Identify Your 30-60-90-Day Action Plan: Execute A Winning Strategy That Helps Your Business Bolster Profits And Win Back Your Time.

So a new year begins, and you are likely coming out from your "holiday mode" and now preparing to hit the ground and put in the work required to make 2023 a stand-out year from 2022 and the subsequent years before.

Around this time of the new year beginning, like what most entrepreneurs face with their businesses, specific (often times tough) measures need to be taken. New benchmarks and goals for growing your business need to be implemented. And they need to be implemented FAST!

Now, this sounds obviously sensible and wise. The thing is; how do you list, track, and measure those goals ensuring they match the long-term vision of the business and where you want it to go?

For most people when it comes to goal-setting, the process can be daunting if those goals aren't entirely clear and organized in a way that's cohesive and easy to follow.

This is where having a 90-day action plan for your business becomes your greatest asset that will provide a road map for where you want to take your business long-term. This is a working template that displays your intentions broken down into 3 phases representing the first 30, 60, and 90-day cycle of your action plan.

Its purpose is to highlight your most critical priorities and actionable benchmarks, with support from the metrics you'll use to measure progress in those first key 3 months.

This may seem like a lot, however, there is a detailed breakdown that I've provided to help guide you as you develop your 30-60-90 day action plan.

Elements of a 30-60-90-Day Plan

Prior to starting to chunk down the details of your 30-60-90 business action plan, you'll want to consider the high-level elements it needs to include. By categorizing the phases into chunks. For each phase, you'll need to:

• Pick a specific focus
• Determine your top priorities
• Make specifically concrete goals that support those priorities
• Assess how you’ll measure success

Focus

Typically, the first month of growing a business is about learning what works and subtracting what doesn't, the second is about effective planning and delegating to your team, and the third is about execution and—when applicable—initiating changes to the standing goal for the month. Your specific monthly focus might change based on your role and the company.

Priorities

Within those generalized monthly buckets, outline your high-level priorities for each phase. For instance, your priorities for different phases could include learning internal processes, performing your role independently, or proposing solutions to a problem facing the company that can be worked on as a team. Your priorities should be more specific than your focuses, but broader than individual goals.

Goals

Setting goals is all about developing a plan for how you’ll achieve your overarching priorities. For each phase, set goals that ladder up to your stated focus and priorities. (See our example 30-60-90 day plan below for inspiration.) If it’s helpful, break your goals into categories like learning, performance, and personal goals.

• Learning goals: To set these, ask, “What knowledge and skills do I need to be successful? How can I best absorb and acquire that information and those abilities?”
• Performance goals: These are concrete things you want to accomplish or complete as part of your new role. To set these, ask yourself, “What progress do I hope to make within the first 30/60/90 days?”
• Personal goals: These goals are more about getting to know yourself better in how you operate as a leader and decision-maker, the people you’ll be working with and giving direction to, and finding your place within your company to create the work culture that mirrors the values and mission of your business. To set these, ask, “Who are the key people I need and want to build relationships with? How can I establish and foster those relationships, so that I’m seen as a worthy authority figure they can look to?”

Metrics

For each goal, determine at least one metric you’ll use to track your progress. Using such metric formulas like KPI's (Key Performance Indicators) and OKR's (Objective Key Results) can help assess the progress of business growth and quantify the data based on real-world deliverables. Ask yourself, “What does success look like and how will I measure it?” Not sure how to do that? Keep reading!

6 Tips for Making a 30-60-90-Day Plan

So how do you figure out your focus, priorities, goals, and metrics for growing a business to earn more profit and win back your time? You’ll need to gain a deeper understanding of the challenges that the company is trying to solve and reflect on how you can make a positive impact within the first 90 days. Here are six tips to make that easier:

1. Think Big Picture

Before you start writing out specific goals and metrics, reflect on your overall priorities. Identify where the business stands from fundamental and financial wellness perspectives and set priorities that deliver on that purpose. For mid and high-level goals that are primarily focused on scale, you’re likely to assess and are looking to solve a specific problem on a macro level. For smaller-level goals that are considered more micro-specific, your priority can be getting up to speed on the basics of your role, the fundamentals of the activities you're doing, and how the company works.

2. Ask Questions

Whether you’re a new business owner or a seasoned veteran in building and successfully running multiple companies, asking questions is crucial. In order to set realistic goals and metrics that ladder up to your high-level priorities, you’ll need a baseline understanding of what the status quo is. Ask things that start with, “What’s the average…” or “What’s typical for…”

You can ask your employees these questions or use early-stage interviews to ask questions that could help you make a 30-60-90 day plan later on.

3. Meet with Key Stakeholders

Establishing healthy working relationships is key to success in any role. If you’ve already started the job, set up meetings with the following people within the first 30 days:

• Your management team
• Other coworkers on your team with whom you’ll work closely
• Other colleagues who are investors or partners (co-owners) involved with your company
• Any cross-functional partners (on other teams) you’ll work with regularly
• Any external partners (outside of the company) you’ll work with regularly
• Your new direct reports

In each meeting, learn about your teams' roles and ongoing challenges within the company—and also get to know them as people. Ask lots of questions about the company culture, internal processes, reporting structures, team and company challenges, and other questions that come up as you’re learning how to best devise your 30-60-90 day action plan and how you can iterate on the process. It’s important to have these conversations before you make plans to change the way things are currently run.

4. Set SMART Goals

Once you’re clear on your high-level priorities, set intentional goals that ladder up to your priorities for the 30-, 60-, and 90-day phases. These goals should be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-Bound.

For example, instead of “Understand our SEO,” a SMART goal would be, “Within the first 30 days, identify our top 10 target keywords and assess how we’re currently ranking for them.” Or another, instead of "Increase our Profit Margin," the SMART formula would be, "Over the next 60 days, identify our top 5 income-driving activities and accurately measure the frequency rate in addition to arranging them from top to bottom based on performance".

5. Determine How You’ll Measure Success

This will likely be different for each of your goals. Metrics are often quantifiable (revenue, page views, increase profit margin, etc.), but some goals might have more qualitative metrics, like positive customer feedback. However, try to make even qualitative metrics measurable—for instance, the number of five-star reviews you receive.

6. Be Flexible, Be Ready To Pivot

Don’t worry if you don’t end up following the plan precisely. Every business and the current stage it's in is different, so tailor your plan based on what stage your business is at, and tailor it based on the existing demands and immediate needs, but accept that it will likely change over the duration of the process, even throughout and well beyond a year. Ask for feedback throughout your first 90 days (and throughout the tenure of the company as well as consistently asking for feedback on how you can personally improve throughout your ongoing involvement). If you have to course-correct as you go, that’s totally fine.

As the primary business owner, or if you'd prefer to delegate to someone in a leadership role like a senior manager, consider adding a SWOT analysis of the project, team, department or the company as a whole,” to your plan during months two or three. SWOT simply stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. Once you complete this exercise it might help you to adjust the rest of your plan as well as set longer-term goals and strategies.

Also, don’t stress about the length of your written plan—it’s the quality that counts.

30-60-90 Day Plan Example

Use our 30-60-90-day plan template to start creating your own plan. If you’re stuck on how to fill it in, this example can provide some inspiration.

Days 1–30

Focus:?Learning

Priorities:?Understand and absorb everything I know about my role, team, and the company as a whole. Understand the expectations I have of my employees and myself, learn how the internal processes and procedures currently work, and start to explore some of the challenges facing the company and my role.

Learning goals:

• Read all of the relevant internal materials available to me on the company wiki or drive and ask my manager for recommendations of articles, reports, and studies I should review. (Metric: Reading completed)
• Get access to the accounts (email, task management software, customer relationship management platform, accounting program for invoicing, payroll, taxes, etc.) So I can do my job well. Spend time familiarizing myself with each of them. (Metric: Task completed)
• Listen to ten recorded sales calls by my seasoned sales team for qualitative feedback. (Metric: Ten sales calls listened to)
• Meet with someone on the account management team to learn about what new clients can and will expect from the onboarding process. (Metric: Task completed).

Performance goals:

• Make my first sales calls to key clients and prospects. (Metric: Five sales calls completed)
• Ask my leadership team for feedback on my output and performance. Document the feedback so I can incorporate it in my future performance. (Metric: Task completed)

Personal goals:

• Meet with my partner(s) and as many other new and tenured employees across all departments as often as possible. Introduce myself and learn about their roles within the organization. (Metric: Five meetings held)
• Set up recurring meetings with everyone I’ll need to work with on a regular basis—including cross-functional and external partners. (Metric: Regular meetings set and attended)

Days 31–60

Focus:?Contributing.

Priorities:?Perform my role at full capacity, with a decreased need for guidance and support. Start to explore how I can make a unique impact within my role and the company.

Learning goals:

• Complete an online training course to learn how to better utilize our customer relationship management platform. (Metric: One course completed)
• Shadow a seasoned member of the team, listen in on at least three to five of their sales calls, and document what I learn from observing their approach. (Metric: Task completed)

Performance goals:

• Make twenty-five sales calls a week to key clients and prospects. (Metric: 100 calls completed)
• Ask a seasoned member of my sales team or sales manager/coach to observe at least one of my sales calls and give me feedback about how I can improve. (Metric: Task completed)
• Listen to at least four of my own recorded calls and note self-feedback (Metric: Four calls listened to)
• Ask for feedback from my team (and even customers/clients), and document the feedback so I can incorporate it in the future. (Metric: TBD)

Personal goals:

• Schedule coffee or lunch with someone from the company I haven’t gotten to know yet. (Metric: Task completed)

Days 61–90

Focus:?Taking initiative.

Priorities:?Start assuming more autonomy and finding small ways to demonstrate leadership to my management team and employees. Start to explore long-term goals for the rest of the year.

Learning goals:

• Identify and sign up for a conference, webinar, or online course that will aid in my professional development and enhance my personal growth. (Metric: One conference, course, or webinar signed up for)
• Analyze my performance so far and establish key metrics I care about (sales, leads, revenue, etc.). Implement a test to try to improve that metric (i.e. A/B split testing) (Metric: Task completed)

Performance goals:

• Perform my core responsibilities at a higher level based on the metrics I outlined. (Close more sales, increase revenue, decrease operating expenditures, etc.) (Metric: TBD)
• Develop an idea for a new project or initiative I can spearhead, and pitch it to my product development and marketing teams. (Metric: Task completed)
• Complete the project or initiative I outlined and get feedback from key stakeholders. (Metric: Project/initiative completed and feedback received from three key stakeholders)

Personal goals:

• Get involved in extracurriculars within the company by signing up for the corporate volunteer day or a company-sponsored club or sports team (great for team-building activities) as a way to provide contributions and ways to give back to the community. (Metric: One activity signed up for)

Remember to keep this in mind, When you start out simple rather than stretching out your goals over a year, you can more easily measure and manage to get those goals done more concisely in chunks. Plans change, a lot more times than some they often don't go the way you expect them to.

So long as you're willing to be open and flexible with your action plan. It'll take you and your business to new heights and operate at new levels that fuel only resilience and resolve to become among the extraordinary.