As we all know, any good and successful business venture has a good strategic plan in place and ready for execution when the time comes. Having a good strategic plan better helps you as a business owner, implement your agenda in a sufficient and effective way.
Incorporating a strategic plan into your business is an absolute must—knowing how to plan and be prepared for any risks is the key to any successful business. Strategic planning is a skill that can quickly become mastered, and luckily for you—we’ve set you up with 6 steps to incorporate into your business’ strategic planning.
- Establishing A Reason for Your Strategic Plan
Before you even begin creating your strategic plan, you’ll need a reason or motive behind it. Is your business not performing how you imagined? Has your target audience shifted? Are you producing more feedback than you anticipated and now you are wanting to act on that feedback? Whatever your reason may be for wanting to create a strategic plan—you need to establish that first. Having a clear approach to why you need this strategic plan will be important once you begin to execute your plan.
- Having a Distinct Process
Your process for implementing your strategic plan is one of the most important steps to incorporate. You need to make sure your approach to this process is clear, distinct, and understandable to not only yourself, but your team as well. Specifically, the Hoshin Planning Process is a great example of how to create a process for your brand’s strategic plan. Hoshin’s plan focuses on establishing organizational visions, developing and deploying objectives, implementing those objectives and then reviewing the progress. Understanding the process of Hoshin will help with the development of creating a distinct process for your business as well.
- Knowing How to Execute your Strategic Plan
So now you have this plan that you’ve created and you’re trying to figure out how to put it into action. You first want to make sure everything you’ve put into your plan and process is obtainable and realistic for your business. The goal for your execution is to be able to effectively implement it without any glitches or hiccups.
- Setting a Strict Time Limit/Timeframe
A lot of strategic plans fail because there isn’t a strict deadline and timeframe attached to them. This is one of the most important and valuable assets to any strategic plan. Set a deadline and stick to it! This is not only good for business practice—but for life too. You will quickly realize that everything you’ve set out to do in your strategic plan will require lots of time to implement, so it’s important to allocate specific timeframes to each task within your plan.
- Reviewing and Evaluating Your Progress
Evaluation is an absolute must! It’s the step that shows you how far you’ve come along in this entire journey. One thing to remember is—tracking and evaluating your progress is a step that can take place anytime during the execution of your strategic plan. Continuous evaluation throughout the entire process helps to alleviate mistakes before they become larger or to possibly prevent them altogether.
- Rewarding Yourself for Effectively Carrying Out Your Strategic Plan
Who doesn’t like rewards?! Better yet, who doesn’t like rewards when they’re well deserved?! Rewards and incentives are always effective in any strategic plan. Setting goals and milestones and then accomplishing those goals and milestones should be celebrated—no matter how big or small they are. Reward those who are a part of your team and are a part of executing your strategic plan—they deserve it just as much as you. Showing appreciation for those that helped you implement your objectives and goals for your brand is vital and keeps the entire team motivated to work even harder! The implantation and execution of these steps are sure to help you actively and successfully achieve a great strategic plan. Regardless of any challenges you may face along the journey—you will have the necessary steps and references to progress forward.
