Stop - Reflect - Plan
OR - taking time to plan your next move?
The new year deserves a new plan. A fresh view on how we want to improve our business. Before jumping into action - this is a great time for thinking, planning, and preparing.
If we're going to be strategic, we want to improve the areas that will have the greatest long-term impact to make our efforts worthwhile. We want to focus on the 20% that will make the biggest difference (if you don't know the 80/20 rule it's well worth learning).
In its simplest form a business can be divided into 7 key areas:
- Product - The problem we solve for our clients
- Customer Service - How well we look after our clients
- Operations - The tools and processes to deliver our product/service
- Marketing - Everything from finding clients to keeping clients
- Finances - Making sure we make a profit
- People - Staff, Leadership, and HR processes
- Planning & KPIs - Fully understanding where you are, where you want to be, how you're going to get there - and measuring your progress
Remember, for setting priorities we like the power of threes.
Stick with 3 goals at a time; don't try to fix too many things at once. Three goals are: easier to remember, easier to communicate, and more realistically achievable.
We may want to work on three different top level priorities - or perhaps three priorities in one main area.
Either way, we must carefully consider the areas that will make the biggest difference this year. We can then build our plans around those goals.
Here's our very basic planning checklist:
What are we trying to achieve?
Why are we trying to achieve this?
How are we going to achieve it (what are the steps)?
By when, whom, at what cost and risk?
How will we know when we've got there?
What might prevent us achieving it?
Remember to check on progress - to make sure we're on track... we'll explore this further in February.
For now - will you make time to; Stop - Reflect - Plan?
January 2017
After our winter break we're slowly thawing out ready to make the most of 2017. With some exciting new projects on the way, and the monthly delivery of our newsletter, we hope that you'll continue to stay connected.
In the meantime, we've taken delivery of our espresso machine - celebrating a major achievement last year - and are refining our flat whites, cappuccinos and lattes to perfect any client requests.
If you haven't seen it here's a link to our video - and we'd love to know how you celebrated any major successes last year!!!
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