If you have a specific goal in mind or a bigger picture of your company and what you want to achieve, this is the time for you to develop strategic planning for small business. Lack of clarity manifests in poor decision making. Also, when these decisions are made in a vacuum and without sufficient data and context, a management team has to spend a lot of time unwinding mistakes.
Small business that plan strategies on what they can control, are in better position to react to the things that they can’t.
Strategic planning practice works with every conceivable type of business, large and small. Larger companies are more likely to engage in strategic planning, not because it is more relevant for them but because they tend to hire professional managers who understand the dramatic impact that a strategic plan can have on profitability and morale.
What is strategic business planning?
A strategic plan for small businesses includes outlining the process used by your leaders for achieving long-term business goals. A strategic plan works as a roadmap for your company to identify your major goals and what you’ll have to do to make it happen.
Small businesses are more strained for resources than larger companies. They do not have dedicated people for things such as research and development. But regardless of size, every entrepreneur should find time to be thoughtful and have a strategy for the future of their company.
How to plan a business strategy?
It is essential to have goals, but also equally important to have a strategy for how you are going to achieve them. Without a business strategy it is harder to hold people accountable for every step required along the way. As a small business owner, you need metrics, assigned roles, and a regular communication cadence if you’re going to transform your company.
It may sound too overwhelming, trying to develop a small business strategic plan to transform your company, but it doesn’t have to be. At Bench Builders, we founded our company to help leaders overcome these everyday challenges.
Strategic planning for small business
The small business strategies that can help to transform your company so you can see just how beneficial and straightforward it can be to create a strategic plan for your business.
Right and tight circle of people
Often business owners are resistant to share information out of fear that it will end up in the wrong hands. So they keep a tight circle on who they have strategic conversations with. Small businesses should include people who they can trust and are in sync with their strategic planning process.
Gather the data
Having access to pertinent market data is the number one barrier for most small businesses. Small businesses often do a poor job capturing and mining internal data. Every company should segment their reporting by channel, customer, product categories, etc. Surveying your strategy participants is also a useful way to gather information and rank strategic issues by importance.
Expect preparation
The pressure on small business owners is immense. Thoughtful strategic planning can chart a course to a successful future for the business, with much more clarity and less stress.
Strategic planning is garbage in, garbage out. Every person participating in strategic planning should be expected to prepare for a strategy conversation, whether that be by developing information or learning more about the mechanics of the business.
Right environment
Creating a safe harbor, a place where people feel safe about having strategy conversations is as important as making sure the physical environment is suited to creativity. Many companies hire facilitators to keep the meeting on track.
Regardless of size, every business leader needs to be thoughtful about the future of their company. Lack of structure can result in poor decision making about new products, what equipment to purchase, whom to hire, and sales & marketing strategies.
Creating vision map
Entrepreneurs have a lot of anxiety about writing a plan but it is actually the easy part if you have done your homework. Components of a strategic plan usually include things like an executive summary, financial projections, SWOT analysis, external factors, market/competitive analysis, vision map and action plan.
Small businesses who hold strategy sessions and fail to put it into action. When action items are organized by objectives, the objectives remain alive even after action items are completed.
Focus on business growth
Often small businesses engage in operational planning and call it strategic planning. Continuing to do what you have always done is not strategy at all. Focus on how you will grow the business, and in particular what product or service innovations will improve the customer experience.
Strategic planning for small business should include how these will improve customers’ experience. Not only to focus on the growth of the business, but also focus on how this will provide value to customers.
Connect to the broader strategy
Companies operate on all types of cycles. Whether you engage in strategic planning annually or quarterly, it must be a repeatable process (strategy, budget, scorecard, performance management, action plan). Rinse and repeat every year.
Great leaders inspire others with their vision. They don’t get caught in the trap of being operators every day without connection to the broader strategy. Reinforce your plan every day, until every employee understands it and buys in to your vision.
Organize and Launch
The single most important thing that needs to come out of your small business strategic plan is the unity of 3-5 overarching goals that serve as your script for your leadership team. You should illustrate this in some fashion, like a map, a visual plan shared with everyone on the team.
Without an actionable plan, you won’t know where you’re going. When action items are organized by their objectives, the objectives are visible, actionable, and remain alive even after the team has completed the task.
Clear Execution and risk assessment
Meeting with team every month to review the action plan. Do not let this one slide. Risk assessment is a vital part of strategic planning. Here is where a small business will identify its weaknesses and risks and be constantly aware of them.
Once you’ve developed your strategic plan, it’s vital to begin implementing it. Communicate with everyone in the company, which is why meetings are so critical. While email, conversations, and the sharing of documents help, meetings allows for a clearer understanding.
Strategic planning is a process
Lastly as small business strategic planning, one must review your plan and make changes accordingly. Reviewing your strategic plan involves analyzing the amount of progress made, the data gathered, and the employees’ feedback.
Small businesses run on all types of cycles. Strategic planning may be annual or quarterly, but it must be a repeated process. It isn’t a situation where you create a small business strategic plan to transform your company and then expect to walk away from it once you’re done.
Great business owners become great leaders, and they inspire others with their vision. Reinforce your plan every day until your employees learn it, understand it, and buy into your vision.
So are you ready to build a better small business strategy?
