Draft your Plan
Based on your analysis in sections 1 and 2, and making use of your experience, knowledge and foresight, sketch out a picture of your business as it will look once you have achieved your strategic goals. Let your mind go. What exciting possibilities exist for your business? (Keep in mind the Professional Goals you wrote in your personal List of Goals as well.)
Point form will be fine here if you wish.
A. Leadership Goals
Leadership is laying the foundation of a business.
1. What will your corporate culture be like?
2. How will you communicate your company goals to your managers and employees?
3. How will you measure the overall health of your business?
4. How will your employees absorb and use your corporate foundation? (Mission/Values/Vision.)
5. What growth strategies will you be preparing to pursue?
B. Management goals
Management is the process of organizing your business processes and the people who run them.
1. What style of management will you use?
2. How many employees will you need?
3. How many managers will you need?
4. How many outlets will you have?
5. How will you incorporate training into your overall operation?
6. How will you compensate your employees?
7. How will information be communicated to your employees?
8. What further management innovations will you implement or introduce?
C. Marketing goals
Marketing is the process of designing every aspect of your business to satisfy the needs and/or desires of your customers.
1. Who will your target market be?
Demographics — age, sex, income, occupation, education, etc. Psychographics — values, attitudes, interests, decision-making process, etc.
2. Where will they be located? (local, provincial/statewide, national, global)
3. How will they reach you?
4. How will you reach them? How could you reach them?
5. What kind of buying experience will your customers have?
6. What kind of customer service will you offer?
7. Describe your employees. (Attitude, education, behaviour, dress, etc)
8. How do you want your customers to see your employees?
9. Competitive Advantage (e.g. price, quality, feature and functions, reliability, customer service, delivery time)
10. What additional marketing innovations will you implement?
11. What will your corporate image be and how will you measure it?
D. Financial goals
Finance is the process of monitoring, organizing and controlling the flow of money through your business for the purpose of profit and growth.
1. What are your gross sales targets?
2. What are your profit margin targets?
3. What will your debt load be like?
4. What is your target growth rate?
5. What financial Key Performance Indicators will you need to track in order to be sure your business is on target? (e.g. Key ratios/Inventory turns/Working capital)
6. What further financial innovations will you implement?
7. Who/what is your target market? (By product line).
8. What is your market share? How much of the market do you control?
9. What are the overall strengths and weaknesses of your business?
10. What is unique about your business?
11. What else do you perceive as important about the current state of your business?
E. Operations goals
Operations is the process of developing, manufacturing, and delivering your product or service to your customers.
1. Will you make any fundamental changes to your production/service?
2. What will you sell and how will it be unique?
3. How will you improve the internal processes (systems) of your operation?
4. How will your products or services be manufactured or acquired?
5. How will you deliver your products or services to your customers?
6. How will you measure and improve your quality? (i.e. continuous improvement.)
7. What will your approach be to new product development?
8. How will you harvest new ideas, which are generated internally?
9. What additional operation innovations will you implement?
F. Sales Goals
Sales is the process of building customer relationships and supplying customer’s needs in the marketplace with your product/service.
1. How much time will your salespeople spend selling as opposed to other sales-related activites?
2. Describe your future sales strategy.
3. What Sales Key Performance Indicators will you measure and how?
4. How will you tie your customer to your brand, rather than to specific individuals?