Taking a step back to consider the bigger picture is something we get told to do from a pretty young age. Don’t sweat the small stuff; try to not to get caught up in the minute details. Remembering to do it in day-to-day life can be hard. When it comes to your own business, it gets even harder.
Let’s take the big picture, and call it your strategic plan. Every business needs one. It’s the foundations of what you’re doing and why. Where you want to take it and how you’re going to do it. So many people don’t take the time to think about this thoroughly before launching into business and once that happens, they’re too busy getting caught up in the daily running of things to step back and consider.
Here’s a general idea of what your strategic plan should include:
- A mission statement and core values. What is the business’ reason for existence? What are it’s aims and why? This is your purpose and every decision you make should align to it.
- Work out your why. What problem are you solving for your clients or customers? What do you have to offer them? If you don’t have clarity around this, how can you market your business effectively?
- Define your objectives, and then figure out how you’re going to achieve them. Think of them as big picture targets that you can use to monitor success in regards to the mission statement. For instance: “RBK Advisory will increase earning per partner by $30k per year.” Developing strategies to achieve these objectives is another blog post (which we will write shortly).
- Monitor and control performance. You’ve done the hardest part of your strategic plan, now it’s time to make sure it’s actually working. Figuring out a KPI dashboard and keeping track of whether you’re reaching goals in a timely manner is an incredibly valuable service that advisors can provide. As the business owner, it’s nearly impossible to keep this part objective.
Your strategic plan doesn’t need to be a beautifully presented professional document. It does, however, need to be written down.
Let’s touch back on point 3 for a minute. Implementation of your objectives is obviously an enormous, if not the biggest, task. There are so many ways to approach it and knowing how to do it in the most effective manner can feel very overwhelming. Jason Cunningham breaks it down into four key pillars of business. The idea is to focus on getting each one right so that as a group they work together coherently, et voila, you have a successful, growing business! The four pillars are:
- People
- Processes
- Customers
- Financials
We’ll break down these points in future posts but it’s useful to start thinking about your implementation plan in these terms from day dot.
It’s also important to remember, you can read all the blogs and articles you want, but the most valuable advice by a mile is what you can get from people who have been there and done that. Reach out to mentors, friends and advisors.
Any questions? Email us! Or call us. Or just hunt Jason and Jono down and bring coffee.
