Have you written a business plan? We’re not necessarily talking about a fifty page document… Even if you’ve only formulated a paragraph in your notebook that describes your business strategy, you’ve started to write a plan.
As your Nelson and Marlborough based Chartered Accountants, we’ve seen a few business plans in our time. Clients will come to us with everything from that page from the notebook to a bound document. When we ask if their plans are delivering the answer is often a sad shake of the head… Here’s why, often, the problem isn’t the plan, but how it’s executed.
To help you succeed we’ve put together a list of 5 tips to help you execute your business plan:
- Set clear priorities – Establish one priority at a time together with initiatives to help you get there. As an example, a priority might be to launch a new product. In order to do this you may need to purchase machinery or components, hire staff and initiate a marketing plan. If your business has too many priorities it’s difficult to focus on bringing each one to fruition, nothing gets done properly and your business becomes a juggling act.
- Stay on top of results – Collect data (sales and performance figures) and analyse it on a regular (monthly or quarterly) basis so you can assess what’s working. We can help you develop systems and processes that will ensure the data you need is at your fingertips.
- Don’t always stick to the plan – Once you’ve assessed your data and know what processes are working, continue with these and enhance them where you can. If a process is not achieving the results you thought it would, adjust the plan!
- Get buy in – You need your employees to act like they own the company. You need your team to do their job well because it’s in their own best interests to do so. Connect your business plan to your team member’s individual roles, let them know how important they are to the business.
- Get some support – That’s where we come in… We can guide you throughout every stage of your business growth. Our specialist Business Consulting Division, can write a business plan for you, review a business plan for you; but most importantly of all we can help you implement your plan so you get the results you want for your business.