Plan for Success - yourplanningpartners.com · Plan for Success is organized into 4 chapters: Chapter 1 – explains why planning is a good thing! Chapter 2 – provides you with

©2013 Your Planning Partners Ltd

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Plan for Success

…. and grow a strong & sustainable business!

Plan for Success

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www.yourplanningpartners.com

© 2013 Your Planning Partners Ltd

All rights reserved

Plan for Success introduces you to the core principle of growing a strong and sustainable business; a Strategic Plan. It is very difficult to grow a business without a focused strategic plan that is in line with your own personal vision and values. And, believe it or not, without a plan you could end up with a business that you don’t like! We use the process described in this handbook with all our clients so we know it works. It is part of our Strategic Focus Program™. In this program we work one-on-one with owners of established small businesses to help them develop, implement and manage a customized growth plan designed to meet the specific needs and goals of their business. Plan for Success is organized into 4 chapters:

Chapter 1 – explains why planning is a good thing! Chapter 2 – provides you with the checklist to prepare

for planning Chapter 3 – leads you through the steps of creating a

plan using our Strategic Focus Planning Model™ Chapter 4 – helps you successfully manage the

execution of the plan; the most difficult and most important step of all!

We advise you to work through the handbook from beginning to end as you develop your strategic plan.

About Your Planning Partners Ltd

Your Planning Partners works with the owners of small, established businesses who want to grow their business. We work with them to take a comprehensive

look at every aspect of their business, and then together we create a plan to build a strong, sustainable business. We keep them clear about where they are going,

focused on their goals, and accountable for what needs to be done.

©2013 Your Planning Partners Ltd. ISBN 978-0-9813909-1-8

2014-02-17

http://www.yourplanningpartners.com/

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Chapter 1 Why Bother Planning? You have achieved some success with your business and the future looks bright. You have done this without a plan and so you have been able to go with the flow and change directions as the world around you changes. The time you would have spent planning has been productively used finding new clients or creating new products or hiring your team. If this is you congratulations! However, because you are reading this we assume you have a feeling that planning your future is a good thing. And you are right, unless you intend to write up a plan, run it through spell-check and then file it away in your bottom draw. A plan that is not used on a daily basis is as useless as having no plan! In our experience building a business without creating AND USING a plan is unpredictable and risky. Reasons are many:

Not having a plan to guide you to the destination is a bit like walking in the desert without a compass; you go round and round and round!

Just the process of creating a plan makes you think deep and hard about your business and where YOU want it to go. The process gets you out of the trees so you can see the forest. It forces you to clarify what business you are in, to face the realities and facts of your situation and to think beyond the here and now.

Without a plan the decisions made and the actions taken are reactive as opposed to proactive. The actions and decisions have no purpose other than to survive another day. Reactive management takes you hither and tither until you wake up one day completely lost.

A plan provides you with a very clear understanding of the destination of the business. With a clear destination you can easily develop the road map to


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get there and, more importantly, stay on the right road!

When things change (as they will) a plan gives you the framework to evaluate the change and make educated decisions on how you should modify your plan to reflect the change. Yes, plans are living, breathing things and do change.

A plan gives your team a common vision, purpose and direction. It becomes the contract between all members of the team. Everyone is clear on what each person must do and when they should do it. And what’s more it lessens the dependency the business has on you; and that is a good thing

A plan gives you focus. And we know all successful people are focus gurus. Whether it be athletes, successful entrepreneurs, famous actors or great leaders they all got there by focusing on the right things.

If you fail to plan you plan to fail!

Important Point! Planning is not just about getting more clients. It is about growing a strong, sustainable business that one day can be sold. And so your plan must address all seven of the key business components:

1. Marketing 2. Product 3. Systems & Processes 4. Financial 5. People 6. Sales 7. Customer Service

As Yogi Berra, the famous baseball player and creator of quotable quotes, once said: “If you don’t know where you are going you will end up somewhere

else”.

“Companies don’t fail; because they grow. They fail

because they don’t PLAN their growth. They don’t know why they are growing, they don’t know how to grow, and they

mistakenly believe that growth will solve their problems.”

Philip Orsini


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Chapter 2 Preparing to Plan Planning is not a quick fix; it is the first step in a journey. So like anything in life the quality of the output is directly proportional to the amount of preparation. You have an advantage - you have history and that tells you a great story. Knowing your history allows you to look into your future with knowledge and to make educated decisions based upon experience.

Things to think about as you reflect back over the past year:

What worked; what didn’t work? In all areas – clients, team, product, market, financials, operations.

What have been the special accomplishments? What are you very proud of?

What were the distractions? What can be done to minimize them next year?

Were their good distractions like a product development? How can you maximize the work you did on those distractions and/or use them to move forward?

What gaps have you identified that need to be filled in the future? For yourself and your business.

Are last year’s goals still valid? Are they still exciting?

What got you really excited last year? How did that play out? How can you stay really excited this year?

What projects did not get done? Do they need to be done? Are they still valid? What can be saved or repurposed into something else?

Did you meet your targets? If not why not?

Marketing results: Where did the business come from? New clients,

existing clients?

How did the business come to you? Referrals, Pay per Click, advertising, newsletters, cold calling?

What products sold and WHY? What products didn’t

“Always plan ahead. It wasn’t raining when Noah built the ark.” Richard Cushing


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sell and WHY?

What products could you have that you don’t have now?

What are people saying about your company? Did you conduct a survey? Are you going to?

Is your message right and working?

Are your marketing tools working? What marketing tools are you not using and why?

Revisit Ideal Client. Has it changed? Who is really buying from you?

Collect information:

Financials for the past year(s) – revenue and expenses. What is the revenue for each product? What are the expense items that make up 80% of your expenses?

Client list. Who is writing the cheques?

Sales by Client – Who is buying? What is the average sale? Who are the top 20% of clients by revenue? Are they profitable? Are there any clients not profitable?

Sales by product/service. What are the popular ones?

What were the costs and results of your marketing activities?

What do all these numbers mean?

Know your Competition: Who do you think your competition is?

o One way to find out is Google words that you think people would use to find you.

o Listen when you are at your association meetings.

o Look at who you are losing business to; who else’s name keeps coming up?

When you are clear about your true competition: o Look at their strengths and weaknesses o Don’t compete with their strengths o Identify and embrace their weaknesses -

address their weaknesses and YOUR strengths

o Friendly competition is also good. They can


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refer you work or collaborate with you – and you with them. Who do you consider friendly competition?

o Who is your “perceived” competition?

Your Clients Industries: Get to know what’s happening in your clients

industries: o Are there any changes – positive or negative? o Are they doing things any differently? o What technology do they use? o What might be coming up for them that you

can address or that you can respond to? o What’s happening in their world?

Your Industry: What do you need to do to stay on top of things?

What are the trends? What is happening in the industry?

Look into the future. What do you think is coming up down the road? What do other people think is coming up?

Is the industry growing? Why?

Is the industry shrinking? Why? As you work through your planning preparation don’t spend too much time thrashing through the things that went wrong. Yes, you should be aware so you can avoid them in the future. Instead, focus on what went right and determine how to duplicate those things.

Planning to make a plan is not a plan!

So turn to the next chapter and start

planning!


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Chapter 3 Creating the Plan Planning the future of your business is the most important responsibility you have. As described in the first chapter a plan provides you with a very clear understanding of the destination of the business. With a clear destination you can easily develop the road map to get there and, more importantly, monitor the progress. In this chapter we show you how to create the plan. Before you even start …. don’t rush it! Take your time. Set aside quality time; don’t squeeze it in between crisis meetings and rushed lunches! Seek help; work with your team; more than one person brings the power of synergy. Be wary of using friends; they may love you too much to be helpful. This is your blueprint to success so it deserves your undivided time and attention.

The Strategic Focus Planning Model™ The whole concept behind the Strategic Focus Planning Model (see diagram on right) is to start with the big picture and drill down into details. So we start with a long term Vision and end up with short term Strategies and Focus. Or to put it another way: we start with the forest and end up in the tree roots!

Vision – It’s all about YOU Before you go any further make sure you have complete clarity around what YOU want in your future and what YOU want for your business. We call this your Vision. Doing this step avoids the problem we encountered once of building a business that was not in sync with our personal vision! Your vision is your unique dream. It is what you want your business to become. It’s your big picture. It is what you focus on when you are overwhelmed by the mass trivia that invades your business life. It’s your pull factor. Your vision is what gives purpose to you as a business owner. The power and energy of creating your vision comes from

“A business without a vision is directionless. It lacks purpose” writes Michael Gerber in his book E-Myth Mastery.

The Strategic Focus Planning Model™


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working through the answer to this one important question: “If there were no obstacles and everything was

possible, describe the ideal vision of what you really want for your business and personal life.”

Open up your mind and let the answers roll in. Let your mind wander and consider all the exciting possibilities for your future. Document your vision. Write your “Vision Story”. Create a Vision Board.

Mission – It’s all about the BUSINESS Do you know the purpose of your business? Do you clearly understand why you started your business? Have you communicated this purpose to all those who work with you? Have you documented the purpose? The Mission packs a punch when you take all of the reasons for your business and distill them into a precise, meaningful statement that tells us what the company does, who it serves and what sets it apart from the competition. See Examples of Missions on the right. Your first step to create a Mission is to go through a process of answering the following questions:

Why did you start this business?

Who are your customers? What is your group of customers?

What is so special about your business and your products?

What is unique about your business?

How do you and/or your products add value to your customers’ businesses?

What is your vision?

What image do you want to portray? To write the Mission Statement that is precise, succinct and comprehensible is very difficult. But the effort will be worthwhile. So take your time and put in the effort because the results will be very beneficial. Do not concern yourself with writing eloquent prose that brilliantly captures the very core of your purpose. Just make sure it is right.

Examples of Missions

Your Planning Partners

To be instrumental in helping Small Business Owners plan for growth

and manage the necessary changes to build a strong and sustainable

business.

Happy Planet Our Mission is to astonish your taste buds, nourish your body, unite you with the best sources of food and drink on this planet, and grow a business from which happiness

flows.

Otis Elevator To provide any customer a means of moving people and things up, down and sideways over short distances

with higher reliability than any similar enterprise in the world.

Google

To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible

and useful.


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Share the Mission with the world. Put it on your website and in your marketing materials. When you are hiring new team members share it with them; if they don’t like the Mission they shouldn’t work for your company.

Three Year Objectives – the Destination The purpose of setting Three Year Objectives is to be very clear where you want your business to be in three years time so we know what needs to be done in the next year. As you sit in your favourite coffee shop or wine bar, ponder the future of your business. Where do you want your company be in some or all of these areas?

Financial – revenue (sales), profit, asset building

Marketing – website, lead generation, tools

People – training, performance management, compensation

Customers – ideal clients, numbers of clients, profitable clients

Products/services – new products, rationalizing product mix, profitability

Technology – driving the operations, productivity, distribution

Management – management team, your role, company ownership

Personal – income, vacations, professional development

Company – the brand, when will it be sold

Systems and processes – franchise model, Identify the key areas of future success and determine the target for each. From that you can write out the statements ensuring each one is SMART (see examples on right):

S – Specific.

M – Measurable

A – Appealing to you

R – Realistic

T – Timed

Three Year Objective Examples

Sales

To increase our active client base to 250.

Personal

To take 8 weeks vacation a year.

Product To add three additional products to our product line.

Financial To achieve an ROI that is 10% better than the industry.

Customer Service To consistently achieve a “highly satisfactory” rating from 95% of our customers.

Management

To have a full time Management Team in place to free up my time to focus on growing the business.


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One Year Goals Once we have the Three Year Objectives we need to develop the One Year Goals for each. To do this we use a tool called the Gap Analysis. Create a table with four columns, from left to right (see example on the right):

1. Three Year Objective 2. Current situation 3. Gap 4. One Year Goal

You can have more than one Goal per Objective but keep in mind that each Goal will result in many activities so don’t have too many.

Strategies – how you will achieve the Goals One Year Goals are “what” you must do this year; Strategies are “how” you are going to achieve the Goal. Each Goal will have a number of Strategies and each Strategy has an Owner (the one person responsible for it) and a Milestone Date. All the way through the process you are documenting your plans. We use a table like the one below to clearly show the relationship between the Three Year Objective, the One Year Goal and the Strategies.

Objective 1 In three years increase the number of clients to 150.

Goal 1.1 In one year increase the number of clients from 50 to 80.

Strategies Owner Milestone

Dates

Create and implement a new website focused on qualified conversions.

Ellen July 15th

Hire a salesperson.

Juan Jan 31st

Gap Analysis Example

Three Year Objective

In 3 years increase the number of clients to 150.

Current situation

We currently have 50 clients.

Gap And so the Gap is 100 clients.

One Year Goal

In the next year increase our clients by 30, bringing total to 80


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We return to the Strategic Focus Planning Model™ (to the right). You will notice a difference. Arrows have been added and they are all pointing upwards. This is significant. It shows that each layer of the plan must relate back to the previous layer. For example, looking at the Objective/Goal/Strategy table on the previous page it is clear that the Strategies relate back to the One Year Goal which relates back to the Three Year Objective. Why is this important? Because if you are on schedule with your strategies it means you are on schedule for the One Year Goal and therefore the Three Year Objective Voila; you now have a documented plan!! Now let’s make sure you can use it. In the next chapter we show you how to bring your plan to life by using the power of the 90 & 30 Day Focus™ and we share some common pitfalls and how to avoid them.

Reminder about this Important Point from Chapter 1

As you review and refine your strategic plan, make sure the plan addresses all seven of the key business components found in the Strategic Focus Organization Model™ (see model on the right).

Customer Service

Sales

People

Financial

Systems & Processes

Product

Marketing

Plan & Control


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Chapter 4 How to Make the Strategic Plan Work You must use your Strategic Plan if it is to be the tool to help you build a strong, sustainable business. Sounds easy and trite but in fact it is difficult and complex because executing plans is all about change. Also, there is the conflict you have between “Money Now and Money Later”. You need Money Now to keep the business going and yet your plans are all about Money Later. But if you don’t work on Money Later stuff then Money Now will soon become Money None. This chapter is focused on helping you and your team to successfully execute the plan.

Use the 90 & 30 Day Focus™ The 90 & 30 Day Focus is a tool we use to break the Strategic Plan into smaller more manageable chunks. You can focus on the next 90 and 30 days, knowing it is taking you towards your One Year Goals and therefore your Three Year Objectives. The process to develop your 90 & 30 Day Focus is as follows:

1. Identify the strategies and actions that must be worked on over the next 3 months if you are to achieve the overall plan. This is your 90 Day Focus. It might include:

Starting a project

Completing a project

Implementing new processes

Hiring someone

2. Once you have identified the 90 Day Focus break it down into smaller chunks by identifying what part of each 90 Day Focus should be accomplished in the next 30 days; that is your 30 Day Focus (see example).

Example of a 90 & 30 Day Focus

90 Day Focus

Implement the new website

30 Day Focus

Select vendor and have all requirements approved.


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3. Evaluate your progress towards the 30 Day Focuses

every day and if there are deviations initiate corrective actions immediately. Don’t wait till next week because by then things will be worse.

4. At the end of the first month develop the 30 Day

Focus for the next month.

5. As the end of the 3 months approaches evaluate the overall success and develop the next 90 Day Focus.

Manage the Numbers; Numbers Never Lie! A strategic plan includes targets to be achieved for your key numbers. For example:

Revenue and Profit

Inventory

Numbers of new clients

Delivery times

Quality control; numbers of returned products

Expenses Implement a reporting system that provides you with accurate and timely results of the key numbers. Notice we say “accurate” because many business decisions have been made on information that was not accurate, and no one knew it! Very important: As deviations occur ensure you initiate corrective actions immediately.

Manage the Plan As the owner of the business you must manage everything. And everything includes the Strategic Plan. If you don’t manage the plan, the plan will not happen. From our experience this requires you to:

1. Recognize that plans mean change and change requires change management. Just because you tell people to accept change does not mean change will be accepted.


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2. Document the plan. Don’t try and keep it in your

head. Countless studies have shown that a documented plan is much more likely to succeed than an undocumented plan.

3. Communicate the plan. Everyone involved in your

business should be aware of what the plans are. They don’t need to know everything but they sure need to know those parts that affect them.

4. Review your plans at least once a week. Take an

hour every Monday morning before you start anything and really read them. Ask the questions: What am I doing to make this happen? Are we on track? Do we need to make any changes? What are the hurdles? If action is required take action immediately!

5. Put key dates into your calendar and let your

calendar software keep reminding you. Not just the end date of something but also the start date so you are reminded when something needs to start.

6. Find someone who can keep you accountable to your

plans. If you have partners agree that accountability is the responsibility of each partner. If you don’t, consider hiring a coach. Share your plans with those who are important to you; family and/or friends.

7. Do one thing from your plans each day before you

open your emails.

8. Get help! You can’t do this all on your own so delegate some of the plan to your team.

Believe in your plans. Attitude is everything!


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A Final Thought - Managing Projects Your strategic plan will contain projects. Projects are those initiatives that have a beginning, middle and end. For example:

Develop and implement a new website

Create a Valentine’s Day marketing campaign

Hire someone for a new position Here are lessons we have learnt about managing projects:

1. Murphy’s Law states that if anything can go wrong it will. O’Toole considers Murphy an optimist.

2. Clearly define the project framework so there are no

surprises. This includes:

Its purpose

Deliverables

People and their roles

Scope; what’s included; what’s not included

Budget & Timeline

3. The Power of the Start Date! Each activity in the project will have a desired completion date but they must also have START DATES! Then you know when to start!

4. If one person is assigned to an activity and you add a

second person to that activity it will not be completed in half the time.

5. You cannot achieve an unrealistic end date. For

example, you may want to complete the project by year-end but if the timeline tells you otherwise do not just shrink estimates. If year-end completion is essential remove tasks or add resources.

6. Tasks never take less time than the estimates. They

usually take longer.

7. Projects are sometimes viewed as an added part-time activity that must not take precedence over current responsibilities. Consequently, they are never done!


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The End! We are sharing this information because we believe every small business owner deserves the opportunity to grow a strong and sustainable business. We have discovered that the way to do this is to create a solid Strategic Plan to guide you, your team and your business forward. This discovery did not come about through academic research. It came about through the practical experience of building many businesses ourselves and by working with hundreds of business owners. Good luck on your journey. We hope it is as exciting and fulfilling as our journey has been. We would love your feedback on the Plan for Success handbook. What has been the most valuable lesson? How can we improve the handbook? What should be added? If you have feedback and/or questions about its content please contact us at [email protected].

The Strategic Focus Vision™ Session is a half day complimentary session for qualified business owners. We work with you to develop your Vision for

yourself and your business.

The session is about getting complete clarity around your current situation and then creating a clear and powerful Vision Statement for your future. We work together to define where you want to go and identify some immediate

actions to accelerate your progress towards your Vision.

The Vision Session is the first step in the Strategic Focus Program™.

To learn more about your Strategic Focus Vision Session call Judi at 416 429-2415 or email [email protected]


mailto:[email protected]

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Documents

Plan for Success - yourplanningpartners.com · Plan for Success is organized into 4 chapters: Chapter 1 – explains why planning is a good thing! Chapter 2 – provides you with