Continue Strategic Planning

Now that you have your business plan in place (of course you do, don’t you?) it is time to continue strategic planning sessions.
If you suffer from any of the following, it’s time to take strategic business planning seriously…

1. “Feast or famine” business cycles.
2. “Rise and fall with the tide” of the economy.
3. Cash flow sucks.

Time to continue strategic planning

It’s best to think about strategic and business planning as a cascading series of increasingly detailed activities.
The following list, to continue strategic planning, is in order of most strategic activities. And when you hear strategic,  think “able to create the best results possible.”

1. Leadership Foundations:  Yearly reviews of strengths, weaknesses, blind spots, biases of the key leaders in the company and of the company itself. It’s also smart to do …
   1. An employee internal survey.
   2. Customer, vendor partner survey.
   3. “Net Promoter Score” included in both.
2. Strategic Planning:  Yearly planning and review sessions of Vision, Values, Mission, Target Markets, Top level goals, last year’s results.
3. Business Planning:  Quarterly or 2x a year planning and review sessions of the following…
   1. Vision, Values, Mission, Target Markets, Top level goals, opportunities, threats.
   2. PLUS  operational, personnel, business development goals.
   3. Add Results of previous goals, challenges, and new goals.
4. Goal Reviews:  Monthly or even weekly reviews of goals per operational area of your business (oh yes, and your life!).
5. Status updates:  Weekly or daily 15 minute or less “stand up” meetings to cover progress since last time, challenges encountered, next steps planned.
   1. These work best if there is NO “problem solving” during the sessions
   2. And definitely NO “history lessons” or “story telling.”
   3. Defer problem solving to a separate time, preferably with the right people in the room.
   4. Avoid sit down meetings. They extend to an hour or longer as people get comfortable and the meeting covers topics other than the relevant business topics. Many meeting cover the salient information in 15 minutes or less then move into filler topics.

Armed with this information, all you need is the business plan as the starting point and the discipline to follow through.

It is time to work on it

Take some time to work on your situation. Whether it is creating a business plan or continue strategic planning.
Executive business coaches are trained and experienced in dealing with issues like these and have developed depth of expertise.
As an executive business coach I help clients through these issues continually. As they execute, excellent results follow.
Let’s see if I can help you too!
Contact me to set up a 30-minute complimentary time to discuss your situation.
Give me a call at 503-753-9971 or email me at phil@PhilBride.com.