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We all know that if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.
So hopefully when you started your business, you took time to create a plan for how to get where you wanted to go. If you didn’t, or even if you did…today’s article is for you. Because no matter what, crafting a business plan is challenging, especially when juggling multiple roles.
It’s a challenge because even when you’ve created a plan, you will face failure along the way. It comes with pursuing something you’ve never done before. We have to experience failure at some point to learn the right way to do things.
This is why Ana Melikian, PhD. has created the Super Simple Business Planning approach. She’s called on her decade of experience to create this proven plan so that you don’t have to learn from trial and error. She already has and decided to put it into a personalized planning template that fills gaps you didn't know you had.
But first, let’s talk about what Ana teaches about a successful planning process. She lays them out into four pillars that I think every business owner should spend time on growing their business. Because planning isn’t just for the beginning of a business but ongoing, this is something you can adopt into even your quarterly planning.
Here are the four pillars for a successful quarterly planning:
Pillar 1: Financials
Simply put, you determine how much revenue you want to bring in this year and how much you have to generate in the next quarter.
You start with a number and reverse engineer what this means regarding sales (services, programs, packages, etc.) Then you cross-check that against capacity and pricing to see if it's possible. If not, re-do. Get clear on these numbers so you can make clear goals and most importantly, celebrate clear wins when you hit those numbers.
Pillar 2: Marketing
How are you going to generate the leads to meet the revenue goals? Marketing doesn't get you clients, but it will generate leads if you do it right.
How you convert them will often go under this area as well. You might not need to do much to sell, or you might need to do loads. If it's not doable, revisit pillar one so you can take into account the work and investments you need to make into your marketing strategies.
Want to get more sales opportunities with social media and email? Without spending on ads? Sign up for my upcoming workshop! RSVP For Free Here
Pillar 3: Systems
Continuous improvements to how you do business, front and back-end, should be rolled out to make your organization more efficient and less wasteful.
It can be as simple as adopting service standards or outlining processes in writing to adopting automation for fulfillment, marketing, or bookkeeping. Pick a few areas of improvement and prioritize.
This is something we take seriously here at Connect 365 and review often. As a software company that focuses on efficiency, we’re all about finding systems that remove bottlenecks and help improve our day-to-day operations. Make sure you are reviewing this at least quarterly.
Pillar 4: Projects
A project plan is, in essence, a list of stuff to do plotted against a timeframe, with tasks and milestones. The secret is clarity on the big rocks, which should go first. Sometimes, we don't know what we don't know, so we have to take that into account too.
Like everything, we get better at this the more we do it. Or, we find someone who already great at it. Either way, just like planning out your quarterly and yearly goals, you should be planning out individual projects. This allows you to keep track of the process, what went well, what could go better next time and plan accordingly.
Planning is key. These pillars are a great start to getting a plan in place for your business, whether you’re just starting out or have been going at it for a few years. Take time to adopt Ana’s Super Simple Business Planning on her workshop, and you'll have your quarterly plan mapped out using the framework above, except Ana will make it even easier for you by filling in all the missing pieces and giving you your own "can't fail" workbook to document the entire process. Register for the Super Simple Business Planning Workshop here.
