Do you ever wonder just where exactly your business is going and how long it will take to get there? If so, it’s time to leave “wonderland” and get into action.
Half the year is over. How are you doing in meeting your goals? How are you doing on implementing your action plan?
Successful businesses put tremendous effort into creating detailed goals and marketing and action plans each year. And they check their progress against them regular basis, I’m talking about monthly and quarterly. They go through this for one real reason only: It works!
Here’s a million dollar tip from me to you…
Stop everything you’re doing and create a detailed map of goals and business strategies to achieve them.
However, if you don’t have goals and a plan that includes action steps you’re leaving your future to chance. If you do have them, let me ask you: have you examined them? They won’t do you any good sitting in a folder somewhere in your filing cabinet.
Once you have them in hand, ask yourself the following questions:
- How have you done so far this year?
- Are you doing great, average or behind?
- What can you tell from your results?
- What’s working and what’s not working?
- Where could you use some help?
- What successes can you leverage?
It’s imperative that you focus on what adjustments you need to make to continue your successes or cut your losses. It’s also a good time to revise your estimates for the rest of the year but don’t stop at just revising the numbers. Revise your action plan too! Where do you need to step up your action and where do you need to cut back? Again look at what’s working and what’s not.
Keep in mind that goals and business plans will only get you so far. An action plan (put into action) is what makes your business work.
Don’t want to get into all that hassle? Well, good luck with that. Your efforts, or lack thereof, will show in your business results. The time and effort it takes you to create these plans will pay you back tenfold. Knowing where you want to go and then comparing results regularly is the only way to assure yourself you’ll get to where you want to be.
Otherwise you might end up like Alice in Wonderland.
Alice: “Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”
The Cheshire Cat: “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to”.
Alice: “I don’t much care where.”
The Cheshire Cat: “Then it doesn’t much matter which way you go.”