2015: Looking Ahead and Planning for the New Year
There is a time for every season, every season has a time.
It’s December, which means I begin to think about the end of year wrap up and beginning of year Business Planning. (Yes, I know most people are thinking about the holidays!) Last December we were planning on how we could grow and reach the $6 million mark. Guess what, we going to make it! We are going to celebrate!
In thinking about creating a business plan for the new year, generally, the process starts with ideas, goals and an action plan…. and then see how many people I can get enlisted in that plan to hit those goals! In reality, the process takes time and must be worked through. At Nolan Painting, the process looks a little like this…
Over the last several weeks, I have spent a lot of time thinking about what I believe our 2015 company goals should be. At that time, I have informally discussed these ideas with folks both within and outside the company. To formalize these/ ideas, I met with our management team last week for a two-hour session to put together an agenda for a full-day planning meeting and prepare for a Strength, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) analysis.
Our full-day planning session then occurred last Saturday, where the entire management team met in a board room at a nice hotel in Philadelphia. We went through the planned agenda and hammered through the topics (Big Rocks). Big Rocks are the areas you must pay attention to every year… for example, marketing, hiring, training etc. We then create our 2015 plan by creating detailed action items around these focused Big Rocks. It’s very important that these action items and ideas are clearly defined and written in a format that is easily communicated. After our full day of the meeting, the team and I went out for a celebratory dinner to reward ourselves for a great day of planning.
The next step will involve presenting our plan in a meeting with our Crew Leaders and other emerging leaders. Somewhere in this process, I will start having conversations with individuals about what employee and company bonuses will happen when we hit our 2015 goals. Finally, I will present the plan for the whole company at an all-company meeting.
Our goal for 2015 is to hit $7 million in revenue. There I said it…and wrote it down and shared it! For the next few weeks, we will continue to work as a team on the plan so that we know exactly what we need to do as a company to hit our goal.
I really do enjoy this process. It’s very invigorating and also rewarding to see how far we’ve come. It’s the most wonderful time of the year!
In short, here are the steps involved in making the company’s goals become the goals of your employees:
- Get them involved in the planning process- ask for their input.
- Make it financially worthwhile to the folks who are responsible for making it happen.
- Write the plan. Make sure it is clearly defined
- Share your new plan with the entire company- get them excited and ready for new growth!
Now start planning!
Good Luck!