When you are looking at your business from the top-down, a key component that needs to be there if there isn’t one in place already is to have a strategic plan in place to be the “blueprint” or structure to your business. A strategic plan is supposed to be able to fully lay out your business and evaluate the ways you can reach goals and avoid problems. If you don’t have one already, here is a way to create one for you and your business.
Evaluate
The first step before anything can happen with a strategic plan, a full evaluation of what state the business is currently in is needed. A SWOT analysis is the best way to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the business or anything that can affect the business in any way possible. This will give you the insights into how to approach the plan moving forward.
See The Future
This isn’t telling you to actually look into the future, but to determine where you want the company to be in the future. This is easily defined by finding goals that you want the business to hit in 1,5,10 years, and so on into the future. These can be size based goals, profit goals, or even simple goals such as not losing money. Whatever the goals for the future are, make sure they are an integral part of your plan.
Create
This is the part where you take the goals from the last step and put into place the plan to reach them. When you create the plan from the end result, it is easier to keep the end goal in the process the whole time. Make sure that the plan is fully fleshed out in all aspects of the business, so there is no way you can stray from the plan in place.
Measure
Lastly, a large part of the plan is to be able to define and measure your progress and success within the plan. It is easier to be able to understand how you stack up to goals when there is a way to measure the progress made towards the goals. This will give you an idea on how much is needed to reach and attain the goals moving forward. Review the progress made every couple of months and make adjustments as needed.
These steps can help you understand your business, but if you don’t commit 100% to the business you won’t see the results you want or need to see.