December is the perfect time to finalize your plans for the next year. Are you ready? Normally, I start planning for the next year in September but honestly, many people are just trying to finish strong and not thinking of the next year. So, December is the next best time so that you can hit the ground running when January comes.
Let’s condense the planning process into the month of December! You can do this with a little focus and determination.
Week One: Decide on the 3-5 major goals for your company that you want to achieve in the upcoming year. It's suggested to have 1 financial goal, 1-2 structural/team goals, and 1-2 offer or product goals. These goals can be new or improvements to help your company grow. Make sure these goals are a bit of a stretch but still achievable. Create as much detail as possible about each goal and what it would mean if you were able to succeed.
Week Two: Determine what is needed to achieve each goal. Time, resources, people, and money. Break down each goal into steps and timelines needed to achieve each goal. This is where you get to see how you are going to get to work.
Week Three: Most big goals can be broken down into smaller achievable goals. This is where you take the smaller steps and build out your plan. Your smaller goals turn into quarterly benchmarks, monthly milestones, weekly deliverables, and daily actions that move you closer to your major goals. Create a prioritized list since one usually builds off of another.
Week Four: Now it’s time to assign tasks, delegate responsibilities, and manage the deadlines. Create a corporate calendar with the deadlines for each of the benchmarks and milestones. Leave it up to your teams to build out their own calendars for the weekly deliverables and the daily tasks needed. Set team and corporate priorities. Program progress reports either by meeting or automation such as Trello or Asana. Everyone should be aware of the goal progression for their own deadlines.
Now that you can build a quick plan for achieving the goals you want to achieve for next year. There is no better time than now to make next year a huge success. Let’s get to work.
Marcia Riner is a business growth strategist and the CEO of Trajectory Consulting. She helps small business owners to increase profits, drive growth, and to be in a great position to sell it someday. Together, she helps you create your roadmap to increase revenue, drive growth, and maximize the value of your company. Check out her website @www.TrajectoryBiz.com
Marcia hosts a weekly podcast with videos on YouTube @ www.Youtube.com/profitwithaplan and audio @ www.profitwithaplan.com. She also shares business growth tips on her YouTube Channel @Marcia Riner
In her book The Profit Accelerator, she provides 12 Ways To Dramatically Increase
Your Revenue, Profit, And Value. Download her book for FREE at https://www.TrajectoryProfits.com/book-download