Planning Your Business for the New Year

Dec 122008

Dr. Earl R. Smith II
Managing Partner, The Federal Circle
DrSmith@Dr-Smith.com
Dr-Smith.com

Business Coaches always advise their executive clients to take a hard look at their current business plan to see how they can improve on it for the following year. This also gives them a chance to see if they had reached the goals that they had set. Each New Year brings new opportunities for every corporate business. Having a revised business plan will make those opportunities easier to reach.

In order to create an updated business plan a Business Coach will ask you to define what it really is that you want to accomplish in the coming year. Try to think about new products or services, as well as new markets, how to improve customer relations, etc.

The next step is to include what you have learned from this year’s mistakes. Intentionally seizing the lessons of the year, and thinking about how to use that new knowledge can provide major opportunities to boost profits.

A Business Coach will then assist you in setting the correct targets for you and for your business. Having the proper goals and objectives will help to inspire both you and your management team to achieve successful growth. Define growth numbers that you believe in and that will make it all worthwhile. Say you are committed to 35% growth. However, you have never had more than 15%. Business Coaches will be able to ask you questions such as, “How are you going to achieve that? What would it take? Is it possible?” They will also be able to remind you that if you simply believe it is possible then it is also attainable.

Another important element to re-writing your business plan for the upcoming New Year is to review changes that have taken place within your target market and to consider the critical success factors. A Business Coach will help you to identify any new major factors such as changes in customer buying behavior, shifts in the demographics, new issues in your industry and fresh competitor activity. Together you should consider how any of these changes would make it easier or perhaps harder to achieve your business targets.

It is best to keep in mind that if any of these changes cause you to rethink the targets you have previously set, it is best to take a step back and make the proper adjustments to your New Year’s business plan that both you and your Business Coach deem to be necessary.

The next stage is to attempt to figure out how to reach the targets that you have set out in your business plan. Your Business Coach will be able to conduct a management assessment for you to determine your leadership style. With this information, both you and your Business Coach will be able to devise an action plan based on your leadership development and personal growth towards achieving corporate success.

A great way to view your goals is to view them as if they have already been completed. Looking back from the future to the present time, try to envision what the final step was that you achieved before completing the goal. Then imagine what the step was before that one. And so on and so on all the way to the present day. Your Business Coach will be able to check for any false rationality with this vision and will tell you whether your vision may or may not pan out. Do this for each of your targets and goals. If you are able to follow this action plan then you can almost guarantee a breakthrough year.

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One Response to “Planning Your Business for the New Year”

Business Coach says:

December 12, 2008 at 11:10 PM

Yes, setting business goals is the very first, and most important step. Dr. Smith, you have certainly hit the nail on the head for sure. I will make sure I go and check out some of your books. They look great.

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