.
After you have completed the first pass of the list, go back and select no more than five activities from the START column that will have the biggest impact on delivering your value proposition. Think through each item from the condensed list and apply these filters: Do I have the people and talent needed to complete this action item? Do I have the budget to complete this action item? Do I have the technology needed in place to complete this action item?
“Think of milestones as the checklist of items that need to be achieved or in-place in order to achieve your overall objective.”
If your answer is “no” to any of the filter questions, no worries—you may still be able to include the action within your strategic plan. However, you will need to develop milestones around the areas where you currently have gaps. Think of milestones as the checklist of items that need to be achieved or in-place in order to achieve your overall objective.
After finalizing your START list, you might be feeling overwhelmed. You might be asking, “how will I ever keep up with these new objectives when I’m already underwater?” The solution is your STOP list! Before you yell and tell me that “it all needs to get done” and “there is absolutely nothing that you can just stop doing”—take three deep breaths, nice and slow. Now, when I say STOP, I do not mean that no one will do this work in the future, it just may not need to be you that does the work. Critically evaluate your list and start with the low hanging fruit. What things are you currently doing that are a distraction and aren’t aligned with your value proposition? Those are things that you can—and should—kiss good-bye. Next, evaluate which things you can “give away”. If you have a team, is there an up-and-comer that might be ready to take on more responsibility? This would be a great way to keep that person engaged and challenged, while more evenly distributing the workload. See—we already solved two problems! I hear all of you solopreneurs out there. If you are a team of one, you can still leverage outside resources and technology to free up your load and give you more capacity to focus on the priorities identified on the START list. Many vendors have introductory packages that are low cost or even free to utilize. Unlike your START list, don’t limit the number of things from your final STOP list. In fact, you might even want to add more items to your list.
Just like the government, we need a checks-and-balances system. Your CONTINUE list ensures that you don’t STOP some activity that will fundamentally break your operation. The things on this list should be essential to running your business. Again, you do not personally need to care for these things—however, there should be a person or vendor that you trust assigned to these activities.
Congratulations! You now have a solid foundation for your strategic plan. You will need to add details about “how” you plan to achieve the action items from your final START list. You will also want to make sure that you are assigning a person who will be responsible for each of the items, as well as a projected start and end date for completion. To finalize your plan, you will break down each action item into the milestones to be completed weekly, monthly or quarterly depending on the timeframe allocated to the goal. These milestones will help you monitor whether or not you are consistently operating in alignment with your strategic plan and on target to meet or exceed your overall objectives.
Exceptional leaders always start with a plan. Even though the plan may be revised or updated as needed, starting with a strategic plan can help you and your business survive unexpected challenges and thrive despite times of uncertainty. Now is the perfect time to start planning for 2022! Let us help. Click the button below to start the conversation:
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