Don’t adjust your business plan!

“IT DOESN’T MATTER WHERE YOU ARE COMING FROM. ALL THAT MATTERS IS WHERE YOU ARE GOING.”
– Brian Tracy

The year-end is coming up fast… which means we’ll be entering the session of business plan revisions, annual evaluations, and New Year resolutions too!

At this time of the year, many of my coaching meetings focus on implementing an action plan for the upcoming year – there’s definitely something in the air because people are bursting with energy and enthusiasm as the New Year approaches and are truly determined to bring their business to another level.

I admit I’m not a big fan of business plans. Too often, they are stored in a drawer right after being written and stay there all year long. Do you do that?

What if we did things differently for 2019?

Business plans represent the results you want to achieve: the number of new clients, revenues, profits, etc. These are called lagging indicators. The problem with this type of indicator is that they are used to evaluate the past. They are reactive indicators, not proactive indicators.

In business development, I prefer to use leading indicators, which help us to clearly determine what we need to do to reach our goals.

Having “x” number of clients in 2019 is good but doing “y” number of seminars or “y” number of blogs/webinars for my visibility strategy – now THAT is better! Leading Indicators help us to make a concrete action plan with deliverable elements and set deadlines.

3 steps to take to think differently and move to a higher level of excellence.

No. 1 Do a business audit
Your business has eight important dimensions we need to pay attention to:

Product/Service
Team/Human Capital
Growth
Efficiency
Profitability
Marketing & business visibility
Environment
Social contribution

Often used by business coaches, a business audit helps you examine every aspect of your business to assess the balance between its different parts. As such, it allows you to identify areas that require more attention.

Let me give you an example: I was working with a great entrepreneur once, she had such pride in what she wanted to build as a business, but she had no team – she had employees, but no team. The employees did their job (basically did what they were supposed to do), but they did not adhere to the bigger vision, they couldn’t support the ambitious goals because they didn’t have the knowledge and expertise to help raise the business as a team. She evaluated her team/human capital was at a level 2, and this was truly draining her momentum and ability to reach her goals.

Are you neglecting certain areas of your business at your own risk? Take the test!
Click here to conduct your business audit now

No. 2 Move from intention to action
I often say, “Ideas are good, but execution is better.” If you want to land 10 new clients in 2019, how many “prospects” and “suspects” should you identify to reach your goal? If you want to improve communication within your team, how many team meetings will you hold? When will you host team dinners, offsite strategic sessions or team building activities?

These actions are your leading indicators. It’s essential to plan them well and, of course, to execute them.

Also read…
Ditch the business plan, do this instead

No. 3 Develop your business dashboard
When you’re driving your car, as soon as you stop on the accelerator, you see the speedometer progress on the dashboard. Taking the pulse of what you have done is the key to success, whatever your goal is.

Take the time to clearly identify your leading indicators and build a dashboard tailored to your business. What actions should you take on a weekly, monthly, quarterly basis to achieve your goals? Measure your progress each month.

Now, it’s up to you to decide that 2019 that will be a year like no other!

Together, we go further

I leave you with one last piece of advice, probably the most important of all: surround yourself throughout your process.

Obviously, I am here to help you, whether with personalized coaching or a business strategy day. There are also many other resources, such as consultants, business or performance coaches, and you can also consider using a mentor from the Réseau M de la Fondation de l’entrepreneurship.

‘If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.’ Those who are most successful have understood this proverb very well.

Now it’s your turn to play!