Top 7 Tips For Creating a Strategic Action Plan

A strategic business plan is the foundation for the planned strategic actions necessary to outthink and outlast the competition. Within the strategic plan is the strategic action plan that records all of the hits, misses and even errors for the current as well as past year. NOTE: A simple strategic plan definition is who does what by when and its construction is dependent upon the analysis of real time information.

With the current year quickly coming to an end, now is the time to review the business hits and misses for the last year. Success in business is directly tied to how much time is invested in working on the business instead of just in the business. These 7 top tips can quickly double your business results in 2007.

Tip One: List all of your hits. Hits are all revenue from the sales of your products and services.

Tip Two: List all of your misses. Misses include:

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• Lost proposals
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• Lost contracts and sales
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• Lost opportunities such as not asking for referrals
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• Lost performance from management to employees
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Tip Three: Assign a dollar value to all of your misses. Then compare the results from this tip to Tip 1. Note: As a business coach, I have discovered that this simple reflection may create significant pain for the business owners, entrepreneurs or executives because they have been so busy working in their businesses they have failed to work on their businesses.

Tip Four: Learn the causes of the misses. Misses may be the result of poor job specific skills from sales to customer service, poor planning or lack of individual accountability. This real time information is necessary when constructing your Strategic Action Plan.

Tip Five: Identify your desired business results for the next year. Using the W.A.Y. S.M.A.R.T. goals criteria (W-Written, A-Aligned, Y-Yours, S-Specific, M-Measurable, A-Attainable, R-Realistically set high and T-Target date, time driven), you avoid those past missed opportunities and turn them into homeruns for the next business quarter or business year. These goals are based upon data received from the previous 4 tips.

Tip Six: Construct your business dashboard. By identifying key performance indicators and monitoring these on a daily or weekly basis, you can determine that your firm is operating at peak performance and quickly make any necessary course corrections to achieve the desired business results.

Tip Seven: Make a weekly appointment to work on your business. Schedule at least 1 hour each week working on your business. Use this time to review both your dashboard and strategic business plan. Your strategic plan (Who does What by When) should also include, but is not limited to your marketing plan, sales plan, growth plan and financial plans. Using your dashboard and other tools including organizational assessments, you can quickly monitor your business progress and become a proactive decision-maker instead of a reactive one.

These 7 tips can quickly help you create your own strategic action plan and can double your business results within 30 to 90 days.

Leanne Hoagland-Smith is a results driven business coach who helps to develop executable strategic plans along with the necessary skills to \"pull it off.\"

One quick question,if you could secure one new client or breakthrough that one roadbloack holding you back from success, what would that mean to you? Then, take a risk and give me a call at 219.759.5601 to experience incredible results.

Visit http://www.processspecialist.com/ and explore everything from free articles to connecting with Leanne.

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