Small Business Week: The Perfect Time To Kick Start Your Plan
Welcome to Small Business Week!
This is a time to thank and congratulate small business owners for their innovative spirit and for delivering the hard work that drives our region’s success. This is also a fine time for small business owners to ask, “What comes next?”
Answering that question is not easy. Before you figure out how to get there, you must first determine where “there” is. This is why planning plays such a fundamental role in the success of a business—-it is the roadmap that helps your business find its way.
To create an actionable plan, you’ll need to take several concrete steps:
- Review your past successes and setbacks
- Assess your strengths and build on them
- Be aware of your weaknesses and minimize them
- Create goals
- Be specific and measure progress
- Be realistic: have a time frame that fosters action, but set reasonable deadlines
- Identify Needs
- What are the approximate costs in time and dollars?
- List the steps that are necessary to reach these goals
- Share your goals with colleagues, employees, friends, and advisors
- Solicit feedback
- Build support (you will need all the help you can get)
- Be reasonable
- Make sure the plan can be easily explained and understood
- Help your supporters envision the finish line
- Execution
- Prioritize the goals and delegate responsibilities
- Review progress intermittently
- Stay focused
Being a business owner is both rewarding and arduous. While good plan can help you navigate the thorny patches and keep your company on the right track, it can be difficult to anticipate all the day-to-day challenges that can arise. At Simon Lever LLP, we help businesses develop a sound course of action that will guide them toward success. Contact us today to start a conversation.
By Darren Finn, CPA
Principal
