We are one week into 2020 already! I am in my new home after moving over the holidays. New year, new home and lots of hopes for the next 12 months ahead. But what will make this one different? How can I achieve for my business all that I hope for? Let's work on the answers together to make 2020 the best yet.
1. Look Back & Reflect
You might think the first question is - what do I hope for in the year ahead? Before this, why not take a step back and review the past year. Look back at your business in 2019. The things that went well and the things that went well, not quite so well! What did you learn? Can you make tweaks to any communications, or targetting of promotions to improve their success? Perhaps you need to think about where your most profitable business came from last year so that can you spend more time and energy on it this year. What didn't work and what is not worth trying again this year? This is all really valuable insight information and it's worth capturing somewhere. It might take a bit of time, but it's so worth it.
2. Set Your Sights High Next, make sure your overall vision is fresh for you (and your team, they need to be on board too). What are you trying to achieve? What is your ultimate goal? The dream for your business needs to be there in paper or at least in your mind so that you can take that leap and go for it. Is it to be the UK's leading strategy and head-hunting company? Or be the go-to supplier of specialist equipment for dementia patients. The clearer the better, as this focus will help you make great, strategic decisions for your business. And if it excites you then all the better because this will help inspire you and your team to achieve this.
3. Plan Your Bite-sized Goals
Now you have your vision, brainstorm and plan the annual goals that will help you achieve your vision. Make sure these are SMART goals:
These can be financial targets, or perhaps the number of sales, number of new clients or even the percentage of market share. These are your strategic ideas for the year ahead. How will you make them accountable? This process will make them more likely to happen and in turn will have a big influence on your overall vision.
4. Stay Grounded
Having set your sights high and planned out your annual goals, it's important to plan these goals based on your available resources, here it is important to prioritise. Sadly, sometimes I have to be the bearer of bad news for my clients. They have the vision and ideas to take their business to the next level, but this doesn't mean they have the resources behind them to make these goals reality. Their passion is infectious and it's easy to get led along with their vision, but my role as Marketing Consultant enables me to see the bigger picture from the outside in. By bringing it back to the question of resources (time, budgets, employees, etc) it is ticking off the Achievable SMART goal because any of these resources can stop you from achieving your goals and then ultimately your vision.
5. The Plan
This is the fun bit! You've done your reflection, you have your vision and set your bite-sized annual goals. Now you can get pen to paper and plan out how these goals can be worked into a Marketing Communications Plan (btw get in contact if you need any help with this). After a few years in the business and working with varied clients in England and South East Asia, I've seen in practice where my more focused clients who have a vision, goals and The Plan really do see the pay off in many ways! 6. Is It Going To Plan?
Finally, at the outset decide how you will review the goals and the plan as you go along. Will it be a quick check over every week or will it be a more detailed review once a month? This all might sound like a big exercise, but even done on a small scale these points will give clarity to your goals and help you reach your vision. It's worth it, go for it!! For help with this or for marketing communications for your business email info@layoutmarketing.com