Building on Progress: Planning for 2023
Founders Freedom
Founders Freedom works with founders to regain their freedom and build resilient businesses that last generations
October ushers in the fourth and final quarter of a calendar year. For most people, this is a great time to begin reviewing the past year and making plans for the following year. In this article, we give you some tips on how to go about building on the progress that you have made so far and making plans that work for next year.
Take stock
One of the first things you want to do as you prepare to make new plans is to take stock of what you have been able to achieve this year. This exercise is done in two parts: reviewing past performance and assessing the current state of affairs.
Let us look at each of these aspects more closely.
Reviewing past performance
Looking back gives you the information to analyze and explain problems that came up in the past. It positions you to see patterns that might otherwise have been invisible, thus providing a crucial perspective for understanding and solving current and future problems. Look at the goals you set out at the beginning of the year and evaluate whether you did the things you set out to do. This will help in evaluating the achievement of your goals if your goals were set in a specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) manner. Be sure to rate your achievement by assigning a score for each goal- say on a scale of 1-10 with 10 being the highest score. Take time to celebrate the goals you achieved and seek to understand why you failed to attain the goals you did not complete.
Assessing the current state
Informed by an objective review of your past performance, the next step in preparing to plan for the following year is to assess your current situation. A simple tool to guide your assessment here is a SWOT analysis. SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. You will be amazed at how much better you understand yourself and your business after using this framework. For example, do you have strengths in a good product or quality service that the market appreciates, is poor customer service your weakness, are there opportunities to grow through opening another branch and is your competition or a new tax regime a threat to your business? With a thorough analysis of your current state, you are now ready to plunge into planning for the following year.
Set a goal
At the end of the day, you want to summarize your big plans into a goal that you and your team can aim for. This could be hitting a new revenue target of Ksh. 10 million over the next 12 months, which is 50% more than the current year. To know whether this is a realistic target, you will need to have taken stock of this year’s performance. Use the analysis done in assessing your current state when setting your goal to determine:
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Aim for success
After setting your annual goal, how do you increase your chances of achieving it?
Break it down
It is one thing to have an inspiring goal or a well-laid-out plan, and totally another to execute it successfully. There are a number of ways to ensure that you realize your goals, and we covered some of them in a previous article??'How to create a plan that works even as life is happening'. One of the ways to help you turn your goals into reality is to break down your annual plans into monthly goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.
Get accountability
One of the most underrated factors in achieving your goals is putting in place an accountability mechanism. This could be either in the form of a mentor, coach, or advisory board depending on the size of your business. Exercise caution in choosing your accountability structure to ensure you select a coach or an advisory board that is knowledgeable and available to work and walk with you on your journey of executing your plans. Subjecting yourself to an accountability arrangement significantly increases your chances of success in achieving your goals by not only regularly reporting on progress but also by tapping into your mentor’s or coach’s experience and expertise when you get stuck.
Contact us at [email protected] if you need help with creating plans that build on your progress or setting up an accountability structure for your business to make 2023 the best year yet for your business.
Happy planning!?