I like to think of a business plan as a road paved with good intentions. Without action, it can head south quickly. With an organized approach to implementation, however, your results can soar.
Organized Implementation
First things first. When you finalized your business plan for this year, did you take the next step of extracting all of your action steps from each of the eight facets (Financials, Products & Services, Marketing, Team Growth & Development, Sales Systems, Customer Retention, Technology & Equipment, and Office)?
If you did, then the next step should have been choosing just your TOP SIX things you were going to focus on accomplishing this year. If you don’t have priorities, it’s easy to get busy getting busy, and before you know it, the most important goals have been back-burnered by everyday “emergencies” that frankly aren’t.
So gut check point number ONE: when is the last time you looked at your business plan? You may have crafted an exceptional plan, filed it carefully, and went straight into the day-to-day working IN your business.
Do yourself a favor. Sit down right now and identify your Top Six Goals. Write them out with action steps and specific due dates for completion. If you need help, click here and schedule yourself a free strategy session with one of our coaches. We’ll help get you back on track quickly.
Assigning Responsibility To Your Team
With your Top Six goals in mind, your next step is to drill down on each of the six goals to determine who specifically on the team should be doing what to move those goals forward to action and results. Once you do that, it’s important to communicate with each team member and invite their input on the action steps you’ve outlined for the goal. Also inquire about the feasibility of the deadline you’ve assigned to the goal. How reasonable do they feel the timeframe is?
INSPECT What You EXPECT
How will you know you’re getting the results you desire? If you wait until a deadline’s passed to check in, you’ll likely be disappointed.
Inspecting can take a variety of forms:
- Pre-determined dates where the team member provides you with a report
- Regularly-scheduled meetings that include projects review
- Periodic check-ins just to ask how things are going and to offer your help
- Often you and the team member can determine ahead of time what form you want the follow-through to take on. Ultimately, YOU as the leader are responsible for ensuring your expectations are met. Mind-reading is NOT an acceptable form of communication on a team!
The best way to ensure you are implementing your organized business plan is to be the best CEO of your business you can be. If you take the time to ensure your business plan is well organized, then you commit to carrying a maximum of six goals and you follow through on inspecting what you expect, your results will soar.
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