How many times in the last six months have you said to yourself: “I’ve got to get organized†or “I need to stop and think about what I’m doing.†Probably many times right? And have you done anything about it?    No.
Don’t beat yourself up – most small business owners have these thoughts all the time and never address it.
What’s stopping you from taking a really good look at where your business stands right now?
Probably some of the following reasons:
• No time
• It just all seems too much to think about
• Where do I start?
• I’m afraid of what I might find out.
In order to move your business forward you must find time to understand where it stands now.
Don’t despair, it isn’t as hard or as scary as it seems. You just need to find some time and then approach it in a step-by-step way. The time you set aside, probably no more than 10 hours, will be the most productive you have experienced in a long time.
Evaluate Your Business Now
First look at different aspects of your business. For instance:
• What is the relationship with your customers like?
• Who are your competition and what are they doing?
• Where are you missing resources and/or skill sets?
• How happy are you with the product or service you are selling? What could be improved?
• Etc. etc.
Make sure to look at each area separately and exhaustively. Use brainstorming techniques. No input is bad.
Where Will The Future Take You?
Next define where you would like your business to be in 2-3 years time. Be aspirational but realistic. What’s it going to feel like? What’s it going to be doing?
Now go back over your review of your business and pick out the big things, or what we call the key drivers; things that are around today that will impact in the future.
Once you have a list of at least 10 key drivers and possibly more, rate them in terms of level of impact and degree of certainty.
Now pick the 4-5 most certain and most impactful.
Make a Plan
OK, so bearing your vision for your business in mind, how are you going to tackle these 4-5 drivers over the coming 2-3 years? Create a strategy for each one. And then break each strategy down into 4-5 sub-strategies.
Now estimate when and for how long you will work on each sub strategy and make a timeline.
You won’t be surprised by the results but you will feel very confident that it sensible and doable.
Now build it into your daily, weekly and monthly tasks and work on it – you have no excuse now – you are organized!
Need Some Help?
If you need help in facilitating this process, call HeadRoom at 610.548.5278. Learn more about our coworking spaces in the suburbs of Philadelphia, PA, in Media and Wayne, PA.