5 Point Checklist for Business Planning

This checklist & the questions in it are a guideline to use when you start working on your plans for next year.

1. Analyse results

You need to know what you want more of next year, what needs addressing and what you want to change. Make sure you do an analysis of how you performed in all these areas:

Client value
Sales revenue
Profitability
Product/service portfolio performance
Marketing performance and ROI
Customer service
Your people & structure
Actual against budget & the goals you set 12 months or 6 months ago
Your own role & contribution overall – how effective have you been?

When you’ve done this, you’ll have a clear focus on what your priorities need to be for the following year.

2. Know the purpose of your business

If you know what your purpose is, and what you are trying to achieve through your business, it will help shape all your actions and decisions. If you are a PR specialist and your purpose is to work with environmentally conscious companies to help them protect the global environment, you wouldn’t necessarily focus on local companies as your primary target.

The point is, instead of your decisions and actions producing results that don’t take you closer to where you want to be, you will actually move toward your purpose. This focus will create momentum in what you do and the results you produce.

Knowing your purpose is like a huge signpost telling you which direction to choose.

3. Decide what outcomes would make a significant difference to your business.

You can’t be all things to all people, nor should you want to be. Decide on those things that, if you achieve them, will make a significant difference to your business. They could be in the area of marketing outcomes, financial results, new client acquisition, achievement of major projects, PR coverage for you, your business or your clients, acquisition of business partners, international expansion, development of a successful new product/service, development of a great team. It could be about you – how you think about your business, what sort of thoughts drive your actions each day, how motivated you are, and how strong your vision is. What goes on in our heads is responsible for what results we get in our businesses.

You have to look ahead to know what sort of outcomes you really want (refer to the first two steps as part of that process!) so you can identify what it is that would make this year’s results far better than last year’s.

4. Decide how to achieve & measure significant performance improvements.
Jim Collins, in his book ‘Good to Great’, said that if you could pick one ratio to measure and increase over time, pick one that will have the greatest impact on driving your business. For example, he refers to how Walgreens changed their focus from profit per store to profit per customer visit, which had a significant impact on results for that business.

What sort of focus & measures would best drive improvements in your business?

Number of new clients acquired?
Value per client?
Revenue per person in your business
Profit per person
Number of subscribers per month
Average value of subscribers/clients
Number of affiliates per month
Number of product sales
Average value of product sales
Revenue per distribution channel/affiliate/reseller/sales person

5. Ask Yourself the Important Questions

What are some of the questions to consider before you assess the overall performance of your business?

Which product or service lines are most profitable and make the greatest contribution to the business?
Do we need to change the mix of our product/service portfolio in any way? (When assessing products, think about factors like length of sales cycle, volume of sales, profitability, how easy is it to sell products, repeat sales, support revenue and costs, pricing, cross-sell and up-sell compatibility, etc)
Do we acknowledge and nurture our best customers?
Where will our growth come from this year? Will it be from our core business and customers, or from somewhere new? (Where did it come from last year, and was it enough?)
Will we be able to fund our growth? What options do we have?
Where is the biggest exposure in the business? What needs to be done to address it?
Do we have the right systems and infrastructure in place to support our goals and priorities?
Do we know what the key measurements are to assess the overall progress and performance of the business, and can we report on that?
Do we have the right team? Do we have resource gaps?
What changes could I make (as the CEO) in what I do, to improve the performance of the business?

These questions simply give you somewhere to start as we progress through your report card! Then you need to look into your business and make assessments on what needs to be done to get you to your future goals. Changes may be needed, extra attention may be required in some areas, and you may not even have answers regarding other areas of the business.

BOSSMENTOR® provides advice on strategy, structure and growth for business owners and CEOs wanting to grow the value of their companies and ultimately spend less time working in them. Founder, Jenny Stilwell, is creator of The Handsfree CEO™, a proven set of strategic principles that will ultimately enable you to create a better business, and a better life. http://www.bossmentor.com.au