From time to time, business owners feel the need to take some time away from their business to refresh their vision and renew their focus. If you are that business owner, what are you waiting for? Now is the time to do it!
When I talk to business owners, I often ask them how they got into their business. More times than not, they tell me they got there almost by accident. It wasn’t because they spent time finding their ideal market or knew there would be great growth opportunities … moreover, it was because they had a talent or ability – and a customer! For years, they would work tirelessly to make the business into what they “thought” they wanted. Then one day they wake up and realize this is not the business they envisioned – at least not anymore.
Many business people often find themselves in this position. It might take a year, five years, or even 10 years, but at some point every business owner needs to take a step back and ask some fundamental questions:
1.How much longer will enjoy doing what I have been doing?
2.Will I be able to reach my financial goals if I keep doing things the way I’ve been doing them?
3.Have I chased opportunities at the expense of what I’m passionate about?
4.Have I chased opportunities that have created a company that is more complicated than it needs to be or is competing in too many different markets?
5.What do we need to do to be more successful? Is there a short list that we can work from?
6.What is going on in the marketplace that could make it impossible for me to keep doing what I’ve been doing?
Answering these questions is the basis of Strategic Planning. Strategic Planning is the process that a company goes through to make conscious decisions about what they are good at, who they serve and how they will make money doing that for those people. Once those answers are clear, then the process continues by making decisions about how the company handles resources (money, management time and attention, etc.) in order to create the type of business being envisioned.
As you can see, these ideas are pretty significant. It’s difficult to think like this while the worries and troubles of the day are right in front of our faces. Therefore, this style of strategic planning is usually done in an off-site meeting or retreat.
Perhaps an example would help. One of the companies with which I worked early in my business was a newsletter publisher. They published an expensive newsletter to a very niche audience, and they had built it up to the point where there were three to four people making a living doing so. But the newsletter was hard to scale, and they were getting feedback from customers stating they needed help implementing the ideas that the company was giving them in the newsletter. Further, the partners were increasingly at odds with each other. There was no clear reason why, but things that had been fun and collegial were no longer either.
Different options were discussed at length. They could continue with the newsletter and add consulting services; they could create products or workshops that the clients could use to make better use of the information. Through this process, one of the partners realized that he had no passion or interest in leading a consulting business. He was looking for something more scalable and less people-intensive. The other partner loved the idea of growing the consulting business and selling much larger engagements than were possible with just the newsletter. They ended up parting ways, with one partner continuing on with the consulting business, happy with his choice; and the other leaving to start a software business, happy with his choice. The partner who stayed began hiring new people and offering different choices to his customer base, eventually moving the business toward larger engagements which, in turn, began de-emphasizing the newsletter. As a result, he was able to grow the business, stay in a field he is passionate about and reach his financial goals.
These changes never would have come about if the partners had just kept on doing more of what they had done in the past. It just wouldn’t have been possible.
The best strategic planning sessions start with introspection – what we do well along with what we do poorly, and where our best opportunities lie. A simple SWOT analysis does a good job of this, but then we have to spend some time looking outside our business at what is happening with our customers and competitors. We also need to pull all of it together into clear statements of where we need to go and what we need to do in order to get there. This is where an outside facilitator becomes essential. It is important to have an independent voice who is completely neutral and not tied emotionally or politically to any one perspective or idea. This person can help you sort through the alternatives and achieve clarity within this quagmire.
So plan a date, get yourself an outside facilitator, and start re-inventing your business. You will be shocked at how much the clarity and perspective renews your energy and enthusiasm for you and your team!