Part 2: Plan, Prioritize, Take Action
Do you have clarity about what you want from your business, and do you have a step-by-step plan to achieve that?
Winston Churchill said during World War II that “He who fails to plan is planning to fail” and I for one agrees with that. I believe that a good plan will not necessarily guarantee success, but it will definitely help you to succeed.
Planning is not only confined to business. You can do that in any real life situation as well. For example: When you decide to go on an overseas vacation, will you just hop on the first flight that takes you to anywhere in the world? Or will you determine the destination first, set the date, buy the plane tickets, plan what to pack and what you want to do on vacation?
You’ll probably take the second approach, because it can be quite an expensive endeavor if you end up in a place you really don’t want to spend your vacation in. So even when you go on vacation, planning and knowing the destination upfront, is quite important
Yet, many entrepreneurs start their business without really knowing what the end destination of their business journey should be. So they have a difficult time creating a workable plan to build and grow a profitable business.
However, when you want to take your business from merely surviving to thriving in 2013 it becomes important to plan the journey, prioritise the tasks and to take daily action.
The process of creating this success plan starts with clearly defining what you want from your business and where you want to be in six months, one year, or even ten years.
Then it’s about:
- Setting goals in terms of how much money you want to make; how many clients you need to work with to earn that amount of money and how you market to find these clients.
- Then, identifying what you need to do to reach those goals, in other words breaking your goals down into smaller, doable steps, pinpointing all the obstacles you need to overcome and identifying who can help you reach those goals faster.
- Lastly, taking action daily, weekly and monthly to bring you closer to what you want.
To make your planning even more effective, it helps to prioritise your action steps so you can focus on what is important and what needs to be done first.
Prioritizing your tasks saves massive amounts of time since you always handle the important stuff first and don’t waste time on things that don’t really take you closer to your goals.
One thing is for sure: you will end up somewhere by the end of 2013. Why not determine your destination for this year today. Create the plan, prioritize the steps and take action – one step at a time.
That will be a great strategy to take your business from merely surviving to thriving this year.
To Your Success
P.S. As always, I love to hear your thoughts… Share it with us below.
Click here for Part 1: Discover You First
Click here for Part 3: Position Your Business Correctly
