It's Planning Season

No matter what happens tomorrow in the election, your business will still be your business. The people who rely on you to pay their pay checks are still going to need you and your customers will still need your service.

2020 has been such an odd year because so many of you have been forced to change and adapt to the landscape and how you deliver your products and services. Now is the time to start planning what 2021 is going to look like. For those of you predicting impending doom, listen to the wise words of Warren Buffet, "We have made money in Democrat led economies and we have made money in Republican led economies. The only thing that changes is the strategies that you put in place during those different economic strategies." Warren has taught me to never bet against America - it will be around for a long time. Politicians don't dictate our happiness or ability to achieve our goals within our companies.

You have 2 months to get fired up about 2021 and beyond. So now is the time to gather the troops around and take stock in what you have accomplished this year and what is left to still accomplish.  It is time to start looking at what from the new landscape (read COVID landscape) will remain the same and what from the new landscape will revert back to the old way of operating.

In today's MMT we will discuss the steps necessary to complete a robust strategic plan for your business. With 1 in 12 business shutting their doors down each year, one can only question whether their plans failed or if they failed to plan.

The first step to creating a strategic business plan is to know your budget. You need to know your high level financial goals because you need to have a pretty good understanding on what type of revenue and profit you will have to work with. In Adelboden-owned businesses, we have three created budgets: a breakeven, a midlevel budget, and a stretch budget. Knowing those three top line and bottom line marks not only helps us stay on track no matter what the next year brings, it also helps us in step number two.

If you know how much you are planning to make, the next thing to tackle is to take a good look at your ORG chart. Knowing how much you can spend on people is essential to understanding how much capacity you will have for salary. Going through each position you have / would like to have and detailing their duties helps to understand if one person is carrying more than they can handle and could potentially cause obstacles or road blocks throughout the year.

Your third step is to detail out how you are a going to find customers and employees. Your marketing budget / plan, and your hiring / retention plan are two pivotal areas that often get over looked. The best way to create these plans is to analyze all your efforts from this year to see what worked and what didn’t. From there, plan on investing more in what is working, pull back on what’s not working, and continue looking at other opportunities to try and troubleshoot.

The final step we use once we have those plans in place for marketing and recruiting, is to plan for operational efficiency. How can we get more done using less resources? Where can we save money or generate more profit? This can sometimes be difficult because it causes management to call out processes that someone in the organization created for someone else in the organization to follow. As human beings we hate criticism and this area is all about being critical of the processes you have. No one wants to admit that their process is obsolete. My best advice for handling this often touchy subject is to tread carefully, but ultimately remember it is about helping the organization grow. It isn't about hurting someone's feelings, it is about getting the ego out of the building and doing what is right for everyone, not just one person.

All-in-all this process doesn’t take that long. We usually give people a months' notice about the strategic planning session and ask them to start preparing. Our meetings last a day and during that day we deep dive into the aforementioned areas of the business and more. By the end of the day, everyone should have a clear picture of what success is going to look like in the coming year.

If this is something that you haven't done before or would like a third party view of your plans, reach out to us here: https://www.adelbodencc.com/connect-with-us. We are currently filling our schedule with 2021 planning and would love to assist you in making sure you and your team are ready for next year. Send us a message and we will get your strategy meeting planned!

Enjoy,