I know it is not a sexy word. “I need to go plan my…” “I need to write my business plan” “My 6 month plan is…” Not very exciting you might say but hold on, how do you manage anything without a plan?
As a business coach I often hear things like “I want to increase my revenues by 100% next year.” “I want more clients”. “I don’t know why I’m not meeting my revenue targets.” “I need to increase my social media presence.” Then I ask “what is your plan”, “what are the numbers” and get a blank stare or a lot of explaining but not very much planning.
I hosted a summit in July that was called Monetize Your Passions, we had a diverse set of speakers talking about different topics from basic business building steps, to social media, to networking, to developing your story, to attracting more clients. What emerged was one key theme: YOU NEED TO PLAN to be successful.
Achieving your goals mean taking action, action without a direction tends to be ineffective at best. If a task is overwhelming like increase your revenues by 100% in a year it difficult to take action if you don’t know what to do next or how you get to that number.
You need to break it down to manageable bits so that you can turn a goal into action. Even better break it down to measureable items.
I’m a firm believer in a business plan, a plan that you review at least every 3 months. Unless you are going for financing it doesn’t have to be formal but it does have to be workable, measurable and it needs to include real numbers. Here’s an example of real number broken down:
Sue want to make $100,000 in the next 12 months. Sue is selling her services by the hour at $150/hour. Sue’s clients on the average require 12 hours of her time. She needs to have 56 clients over the next 12 months which translates to a monthly target of 4.6 new clients. Sue knows that on average she closes 50% of business when she gets a “face to face” meeting. Ok, so now Sue target is 9.2 new prospect meetings per month with a close rate of 50%. There is a number that she manage, quickly measure to know if what she is doing is working or not, and make corrections.
The example above is a very simple example of knowing your numbers so that you can start to create a workable plan. In this case it was simple math to work from a huge yearly revenue goal to a monthly new prospects meeting goal. Isn’t that empowering?
Setting your target and understanding how they relate to your day to day activities is the 1st major step in creating a plan that works. Do you know your numbers? Are able to translate them down to the actions you need to take each day?
I love to see entrepreneurs follow their passions, serve more people and create the lifestyle of their dreams.
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I think everyone has to plan at some stage, whether they like it or not. In fact whether they recognise it or not. I like to plan my day/week/month but try not to become to rigid in my plans, after all life isn’t a straight line is it? great post!
Rachael:
You are absolutely right, life and business is not a straight line, stuff happens, we learn as we go. That is why it is so important to revisit you overall goals at least once a quarter. So we can learn and reset them.
Breaking down your bigger plans into smaller ones is the way to make them more manageable and less scary!
Helen: Definitely, small numbers aren’t scary. Getting 9 face to face meeting per month is much easier to visualize and achieve then making $100K a year. Knowing you numbers can also help you know when it is time to hire help.
Your “Sue” example is great, Heather. I think so many people don’t have a clue which numbers to analyse or how to reverse engineer them. Once you explain it, making a solid plan does not seem so daunting.
Agnes: So true, if we break down our numbers to month, even weekly targets it much easier to figure out what you have to do to achieve your goals. Numbers are scary for many people, the trick is to know them and learn to love the power of using them.
Without a plan it is so easy to just go off in tangents every time you hit a roadblock. A plan helps you stay focused.
It seems like people have a belief that if they are planning, they aren’t taking action…That planning holds them back and slows them down. But it really comes down to the old, “measure twice, cut once.”