If you’re anything like some of the business owners we know, you’re probably getting twitchy fingers already and thinking about what you can be doing in the down time between Christmas and New Years.
For some business owners this is the perfect time to get your thoughts down on paper and plan for the upcoming year.
Now there isn’t a one size fits all approach for business planning, but there are certain questions that it’s worth thinking about and trying to have a clear answer to. If you’re looking to make the most of the next year, here are a few questions worth thinking about.
Where do you want to be in 12 months?
Arguably this is the easiest of these four questions to answer as you don’t need to put any specifics against it. However, answering this question does help you with the first step of your plan for the next year. Think about where you are now and where you would like to get your business to in the next 12 months – that gap in between is what you need to bridge by way of an actionable business plan.
It can be daunting thinking about where you want to get to, when your starting point is a blank piece of paper – but think about how many customers you want, if you want more team members, what sort of services you want to be offering as a starting point.
What do you need to do to help you get there?
Once you’ve got your destination then its time to start thinking about your route. One of the best ways to do this is to break down the activities that you need to do, that will help you to reach your goal, into month by month action lists. This will help you to stay on top of your plan, but will also help to ensure that you don’t become overwhelmed with trying to do everything all at once.
There might also be specific things that need to be done at specific times of the year – eg, you might have a big revenue generating campaign that is tied to “back to school”, so this would need to take place and be planned for around August and September.
Do you have all the resources you need?
Now to be able to carry off a plan, you need to make sure that you have all of the necessary resources to execute it. This can mean having the right type of staff, with the right sort of experience and expertise to deliver your plan – or it can mean having the right sort of technical equipment and software to keep your business up and running and your plan on track.
Take your time to make a tech wishlist of things you’ll need for your business plan – including if any software needs updating – and invest in it if you can. You’ll thank yourself later.
What challenges might you face on the way?
At the same time, think about the challenges you might face along the way this year. Obviously it will not be possible to anticipate every eventuality that may come up – but having a good idea about the sorts of challenges you may face and how to deal with them will help to ensure that problems you encounter of the coming year are speed bumps, not mountains to climb.
Whilst WebbyTech can’t help you to answer all of these questions, we can help to ensure that you have the IT resources you need and a team in place who can help you overcome challenges. See the full range of services we offer
here or contact us
directly for a no obligations conversation.
