CAN YOU TELL ME HOW TO GET TO SUCCESS FROM HERE?

 

This is the second in a series of posts about what we have to do to still be in business this time next year.  Times may be tough, but you can survive and thrive if you're willing to take an honest look at yourself and decide to make some changes in the way you think about your business and you life.  Once you do that, you're going to see different behavior, which will give you different results- the ones you've been looking for!

Review Your Plan

If I asked you the following question, what would you say?  "Can you please give me some directions?"  Probably, your first response would be to ask where I want to go.  Without a clear destination in mind, it's hard to know how to get there. 

To put it another way, what's your vision for your future?  Do you know what you want to be one, three, or five years from now?  Surprisingly, I run into a lot of people who really don't know where they want to be.  They just assume if they work hard that good things will happen in their business or their personal life.  Unfortunately, most of those folks never do anything but work hard and wonder why they are not being successful. 

Do you have a strategic plan?  Did you know that businesses with a strategic plan that they follow religiously have a significantly better chance of succeeding?  Most of us would agree that having a strategic plan is important for our business, but most of us also are just a little intimidated by the thought of sitting down and going through the process.  After all, 

• it costs a lot of money
• you have to ask yourself a lot of hard questions
• planning takes a lot of time

Besides that, making a strategic plan involves thinking about things we don't typically think about.  We didn't get into business to make plans and talk about vision and mission and strategies for marketing, and goals; we got into business to do what we love, whether it's making widgets or selling our services. Who wants to fool around with a strategic plan? 

Here's the reality:  If you are running a business or leading an organization, you are probably working really hard to succeed.  New ideas come along all the time that seem like just the thing you should do. Maybe it's the latest advertising idea, or product line, or location, whatever- they all seem like they are working for someone else, so why not try it.  That's where the danger of not having a plan comes in.  If you have a good strategic plan in place, you can measure every decision against what you said matters most to you and where you intend to go.  You will already have a strategy in place to reach your goals and you'll make good decisions about where to spend your resources.  Businesses that succeed know where they are going, they know where they are today, and they know what they have to do to reach their goals.  Do you?

If not, I challenge you today to think about getting a strategic plan in place.  Hire a coach who can guide you through the process- you won't regret it!