Monday, June 22, 2009

Business Planning - How to Set and Reach Your Goals

By Sean R Mize

As a business owner, I am pretty sure that you'll do anything to grow your business. This can be achieved through proper business planning. In this article, I will share with you the best ways to set and achieve your goals.

1. The first thing that you need to do is to brainstorm. Spend some time alone or brainstorm with your business partners (if you have any) to set your goals. What do you want to achieve in the next 1-3 years? What are your long-term goals? Write these down and be very specific. Your goals must be realistic and clear.

2. Create an action plan. How can you achieve these goals? You will need to write down everything that you need to do to reach your goals. For example, if you want to boost your sales by up to 5% for this quarter, you may want to invest more time and energy on your marketing strategies, you may want to run promotions to attract more new customers, and think of strategies to get your previous customers to come back.

3. Put your plans into action. Start your day by checking on your list and make it a point that you do as much as you can. Remember, this could be the key to grow your business so you must do the entire process right.

4. Assessment. Go back to your written goals after 3-6 months and ask yourself, "Were they met?" If everything you've written were achieved, you can consider your business planning a huge success otherwise, you will need to go back to step number one and do the entire process all over again.


No comments: