Strategic planning is a management tool that guides your business to better performance and long-term success.
Working with a plan will focus your efforts, unify your team in a single direction, and help guide you through tough business decisions. A strategic plan requires you to define your goals, and in defining them, enables you to achieve them—a huge competitive advantage.
In this article, we’ll discuss 11 essentials for creating a thorough and effective strategic plan. Each tip is a critical stepping stone in leading your business toward your goals.
1. Define your company vision
You should be able to define your company vision in 100 words. Develop this statement and make it publically available to both employees and customers.
This statement should answer the key questions that drive your business: Where is your company headed? What do you want your company to be? If you don’t know the answer to these questions off the top of your head, then you have some thinking to do! If you have the answers in your head, but not on paper—get writing.
If you have them written down, congrats! You’ve completed the first and most critical step in creating a long-term strategic plan.See Also: How to Write a Mission Statement in 5 Easy Steps
2. Define your personal vision
While your personal vision is just as important to your strategic plan, it does not need to be shared with your team and customers.
Your personal vision should incorporate what you want your business to bring to your life—whether that’s enormous growth, early retirement, or simply more time to spend with family and friends.
Aligning your personal vision with your company vision is key to achieving your personal and professional goals. Just as with your company vision, have your personal vision written down in a 100-word statement. Know that statement inside and out and keep it at the forefront of your decision making.
3. Know your business
Conduct a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis. By knowing where your business is now, you can make more informed predictions for how it can grow.
Questions such as “Why is this business important?” and “What does this business do best?” are a great place to start. A SWOT analysis can also help you plan for making improvements.
Questions such as “What needs improvement?” and “What more could the business be doing?” can help guide your strategic plan in a way that closes gaps and opens up opportunities.
For more on completing a SWOT analysis, see our SWOT analysis guide.
4. Establish short-term goals
Short-term goals should include everything you (realistically) want to achieve over the next 36 months.
Goals should be “S.M.A.R.T.” (specific, measurable, actionable, reasonable, and timely).
An example of S.M.A.R.T. goals include “building out a new product or service within the next year” or “increasing net profit by 2 percent in ten months.” If you’ve already conducted a SWOT analysis, you should have an idea of what your business can reasonably achieve over a specified period of time.See Also: Goal Setting That Leads to Greatness
5. Outline strategies
Strategies are the steps you’ll take to meet your short-term goals. If the short term goal is “build out a new product or service,” the strategies might be:
- Researching competitor offerings
- Getting in touch with vendors and suppliers
- Formulating a development plan
- Outlining a marketing and sales plan for the new offering
6. Create an action plan
An action plan is an essential part of the business planning and strategy development process. The best analysis, in-depth market research, and creative strategizing are pointless unless they lead to action.
An action plan needs to be a working document; it must be easy to change and update. But, must also be specific about what you’re doing, when you will do it, who will be accountable, what resources will be needed, and how that action will be measured.
Action plans put a process to your strategies. Using the previous example, an action plan might be: “CMO develops competitor research packet for new offerings by 9/1. Review packet with the executive team by 9/15.”
“That action plan allowed me to 1.) manage and measure the evolving program, 2.) ensure resources and staff were where they needed to be, and 3.) track whether the design of the program was working and delivering the level of results we were contracted to deliver,” says Hartley.
7. Foster strategic communication
To align your team, you must communicate strategically. Results-driven communication focuses conversations and cuts out excessive meetings. Every communication should be rooted in a specific goal.
Include the how, where, when, and most importantly why every time you deliver instructions, feedback, updates, and so on.
8. Review and modify regularly
Check in regularly to make sure you’re progressing toward your goals. A weekly review of your goals, strategies, and action plans can help you see if you need to make any modifications.
Schedule time in your calendar for this. Weekly check-ins allow you to reassess your plan in light of any progress, setbacks, or changes.
