It’s a brand new year…

What are you doing? Where are you going? And how do you plan to get there?
Now that we’ve closed the books on 2012, and welcome 2013 with open arms, these are the questions you should be asking yourself about the future of your small business.
In short: You Need a Plan!

The Purpose of Planning

“If there’s no plan, there’s no attack. If there’s no attack, there’s no victory. How can you have victory, without an attack?”

– General Raymond One Crazy Summer

A fabulous quote from one of my faves movies – a John Cusack vehicle from the mid-80s, and a real gem. But this tasty little quote really sums up the process you must follow in order to achieve your goals… Without a plan, nothing happens.
The loftiest goals, most revolutionary ideas and grandest intentions mean nothing in and of themselves. You are only successful if you’re able to make these bold moves happen, and that requires planning.

Step 1: GOALS

As with any project in marketing, business or life in general – I always urge you to start with a goal. I’ve blog about this issue ad nauseum, but suffice it to say, the goals you hope to achieve for 2013 represent the jumping off point in formulating your Plan of Attack.

Step 2: Write Down Your Goals, and Your Plan to Achieve Them

Find a notebook and pen, open a Word doc or txt. file, create a “notebook” in Evernote – whatever vehicle or method works best for you is totally cool – and write down your goals, and what you need to do to achieve those goals.
To formulate your plan, ask yourself:

• What steps and specific actions do you need to take?
• What resources are required?
• Can you make this happen on your own, or do you need to reach out for additional assistance?
• Who in your Mastermind Group on professional network can help?

I think you get the idea – evaluate your goals, determine what steps you need to take, and chart the course from start to finish.
But the key is to WRITE IT ALL DOWN and revisit this documentation often. This action is paramount to holding yourself accountable.

Step 3: Monitor Your Progress

Open up an Excel sheet.
In the right-hand column, in descending order of importance, record each step in your “plan.”
In the top row, across the descending columns, fill in the months of the year- January, February, etc… and note your progress at the end of each month. Once you’ve completed a particular step, highlight that row in yellow to indicate it’s complete.
In your efforts to hold yourself accountable for achieving your goals, monitoring your progress is as critical as writing as out and revisiting your original plan.

Step 4: When the Going Gets Tough…Stick to Your Plan

Goals, planning and the like are meaningless without follow through.
Once upon a time, most trucks were powered with what is known as a Straight-8 engine: 8 individual cylinders lined up in a row. The overall engine infrastructure needed to support this kind of engine was huge, and required a vehicles “under-the-hood” cavity to be enormous.
Henry Ford wanted an 8 cylinder engine that could fit in a passenger car, a task which required the engine to be redesigned and made significantly smaller. So, Ford employed a team of engineers to achieve his goal.
The engineers set about building prototypes and conducting experiments. Over the course of nearly 18 months, each successive experiment failed. And following each failure, the engineers went back to Ford and claimed: “It just can’t be done!” To which Ford responded: “Go back to the drawing board and start again.”
The end result of this process yielded what we know today as the V-8 engine, and ultimately revolutionizing internal combustion engine design.
What if Ford had listen to his engineers, where would we be today?
The point being, most things worth doing are not easy. So, when the going gets tough, don’t give up – stick to your plan.

What About You?

Do you or have you ever created a plan to achieve your annual business goals? If so, has it helped, and to what extent? If not, why not?
Talkback: please share all of your goal planning strategy successes and failures, we would love to hear all about it!
p.s.
Marketing planning and organization not your thing? It’s a brand new year, do yourself and your business a favor and kick things off right — Contact Marketing Expertise about creating your very own customized 2013 Marketing Plan: ryananys@designexpertise.net | 310.466.7893