Get on the front foot
Half way through the year is an ideal time to take stock of where you are and re-visit your business plan. And by re-visit, I mean starting again with a blank sheet of paper. Because market conditions may well be different to what they were when your business plan was first written. So if you step back and take a real honest look at where you are placed in the market, you will be able to identify some new opportunities and get on the front foot as you go forward.
One of the best ways to do this is to start with a S.W.O.T. analysis to identify your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. And this needs to be an honest look at yourself as you are placed in today’s market conditions. Basically you are trying to answer yourself three questions: Where am I now? (This comes from the S.W.O.T. analysis. Where do I want to go? And how am I going to get there? A lot of where you want to go will come from the weaknesses identified and what you are doing to do to put them right. But you also need to open your mind and identify other opportunities in the marketplace which may present themselves to you.
The “How” is the hard part. What you need to do here is to set yourself short-term, medium-term and long-term targets and goals which will serve you well in the marketplace to take advantage and ensure that you are first to have your foot in the door when the market starts to pick up – and don’t forget to set a time line for each goal.
Finally you need to put some system in place to measure your plan. Obviously part of that is to turn the plan into a financial budget but you also need to reassess yourself regularly against the targets and goals that you have set in practice. Realise also, that there is no shame in not meeting your targets or deadlines, but it is a more than helpful tool to measure your success and if necessary plan corrective action. There are many opportunities at the moment for any business and if you start moving forward positively then you will be one of the first to reap the rewards as you move towards the light at the end of the tunnel.
It pays to have a third party involved in your S.W.O.T. and in assisting with your business plan. So give me a call if you need any help at all and I will be only too happy to assist.