Small Business Blog

2011 Strategic Planning for Your Small Business

James Cooper — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 16:59:00 GMT

2011 is upon us. Have you done any strategic planning for your small business? Maybe you’ve done a little, maybe a lot, maybe none at all… but it’s worth at least considering where you are, and where you want to be… and ultimately just what the heck you will do to bridge the gap and make it all happen for you and your business in 2011.

What is Strategic Planning?

Strategy planning or strategic planning or the a strategic plan….[insert more jargon and clichés]… whatever, all this means for small business owners is; where the heck are we taking this thing I call my business, direction A, B, C or D?

For example; A small business owner might ask themselves, “Do we;

a) focus on growing the business by acquisition (buying smaller businesses that do what we do or do something that complements what we do), or

b) go after the B2B market which is only 20% of our revenue at the moment but we thing because it has a 42% gross profit margin vs the 34% gross profit margin in the B2C market we should focus on growth to bring the overall revenue from B2B up to 40% by the end of the end (while maintaining current B2C revenues), or

c) we should down size by selling customers C & D which should increase profitability by 25%, or

d) etc etc..

Let’s not over complicate what strategic planning is, especially when we are focusing on small business. Sure, there is a whole heap of detail you need to actually make an informed decision, but at its core, thinking strategically is simply about thinking for the future and achieving a better outcome than you have today.

Your action plan for the year and quarterly action plans can take care of the specific tactics you’ll be implementing to achieve goals and key milestones along the way of your new strategic direction. For now, think big sky, no limits, think… “how would a really like my business to look?!”

Action Points

Set aside some time, away from the office and away from home (change your environment to think a little differently), let’s call it a “retreat”, corporate companies have them every year, why not you for your business?!
At your “business retreat”, mind-map your options, gather the intel to be able to make an informed decision, set your strategic direction, 1 paragraph will be fine for some (so long as it truly is backed up with good intel), for others… 1 or 2 pages is still ok, anything more is probably devaluing the process.

Marketing Implementation Process: Get Your Marketing Ideas Executed

James Cooper — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 13:02:00 GMT

We are bombarded by information every day. This article is simply another example. It's one idea out of millions about small business and marketing. The challenge is to make sense of all this information, not go into overwhelm, and most importantly; IMPLEMENT for results!

Execution and implementation is everything. Marketing ideas, business ideas, information, and knowledge are all worthless, in a pure business sense, unless you can take action. How many times have you learnt something new or been reminded about a good marketing idea, but when it comes down to it… you find you don’t have the time or resources to implement it.

Why is this?

Simple. We don’t often have a clear way (a process) of taking information and doing something useful with it. Even if the action is to record the idea and note that we can’t execute right now, this puts it to bed. We are great consumers of information; books, newspapers, tv, magazines, and the internet. Knowledge, information and ideas are everywhere, what we are missing are ways to simplify and DO something with it. Enter a way to implement and execute your marketing ideas;

Marketing Implementation Process

Turn information and ideas into; who is doing what, by when. The marketing implementation process is broken down into 3 simple parts, 1 page each. This gives you, and any other person on the team, a clear visual roadmap of your marketing efforts for the next 3 months. At the end of the month, keep rolling the roadmap out so you always have a 3 month plan (1 month off, add another 1 on). The three parts are;

1. Marketing Development Plan

What marketing strategies do you want to do in the near future? What are the ideas that will take some effort to get up and running? What are the existing strategies or tactics you have that could really do with improvement, some enhancement, some development? Write the ideas down. Get it out of your head and onto paper. Once on paper (or in a Word file) you can then decide which ideas will get developed in the next three months, and which ones will sit until you may or may not do something with it in the future. It could go a little like this;

Development	Oct-Week 1	Oct-Week 2	Oct-Week 3	Oct-Week 4	Nov-Week 1
Monthly Newsletter (potential new supplier of eMail delivery software. Are we on the right platform is there something better?)			Research providers	Compare & Make Decision	Change & Setup (if required) or enhance setup (if staying with existing provider)
Start a Blog	Research platforms DIY vs using website service provider	Compare & Make Decision	Setup	Start Blogging (1 article per week, written by Jill)
Develop a USP		Create 5 customer survey questions	Send survey request to customers	Review customer data, find the top 3 pain points	Run through USP questions, then create first draft
Social Media – Twitter (Engage daily to build community)	(don’t have time to do this 100% yet, focus time on other development first, leave in development list and revisit in 2 mths)

2. Marketing Activity Plan

Marketing activity is basically what strategies and tactics you are doing or going to be doing. What are the activities that have to be done on a regular and ongoing basis. When are they to be done, and by whom?

Activity	Oct-Week 1	Oct-Week 2	Oct-Week 3	Oct-Week 4	Nov-Week 1
Permission Marketing: – General Communication -– Monthly Newsletter	Create Content – Jack	Publish & Distribute - Jill			Create Content – Jack
Outbound Marketing: – Direct Methods -- Cold Calls
Outbound Marketing: – Mass Methods -– Board Networking Events	Weekly XUZ breakfast - Jill	Weekly XUZ breakfast - Jill + one-off ZYX lunch event - Jill	Weekly XUZ breakfast - Jill	Weekly XUZ breakfast - Jill + Monthly ABC evening drinks - Jill	Weekly XUZ breakfast - Jill
Inbound Marketing: – Social Media -– LinkedIn	2 x Group Article Submission - Mary	2 x Group Offer Submission - Mary	2 x Group Article Submission - Mary	2 x Group Offer Submission - Mary	2 x Group Article Submission - Mary
Inbound Marketing – Blogging				Write & Publish Article - Jill	Write & Publish Article - Jill

3. Marketing Dairy Schedule

This could easily be the most important part to this process for most people. I’ve seen the best laid plans fail because they miss the scheduling of regular activities (or development) into a fixed time slot. These activities MUST happen in order for you to progress. Do this in outlook or whatever calendar you use, but basically you need to block out times for things like...

Jill's Scheduled Marketing Tasks:
Mon - Fri: 9am - 10am, Sales Calls

Mon: 10am - 12pm, Marketing Development Tasks

Tue: 10am - 11am, LinkedIn Engagement (Group Article Submission + Group Discussion)

etc

Action Points

Highlight this article, then cut and paste into a Word document.
Delete the text, keep the tables, turn the document to landscape, then add 8 more columns to the right (the next weeks ahead).
Edit document as required.
Now, be disciplined with yourself and follow what you have set out.

Small Business Plans Are Dead - Why 97% Of Business Plans Are A Waste Of Time?

James Cooper — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 05:43:00 GMT

...And What The Alternative Is That Will Have You Kicking Ass And Taking Names...

Most Business Plans are rubbish! Small Business owners like you have very little free time, why on earth would you spend 20 hours developing a pinpoint accurate, fail proof battle plan? ... There can be only one reason... to get a loan or overdraft from financiers who are employees with no clue about small business that are just following the system that has been handed down to them from an archaic bureaucratic giant, making them powerless interchangeable robots. Every other reason is pointless!

So stop feeling a little guilty when people talk about business plans to get growth, development or improvement. Stop feeling "yes, I should really plan... to get me to the next level... if only I had some time" ... hint: if you haven't done a detailed business plan before (other than for finance), you won't be likely to do one in the future. So discover the true nature of business growth and get a very practical simple tool (The Two Page Quarterly 'DOING' Plan) that you can use today to help ensure things don't just happen by accident or more importantly that things change. Put yourself in control of the direction of your business now...

What's your beef?

Planning is not king, just ask the US Government. The US had a very detailed plan, of well... everything. Somewhere near the top would have been the protection of its own people, with detailed plans of what to do to prevent war and what to do when in war with another nation. All the planning counted for nothing in actual reality when 9/11 rocked around, why? Because it was an event that was unforeseen and not expected, tactics had to change quickly. To me the new enemy of America has rung in a new era! The change from a world where planning was king, to a world where being adaptable, active and constantly moving by doing stuff wins.

Business growth doesn't follow a set process or a step by step 'how to' or a detailed plan! You might spend 20 or 40 hours writing a detail plan only to have the whole direction and overall strategy and plan of the business turned on its head after taking a month to implement it! What a waste of time!!! Far better is to build and spiral business growth through the addition of what you know at any particular point in time. Business growth happens in a CYCLE.

You don't need to ensure you do steps 1 through to 6 before you can do 7, yeah sure in a theoretical world it would be better, but hey let's face it, you might learn something then simply implement it in your business without a detailed analysis and plan. That's great, that's one cycle. The next time around the cycle you might choose to do a bit of a plan before you implement anything. In total there are 6 crucial elements to business success in each cycle, pick one on the first cycle when you are running with a new strategy or developing a segment of your business, the next time round the business development cycle pick two, until you are doing them all. Understand this and you can spiral your growth faster and faster upward for massive results!

What is The 6 Element Growth Cycle?

1. Learn
2. Discover
3. Plan
4. Create
5. Implement
6. Record & Report

This is not like a 6 steps system where you need to complete step 2 before you go to step 3, it is a cycle or continuing upward spiral (tornado).

It starts with a small diameter and only 1 element, Learn! As an idea gains strength in your mind, (let's say it's for a Marketing Campaign to Mail Box Drop the local area to increase new enquiries in your business), at a critical point the information you have learned clicks over into intent or a decision to run with it. The cycle now gets a little bigger as you pick another element, you might jump straight into Implement by eMailing a file of an old brochure you have to your printer to get 5,000 copies printed and delivered asap in your local area. Then you might learn that you can get a better response if you use Direct Response Advertising Techniques in the flyer, so you Discover through a quick analysis survey what is really important to your customers, then you Create a new Flyer that employs the correct layout and message, then Implement and time you decide to Record & Report to understand want results you are getting and whether or not the campaign is a good investment or not. Chances are if you tried to plan this all out getting it right first time, along with dozens of other strategies you'd still be trying to write it and never have done anything!!!!

Each time you go around the cycle you get to pick which of the 6 elements you will do. i.e. when first looking at an area in your business, or strategy you want to run with, on the 1st cycle you may choose to do element 1. Learn then jump straight to element 5. Implement, because sometimes you don't need to Discover more information (an analysis) or build a detailed and time consuming plan. In cycle 2, a week later or 6mths later you may now choose to do some more detailed Planning before Creating what you set out in your plan then Implementing it and Recording & Reporting it.

You can see that this is a much better approach to business, it understands that, we can only do what we know at any given time, and as we learn new things we implement them. It is not practical to always expect a large learning phase to increase knowledge, then a detailed and accurate plan in which to follow, when a simply change would have been more effective and efficient and would have achieve a results... successful or not... a result will bring you closer to the desired outcome than detailed planning and inactivity ever will. Over time, through the continuing upward growth spiral we can choose more and more of the elements in each cycle to create more and more synergy thus better and better results.

The 7 Key Segments of the 6 Element Growth Cycle

1. Strategy

2. Marketing

3. Sales

4. Systems (Operations)

5. Money (Finance)

6. Team (Human Resources)

Each segment is important, Operations is often strong in a lot of businesses however, Finance, Strategic Thinking, Sales, Marketing, and Human Resources have great opportunity for improvement in most businesses.

Hang On... Where's The 7^th Segment?

In the center of a Tornado is the eye. You are the eye. The bigger the eye is the bigger the Tornado becomes. The bigger and better you are, the bigger and faster your business growth will be. Where do you need to focus? Learning and Personal Development, Time Effectiveness, Principle Focus, Mindset, Fun and Direction.

Out of all the 100s of business owners I've talked to over the years it is always one of these three factors that are holding them back:

1. Focus

2. Knowledge

3. Behaviour

What is the hurdle that most business owners face?

It is how to ‘Create' whatever needs to be done. I mean... let's take the area of ‘Sales' in your business, let's say you want to improve your results... close more deals, increase your revenue without spending a cent on marketing by increasing your conversion rate... then you've probably heard that you should have ‘Sales Scripts' in your business for you and your team, for answering the phone, taking an enquiry, doing an onsite visit, greeting a walk-in customer.. etc.

Heck, me and every other business adviser you talk to, or book you read, seminar or workshop you attention have been ramming this strategy down business owners throats for years. Let's say you decide .."Right I've got the message, I can see the benefits, I'll do that, I'll get sales scripts implemented right across my business". But before you "Implement" the scripts, you must sit down and write them... it doesn't take long before you realise... "Where do I start? What do I say? Should I use the computer or paper? Just what am I trying to do here? I don't know about sales psychology? Oh, to heck with this!"

Often overwhelm sets in and well, nothing ever changes because there's a lack of depth of knowledge in the subject... yes we know we should have a script but, we don't know how to "Create" a GREAT script. So what's the solution:

1.Either you invest more time to "Learn" more and more on that one particular subject or strategy or segment in business so that you can "Create" whatever you need to be able to "Implement" that strategy and change. While I'm a big advocate of - The More Knowledge I Have The Easier Everything Is! -, the reality is few business owners have the time available to become subject matter expects in ALL the segments of business and ALL the strategies and tactical method details. Businesses with little available cashflow, favour this approach but the result is often no change because they simply can't learn everything fast enough.
2.That leaves outsourcing to subject matter experts who can "Create" and assist with "Implementing" strategies. Long the domain of only big corporations with deep pockets, outsourcing is increasingly becoming a very viable option for small business owners. While this certainly won't work for everyone it is worth looking at, you'll be surprised how many of my clients now outsource to mimosaAPPROVED^TM Trusted Experts, to just get the job done and reap the rewards of someone else creating. But for many, this is still a little hard to do in all segments of the business as cashflow is not endless, so it still leaves gaps....read opportunity to improve.
3.Early in 2008 watch this space for developments and updates on a revolutionary new solution. mimosaADVISER^TMis an On Demand Business Development Solution for Small & Medium Business Owners that are looking for increased profits and more free time. The mimosaADVISER^TM solution includes powerful educational and advisory sessions that increase knowledge and help people Learn; through subject matter experts via engaging interactive video presentations online. But perhaps the most unique and powerful feature is the Create function, which through editable online business development assets, tools and templates in every key area of your business (including marketing, sales, team, money, operations, strategy and personal effectiveness), gives you assets like; sales processes, sales scripts, direct mail letters, print adverts, recruitment systems, time management systems all in the one integrated suite of powerful business development principles, strategies, methods and easily customisable tools to help you start, run, grow and exit your business. All designed to help you create a business which gives you freedom of choice. This will shake up the whole business advisory, development and coaching industry!

How can I chart my own course?

Ok, in the mean time you need a solution now, right? I've used this method for a number of years, getting really complicated in the past, now I've cut it back to basics... I've settled on a Two Page Quarterly Action Plan. That is a 3 month plan or list of strategies, tactics, and segment goals all on one A3 page that you can stick to the wall and work off. The year breaks down nicely into 4 quarters, setting goals and reviewing in this time period smoothes out any monthly fluctuations in purchases and profits. Plus you can actually make an impact in 3 months. In 3 months you can change things, you can get results, you can see a result!

This Weeks Action Points...

December is a great time to reflect and project. A great time to do a one page quarterly plan, for JAN, FEB, MAR next year. Follow this link and download the following template Action Plan Template, eMail it to your printer and get it printed on A3 paper and posted back to you (it's called leverage, you'd spend more in petrol getting there and back so don't do it) go back through the last 5 months of the mimosaWEEKLY TIP and print them all out, and pick strategies to work on in the next 3 months. Do this now to start next year flying.