The New Year is here, and generally, we've been so focused on finalising the ‘must do’ to do list for the year end, that writing the New Year's year’s annual business plan often gets forgotten or put off.
But it’s important to spend some time on it now, to develop your Business Plan for the new year, or at the very least an outline of your 2020 intentions and goals. When you write your plan, a good starting point is the numbers and targets:
· Turnover
· Profit
· Percentage increase in sales
· Increase in staff
· Margins
· Sales and Marketing plans and budgets
If you have the basics such as the above you can easily create full annual plan which will be important because firstly setting targets, and then tracking your progress against these numbers is vital and critical to your business’ success.
But in order to achieve these targets, we must also look at our strategy, behaviours, attitudes and tasks we’ve focused on in 2019. We need to see if they need tweaking. Without this honest reflection it will more than likely limit the success of achieving this years annual business plan and this could hit you where it hurts; your pocket by limiting your take home pay and/or dividends.
As part of this review it’s a good idea to have a list of intent: Keep Doing, Start Doing and Stop Doing. Let’s have a quick look as to why this approach helps.
1. What do I need to CONTINUE doing?
What had been working for you, your employees (team), your customers and your business last year?
Perhaps it’s been having more team meetings or feedback on what is working well and how to stay focused on the plan (a benefit of sharing the plan is that everyone understands it, contributes and has individual responsibilities).
Once you know what’s working, it’s important to ensure you keep these practices going.
What are your top three focuses for the New Year?
2. What do I need to STOP doing?
What hasn’t been working for you, your customers and your team this year?
Maybe you need to delegate more, focus on your goals and plans more effectively? Perhaps its revisiting your Buyer Personas or reviewing your marketing?
There will always be distractions and firefighting, both internal and external, stopping us from achieving our goals and therefore affecting our success. It’s these distractions we need to recognise and stop so we can grow the business.
What are your top three ‘stops’ for the New Year?
3. What do I need to START doing?
What’s been holding you back this year, what has contributed to stopping you achieve greatness?
Often, it’s by not focusing on the rights things, getting distracted or not being disciplined enough. Perhaps it’s by just doing the things you want to do – the fun stuff – rather than the necessary stuff – planning and focusing on the numbers perhaps!
Without committing to doing things differently in the new decade, you can only expect similar results because if nothing changes, nothing will change. If you don’t think you have the discipline to do this yourself perhaps you need to engage a business coach or mentor to help you.
What are the top three things you need to start doing to grow your business?
This whole process shouldn’t take long, but the benefits can be great and will significantly improve your odds in 2020. It will also make you more confident and focused and remove some of the doubt, fear and distractions you might have as a business owner.
Why not give this process a go and see how it works for you. Don’t forget your New Year business plan though! Doing both will lead you into 2020 with energy, focus, the all-important goals and targets and will turbocharge your success.
If you would like to discuss your cash flow, business planning and growth needs please contact me here. ProfitPlus are experts in business planning and business growth. We offer unique services that combine creating a business plan coupled with business coaching programmes such as our 90-day PlanningCLUB’s, find the profit and cash flow programmes.
We also provide interactive planning and business tools to help you through your business planning process simply and effectively. Our two-day planning workshops result in outstanding 5-year business plans, created in just two days, to help you develop and plan your business for success, giving you higher profits (and more salary), more time away from the business, greater cash flow and increased value.