04 Nov The Plan: Our Guide to a Successful Business Plan

A successful business plan takes time, but it’s the most worthwhile thing you’ll do all year. 

As a business owner, we live 3 months ahead. The plans we put into place today, will be the food we put on our table weeks from now. That’s one of the reasons we take our business plan so seriously around here: We can’t set ourselves up for a successful 2017 (2018, 2019…) without fine-tuning the plan now.

I have this dream of taking off the entire month of November to compile reports in a giant, in-depth audit of everything we did at Lugo & Co. We are a real estate and house flipping team, but this is applicable to any kind of business. For us, we look at every call, every lead, every blog post and Facebook ad. What was put in, and what did we get out? I want a 600 page report on every single detail that made up our book of business for the year. Instead, we will settle for a few hours over the next week or so.

This process directly contrasts with what most other business owners do: nothing. Some of us are either simply too busy to set aside the time for this type of reflection. Some don’t see the point. Some just don’t know where to start, and push it away until next year, and the next.

Read this carefully: If this sounds like you, you are leaving money on the table.

Having a clear understanding of what’s going on under the hood of your business is essential to the health of your operation. You have to know where you stand. What shape are your systems and processes in? Where do things need to be tweaked? There are few better ways to leverage your business for success than by painting a clear picture of your body of work, and choosing where you want it to grow. 

So, do yourself (and your employees, customers, family, etc.) a favor. Set aside some time this month to close out 2016 and plan for the year ahead. 

These steps are adapted from an amazing article I found by the team at Fizzle.co. Check them out for more help and resources on how to build the business you’ve always wanted!

Step One: Review

“How did we do this year, and what do we want to do better next year?” These two questions are what you need to be able to answer at the end of your business plan.

For us, we start by compiling a list of all of our transactions for the year that have closed. We then go a few steps further: listing out every single lead (a person who may or may not have wanted to buy or sell with us), where they came from, how they found us, and how often we spoke to them. By doing this, we are able to determine where we get the most of our business, and whether that is consistent with where we spend the most of our time and investment.

From this, we deconstruct our marketing expenses, and adjust where our marketing dollars will be directed to in the following year. This is also creates a solid basis on which to set monthly and quarterly budgets going forward.

Then, compile a book of what content was most popular. What blog posts/articles did your clients and customers respond to strongest? Did your social media presence strengthen? Find out which platforms are most conducive to your brand, and scrap anything else. You need to be where your customers are, so if you’re spending your time in Snapchat but you’re getting leads from Facebook, it’s time to put the snaps to rest.

This applies to any industry. Find where your business is coming from, and make sure your time and investment goes there.

Step Two: Plan

You’ve now compiled a great deal of data to work with. You have an idea of where your revenue comes from, where your marketing dollars should be spent, and where your time is best received.

Now, shift your focus to the year ahead. A whole 12 months of possibilities lie in wait! Put a plan on paper that you can refer back to this time next year, and be proud of.

Revisit your mission and values. This is the core of your business, the belief of why you are in the trenches day in and day out. Who are you working for? What are you trying to achieve? Who do you want to help?

It’s tough to be clear and concise in just a few words here, but it’s worthwhile for your business plan. At worse, it’s a bland and boring paragraph printed on a piece of copy paper, that you tape to the wall by your desk. At it’s best, it’s a foundation that helps to make big and scary decisions.

Your mission is the process by which you carry out your goals. It’s the “action” behind the strategy part of your business plan, and can be applied to short term or long term goals.

Your values are the core beliefs of how you see the world. They should help you make big decisions and determine who you hire, and who you exist to help. Every bit of work you put into your business should reflect your values.

Take some time to either revisit or reflect on these at least once a year, and make adjustments as your business changes and grows.

Identify your customer. We have a very clear idea of our ideal client. This helps us maintain consistency in our branding, and stay focused on our marketing efforts. Ask yourself who your product or service is designed for. Who needs what you have to offer? You already know where these people spend there time (see step one), so really refine this and make sure you have a clear idea of who you want to serve.

Implement for the year ahead.

At this point, you will need to have a few key points that you can look back to throughout the year.

1. What are my goals are important to us for the next year (income, market reach, brand awareness, new products or services)?
2. How will I measure my progress towards these goals?
3. What combination of projects and strategies will help me to reach these goals?

First of all, you’ll determine a few high-level priorities for the year ahead. If you’ve been in your business for at least 12 months, you will know what is important to your business: increasing your revenue, increasing your brand awareness, and/or diversifying or further developing the products and services you offer.

Once you have these written down on paper, determine how you can track and measure your progress and success towards these goals. For example, we know that if we want to close “x” number of deals a month, we need to speak to “y” number of people, generate “z” number of leads and submit a corresponding amount of offers on properties on our clients’ behalf. Create this type of expectation for your own business, and then put together a way to track this. It can be as simple as an excel spreadsheet that you update every week or month, depending on what you have going on.

Did you do a trade show this year that put you face-to-face with 100 people? How many sales came from it? Maybe this year you plan to three trade shows. Maybe you shouldn’t do any.

This is the type of thinking you should be implementing along this stage of business planning. You’ll now be able to set specific targets for each strategy, that will allow you to measure progress towards these goals. 

Now, for #3, you can divvy these up into either ongoing work, or ongoing projects. What combination of these two will help you meet your goals?

For ongoing work, determine what ongoing work you did this last year. What worked? Is there a task you should stop doing? What task do you want to start doing? Do it.

For ongoing projects, what big items gave you big momentum this year? Maybe you need to launch that new product, or grow your target market. Plan what you want to take on in the following year to achieve growth.

Now…Get started.

Once you’ve done all of the above, and have articulated a robust business plan, it’s time to decide what you’re going to take on first! We take a look at the first quarter, and decide strategically what projects to take on, and what the most important goals to build momentum on are. For us, the spring is a very busy season, so we know that the first quarter really needs to be about ramping up for the busy second quarter, leading into the summer.

What does this look like for your business? You should have a list in front of you for daily, weekly and monthly tasks that will ultimately be what shows how your business grows from quarter to quarter. And, you should have a list of projects that you’ll work to complete, in the order that they will need to be completed from quarter to quarter.

Three tips from Fizzle to making your planning and execution a reality:

1. Do this review with a team, a mentor, a coach… or team up with another business owner to review/plan together.
2. Decide what tools you’ll use to get the work done.
3. Decide what skills you’ll need to acquire or new learning you’ll need to complete your projects.

There you have it. A full-blown plan to success. Now, execute!