There’s no better time than the start of the year to create a brand new action plan. If your results have been lackluster, why keep doing the same thing and getting the same results? To achieve your goals, you need a road map to follow. It’s time to focus on those things that are working for you and add some new, more effective actions into the mix. So, starting today, we’ll begin our five day strategic action plan for the new year. Your first step is to take a look at where you are right now. Take out a piece of paper and work through the following.
- Where Are We Now? Assess your current situation. Identify what your business is doing well and why. This is key. Be as specific as possible. If you want to improve your success and grow your business, you have to know what you are doing well. If you’ve never taken the time to really look at what’s going right in your small business, this can be a real eye opener for you. Sure you might “know” what’s going well, but writing it down can create a whole new set of “ahas” for you and show you where your business can focus on a niche that wasn’t so obvious to you before you started.
- What services / products do we provide to whom and what are their expectations? Now that you have a list of what’s working, you need to take a look at who they serve. Are you targeting the right market? Do they expect more from you than what you are providing? Is a product or service giving them “too much” at one time? For each item you identified above, make sure you take this step so you know why you’re selling, who you’re selling it to and what expectations it meets.
That’s it for today. Take at least an hour to work through each of these questions. Tomorrow we’ll take a look at where you want to be.
Got a question? Leave me a comment.
About Denise O'Berry
[...] You’ll want to take a look at what has happened to date and who your company has been serving before you move ahead. You can find the details for Strategic Action Plan Step 1 here. [...]