Got your business or sales plan ready for 2025?
Gilly Thompson
Founder of The Sales Training Academy, Key Note Speaker, ILM Master Trainer and Coach in Leadership and Development. Delivering transformational training that empowers excellence.
It's been 10 years since I worked as a freelance Business Growth Consultant for the Business Growth Service, it was an incredible fully funded government initiative for small businesses to access business growth experts in areas like sales and leadership to grow their business.
It was hugely rewarding work and I felt proud of the growth my clients enjoyed and additional profits they made.
Whilst I no longer deliver this work the fundamentals of having a clear vision and clear business plan remain as important as ever.
You’ve built a thriving, successful company. You’re ready for your next big phase of growth. The question is, do you know how to get there?
Before you can initiate the next stage in your business journey, you need to identify the barriers holding your business back and establish the critical steps needed to achieve growth – rapidly and sustainably. When setting out your 2025 business strategy, it’s vital to set out a framework that will help you to:
If you’re looking forward to 2025 and beyond, there are 4 essential "must-do’s" any business leader should be looking to do before the end of 2024
Here is a blog I wrote back in 2016 that explains what you need to do and how to do it.
This blog sets out a methodical framework for approaching business growth strategy, supporting you in planning for 2025 – and beyond.
1.Complete a diagnostic assessment of your business
Before we can understand where it is we want to go, first we need to know where we are now.
This stage gives you the opportunity to consciously explore your ambitions, your capacity and your opportunity to achieve growth before entering the next stage of your business. Use this time to identify the main barriers holding your business back from further growth and develop a clear, tailored 3-year growth plan.
If completing a ‘diagnostic assessment’ sounds a bit too much like a medical intervention, don’t panic. The key is to keep it simple and get a clear SWOT analysis of where your business stands – and where it could go.
Start by creating a one page "word picture" that summarises your company’s strategic development and performance plans for the next three years. Using an ‘Orbit Diagram’ gives you a highly visual yet simplistic approach. To ensure you get maximum value from the technique and to optimise buy-in, it is recommended to include the company’s top management team in this process.
An example Orbit Diagram at this stage would typically take the format below.
Completing your Orbit Diagram
At the most basic level, your Orbit Diagram should describe your company vision for the next three years.
Begin by agreeing with your group what measures of performance would be most meaningful when describing your strategic journey. These, in effect, become the axis labels around the outside of the Orbit Diagram. They will typically, but not exclusively, include strategic growth measures such as:
Strategic planning is a conversation that evolves, not a one-off task.
Therefore, at this point, it’s a good idea to begin with the fundamentals. Approach the Orbit by initiating discussions and agreeing your three-year target for core financial measures like turnover and profit. This way, your Management Team can clearly define exactly how much growth is desirable and feasible.
This is your core framework. After agreeing and completing the turnover and profit figure axis for all three years, consider the other axis labels to define and explain how your company can realistically deliver this financial growth.
Here, you are answering the question, "What else needs to change?" These axis labels may include topics like "breaking into new markets", "securing additional financing" or even "key board appointments".
When completed, your Orbit should set out all the necessary high level information needed to tell your company’s three year "growth story".
2. Create a single page, top-level growth plan
You have your Orbit Diagram and a top level three-year plan. Now, it’s time to focus thinking around the specific breakthroughs that need to be achieved in the next twelve months.
Begin your single page planning session by reviewing your three-year Orbit diagram. Facilitate a discussion with your team as to what they believe to be your company’s ‘vital few’ breakthroughs for the coming year.
As the name suggests, these are a small number of critical strategic breakthroughs the company must achieve if it is to stay on target to achieve the vision defined in the Orbit diagram. Consider these the 20% of actions that will ultimately drive 80% of the outcomes for the year.
Remember: you are selecting the optimum ‘vital few’ genuine breakthroughs that will drive strategic growth. Resist the temptation to include progression goals that would have naturally occurred anyway!
Next, decide which of the draft ‘vital few’ breakthroughs your company should adopt. To do this, you must first recognise the reality of the situation.
These breakthroughs must be high level, high-growth orientated and strategic in nature. They should be set with understanding, not just bravado. And like any tangible business objective, they should be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Timely).
Typical "vital few" examples which deliver step changes in growth could include:
If we refer to these agreed ‘vital few’ as the "WHATs" (What we want to achieve), then next we must establish and agree the HOWs (How we will achieve the WHATs). Alternatively, you can think of the "WHATs" as the ends, and the "HOWs" as the means to an end.
Take each selected "WHAT" in turn; ask the team to brainstorm what they believe to be the key drivers of execution for this breakthrough. What important things must happen to convert this aspiration into a reality?
3. Set out clear, defined action plans for key growth projects
Once you’ve identified your HOWs, it’s critical to drill down further still to deliver on your vision.
This stage ensures that each distinct project has defined targets, measures of success and agreed timescales for delivery. In addition, it helps establish who is to be responsible for the delivery of each HOW project – a Champion, who can take ownership and hold accountability for outcomes.
Develop an Action Plan for each HOW project. Champions will need a robust action plan to ensure each HOW project is delivered on time and to specification. While there are many complex project applications and tools available, it can be helpful to take a simple, top-level approach to mapping out the core essentials, as per below.
This highly visual review technique can also be used to drive the agenda for review meetings, with projects in ‘red’ getting immediate attention.? This helps keep your strategic plans on track.
4. Identify funding opportunities from local growth hubs and LEPS
If you’re a business with the ambition and potential for growth, the good news is, there’s a wealth of support available.
Growth hubs are local public/private sector partnerships led by the Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs). They join up national and local business support, making it easy for businesses to find the help they need.
There is a network of hubs https://www.businessboardnetwork.co.uk/local-growth-hub-contacts/. These seek to provide impartial, clear and expert support to advise businesses. By understanding the unique needs and challenges of local or small businesses, they can improve the co-ordination of local business support with national programmes and introduce new services that can fill any gaps you have and help your business grow.
It’s never too late. Before we wrap up for Christmas, take the time to get your leadership team together and get business planning for the year ahead. You won’t regret it.
Gilly