What is your business strategy? For that matter, what is a strategy? How often do you go back and look at it? How often do you work on the goals that are going to help you achieve that strategy?

Your strategy is your plan for accomplishing a particular goal vision. If you have a restaurant, for example, a particular strategy you might work on is how to increase revenue. You might try to increase table turns or raise prices or start any number of marketing endeavors.

The question is: "As a small business owner, how do I get time to create or even work on a strategy?" As a small business owner, it is VITAL that you put aside time for this every week. Strategy is the lifeblood of your business that keeps it going every day. While making time is impossible, taking time to work on your strategy is like taking time to eat. J

Here is a tip –
Make yourself a weekly schedule of different activities you will do centered around growing your business – for example, we take two hours of “off-line” time – time when aren’t actively involved in the business, and dedicate it as “strategy time,” and have it set up as an appointment in our calendar software – in this case Microsoft Outlook. What you would do during this time is

Review your company vision.
Review your strategies.
Review your plan.
Work your plan.
Give yourself a timeline so that you don’t get stuck in any particular area, especially the planning area (you need to WORK the plan!).
Make goals and make them BOLD!! – Keep yourself engaged and challenged to do what you do every day.
Make your goals MANAGEABLE! – while your goals should be bold, they should be those that you can reasonably accomplish so that you don’t get discouraged
Use your resources! – Friends, business associates, outsourcing, etc.
Give yourself a timeframe - starting and ending dates for each milestone will help keep things in perspective
Make sure you can look at every milestone and say to yourself, “this is what it looked like before, and this is what it will look like when it is done” and be able to note the difference
Be accountable to yourself – share your goals/plans with a business associate, mentor, or with your group

At Aepiphanni, we are dedicated to serving the needs of small business owners. We specialize in helping you develop strategies for your organization, and are committed to your success. If you have further questions about creating your strategy or developing your vision, please give me, Rick Meekins, a call at 678-697-2315, or email me at http://www.blogger.com/rmeekins@aepiphanni.com.

Labels: Business Development Strategies, Business Growth Strategies, Business Startup

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Tuesday, August 14, 2007

No Time for Strategy!!