It Is All In The Action Plan

This post to me is really one of the more important ones I have ever written. It stems from the past 12 months being along side thousands of business owners and seeing how things are done. If you want to learn the right ways to grow a business, do that for 6 months andyou will have it all worked out. It is amazing some of the things that go on. The most critical starting point for any business is the action plan. The plan that is written out, setting the path forward to follow. The plan that allows you to know how successful you have been.

An action plan can be as simple as what you are going to do for the day, the week, the month, the quarter or the year. Small businesses that cover all of these of usually come out further in front then those that just make it up each day. How do you know what you have to do in any given week, without a plan telling you so? Without knowing what outcomes you want or need to achieve and what sort of profit you need to make.

An interesting conversation popped up about 2 months ago with a business owner who started telling me how hard business is at present. No one is buying and it is probably the worst year in his 3 years of business. As I listened I wondered how he knew it was a bad year compare to others, was it purely on monies in? So I asked a few questions and finally we gotto the problem. They did not know what to do next. The business had reached a plateau and there were no plans in place to take it to the next level.

An action plan should tell you what to do each week, what needs to be achieved in the month, it should have the day just about laid out. I know we need to call xx number of people, speak with xx of business partners, and bring in xx of leads. We have in front of usall the ways to do this. It is all measured and tweaked when necessary. Our 90 day goals,break down into our monthly goals that then break down into our weekly goals. This allows us to know what to do daily.

An action plan is not rocket science it takes a few hours at the start of a quarter to plan the next 90 days. Then it takes 30 minutes at the start of a month and the start of each week to map it all out. The good old saying failing to plan is planning to fail has more truth in it then what most business owners realise.

Why not create an action plan today for next week and see how you go.


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Michael Griffiths is the CEO and Founder of My Small Business Marketing Guru.Helping small business owners generate more leads, clients and increase profitswith website creation, search engine optimisation and online marketing strategies.To get your free black mask marketing resources and DVDs please visit http://www.mysmallbusinessmarketingguru.com.au