Plan of Attack
You may never stick to your plan, but it is crucial that you undertake the planning process anyway.
Having just experienced another year in business, with some wins and maybe some failures, you are now ready to face on the new year and grow your business, taking it to the next level. Your goals are to introduce some new products or services, hire some new people, move to a new office or raise $100,000 to expand your business. So what is your approach to making sure all your goals are achieved? It comes down to some serious planning.
While the 20th century was pretty much about establishing markets and processes, uncertainty is likely to be the hallmark of the 21st century. With so much happening in the world at the moment, it is hard to see beyond the moment, into the future.
So how do you plan your "attack on the future" to guarantee that you move forward and gain momentum, taking advantage of every opportunity?
Planning is crucial for every business. With out a plan you will fail. When questioned about D-day in WW2, Dwight Eisenhower responded by saying, “In preparing for battle, I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.”1. Follow his lead and view planning as a verb rather than a noun. That’s the only way to avoid the paradox that as soon as you have developed “a plan,” you’ll have to change it.
In a fast changing world, today’s business expert is tomorrow’s business idiot it can be that harsh. Today there are no more off-the-self approaches you have to create a plan of you own. Take a leaf out of the books of the futurists, who believe that the key to the future lies in the questions, not the answers.
Consistently, every month, I write in my journal 30 to 100 questions about my business about who we are, what we are doing and how we are doing it. I always question the status quo, analysing our business structure and what we are trying to achieve. This is the modus operandi of an entrepreneurial company.
So, as your coach, my request is that you start with the series of questions I regularly ask myself. These are listed below. As this list is in no way exhaustive, feel free to also add your own questions.
Consider and answer each question carefully. The list is long, but it's worth it!
Take your pen and paper and head to a quiet place where you can think clearly. You need to be really focussed and have no disturbances. Yeah, NO MOBILE PHONES!
It’s a big challenge, but you won't regret the effort. My intention is to get you moving in a way that will have an immediate impact on your business.
Questions
- Who do we want to be?
- Do we know who we are and what we believe in?
- Who are our customers?
- Who are our business allies?
- Who are our competitors?
- Who are our stakeholders? (internal and external)
- Do we know where we want to be in one year, five years and ten years time?
- What do we do? What can we do?
- What are our values? What are our needs?
- What do we look like?
- What relationships do we have?
- What reputation do we want?
- What are the five worst things that could happen to us? Are we prepared for each of them?
- What are the market trends? Global trends?
- What could totally disrupt our market that we can prepare for?
- What services or products do we sell now? What might they be in one year from now?
- How do we measure our success?
- Do we actually listen to our customers, suppliers and employees?
- How are we positioned in the marketplace?
- How do we use technology?
- How do we build stronger relationships?
- How do we raise our profile and gain an outstanding reputation?
- How do we become a spiritually based business?
- How are we different from our competitors?
- How do we sustain success?
- How do we maintain sustainability?
- How do we remain very profitable?
- How do we develop passive income?
- What are our true core competencies? How do we expand them into other markets?
- What are my unique talents? What are the unique talents of my employees?
- What is the one behaviour that we are going to collectively change this year? (It is hard to change things, so let's just go with one.)
- Do we benchmark against other industries and not just against companies in our industry?
- How do I take more free time off from work?
- How can I support, praise and nurture my staff consistently?
- What is my exit strategy? How will I eventually realise the full potential of my business as an asset?
- Do we need to raise money for our company to grow?
- How do we conduct a full due diligence assessment on our business?
- Do we need to change our accountant or lawyer?
- What Intellectual Property do we need to protect?
- What fatal assumptions do I/we have about our business?
- How can we create a predictable and consistent experience for our customers?
- How can we become more caring, compassionate and open with our clients?
- In what areas do we need to be more accountable?
- What do I need to do to spend more time with my family and friends?
- What are ten ways we can celebrate consistently at work?
- What needs to change for me to have balance in my life?
- What are 20 offbeat ways to market our products or services?
- What are we tolerating? How we can we clean up the distractions?
- How can we communicate effectively within our business?
- How can I change my attitude so that the attitude of my employees reflects my attitude? (Positive attitude)
- How can we close more sales?
- How can we market more effectively?
- What areas, associations and industries am I going to network? How will I create a valuable database of contacts?
- What core skill sets do I/we need to improve?
- How will we increase our profitability two-fold?
- What community project or cause can we be involved in?
- How can we reduce expenditure? How can we become frugal?
- How can we set up multiple income streams?
- Who can refer consistent business our way?
- What are our sales, marketing, operation and financial strategies?
- What are the specific milestones we want to reach?
- Do we have a business plan? If so, what is the state of our business plan? Do we need to update it?
- Do we need to upgrade our computers, fax machine, photocopier, telephone systems and filing cabinets?
- How is our filing system? Are our records in order?
- Do we have the latest virus protection on our computers?
- How can we become more innovative?
- If we are not already, how can we become an entrepreneurial business?
- Are we adequately insured?
- How can we improve our performance?
- How can we reduce our tax?
- What do we need to improve on our website? Is it working for us? How can we increase traffic? How can we increase orders?
- Are we paying too much rent?
- How can we hire the right people? Who will make the difference?
- Do we need to renegotiate any contracts with our partners, customers or suppliers?
- How willing are we to increase our risk?
- Do we need to hire a PR firm to handle our publicity?
- How can we reduce our travel costs?
- Do we need to change the business name? Do we need a new identity?
- Do we need to develop a brand name?
- How could we sabotage our business success?
- Do we need a business coach to make us accountable for our planning?
Asking questions can involve a "10-times mind expansion" as you may discover some new things about yourself and your company. To give you an example, an entrepreneur I was working with used the above process and he really put some effort into his questioning. He came up with at least 260 questions about his business.
There were many beneficial things that resulted, but the most important was the realisation that he didn’t want to be in business anymore. Yes! You read it correctly. He acknowledged that running a business was in the too hard basket, so he "closed up shop" and went back to full-time employment. Now that was a serious decision, but one that was right for him and ultimately improved the quality of life for himself and his family.
On the other hand, after a good questioning session, other people go on to dramatically expand their businesses and to reach unbelievable heights.
So what are you waiting for? Establish you plan now and attack!
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