Don’t lose track of where you’re going by getting caught up in the day-to-day stress of running your business. Create an action plan to help focus your efforts and deliver better results more quickly.
You hear the words ‘action plan’ and usually two words come to mind: hard work.
Creating an action plan does take time – time you think you can’t fit into your daily schedule of emails, video chats, WhatsApp messages and proposals – but you’ll thank yourself for finding the time to create this critically important productivity tool.
An action plan is like a map. It shows you what road you need to take to get to your destination, whatever that may be.
More importantly, it creates a direct relationship between your goals and your day-to-day actions.
An action plan ensures that you turn your “dreaming” into “doing.”
Developing an action plan while building your business is so important, I’ve made it Building Block #5 of The Launch Code, my unique business development framework that combines corporate planning methods with entrepreneurial execution to help you create a clear path to growth and profits.
Follow the action plan waterfall
My action plan framework is built on four levels.
When you put each level next to one another, you create a direct line between your preferred result and every action that you take.
Level 1: Destination: Your Destination is a combination of your Greater Purpose – a fundamental belief about how your company delivers value to others and your Desired Outcome – a snapshot of your business at a specific time in the future.
Your Destination serves as the end point for all your planning. Read or watch my blog to learn more about how to set a Destination for your business.
Level 2: Focus Areas: Your Destination includes five focus areas that cover the key aspects of your business: Product, Sales & Marketing, Finances, Team & Operations, and Other.
Keep these focus areas in your action plan. This ensures you cover every critical area of your business.
Level 3: Goals: Each focus area is supplemented with a set of goals covering a fixed period, usually anywhere from 3-to-12-months.
Set a maximum of three to five goals per focus area. Any fewer and you’ll probably leave something out. Anymore and you’ll get lost in the detail.
Some focus areas will likely be more important than others. You may have more goals for one focus area and fewer goals in another. These weights will change as your business matures.
Level 4: Actions: Finally, each goal has a set of actions that when completed, will enable you to reach your goal.
Some people confuse goals with actions. A goal is something you want to see as a result of completing a series of actions.
An action is a step you take to achieve a specific goal.
Goals are the heart of an action plan
Hundreds of books have been written on the value and importance of setting goals, but you can’t repeat this point enough.
Goals help you clarify what you want to achieve. They help you track you progress. They enable you to adjust along the way. They keep you motivated.
Still, so many people don’t set goals and even fewer write them down.
Why is this so important?
A Harvard Business School study tells you everything you need to know
HBS asked its 1979 graduating class one question: Have you set written goals and created a plan for their attainment?
Prior to graduation, it was determined that:
- 84% of the entire class had set no goals at all,
- 13% of the class had set written goals but had no concrete plans, and
- 3% of the class had both written goals and concrete plans.
Ten years later, HBS evaluated the income levels of these same individuals and the results were shocking.
- The 13% of the class that had set written goals but had not created a plan, were earning twice as much money as the 84% of the class that had not set goals.
- The 3% of the class that had both written goals and a plan, were making ten times as much money as the remaining 97% of the class.
The bottom line: if you set goals, write them down and create a plan to achieve them, you are more likely to succeed.
Your goals should make sense and be measurable
When it comes to goal-setting, you’ve probably heard the acronym SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound.
I propose a simpler approach.
1. Ask yourself if the goal you’ve written ‘makes sense.’
Will achieving this goal take me a meaningful step closer to reaching my Destination?
Can this goal be achieved with a reasonable amount of effort and assuming nothing unexpected happens? (e.g. COVID-19).
Try to strike a balance between being delusional and being too conservative.
2. Apply the ‘measurability test.’
Imagine yourself at a time in the future when you will need to review whether you have achieved your goal.
Are you able to make a realistic, ‘black and white’ assessment or do you find the result subject to interpretation?
If not, you need to revisit your goal and make it measurable.
3. Add a number to your goal
The best way to make your goal measurable is to define it based on a number.
No one can argue that a ‘9’ is less than ‘10’ or that September 30th comes after August 30th.
This is easy to do when your goal involves revenues, profit, number of deals or customers, cost level, average revenue per deal or inventory usage level.
4. Use your gut to add measurability
Not everything you want to achieve can be measured by the numbers.
How do you judge whether you’ve made progress in areas like product quality, customer satisfaction or team spirit?
In these cases, I ask startup founders and small business owners I work with to use their gut.
They measure a particular area on a scale of 1 to 10. A ‘1’ means ‘absolutely horrible’ and a ‘10’ means ‘couldn’t be better’.
I often double-check these levels by asking multiple team members to assign a number that reflects the current state of their business against the desired goal.
Most participants assign either the same number or a value that is plus or minus one digit.
Everyone has an internal compass, and if you don’t project your wishes and instead, offer an honest assessment, your gut is usually spot on.
When it comes time to evaluating your progress versus this type of goal, you simply provide a new rating based on a scale of 1-to-10 and you can judge whether you’ve made progress.
Typical start up goals
Your specific goals will depend on your stage of development, but here are a few examples that ‘make sense’ and are easy to evaluate.
- Product: We will launch a minimum viable product by September 1st.
- Sales & Marketing: We will contact 100 potential customers and close at least five multi-year agreements with annual recurring revenues of 100,000 EUR by year-end.
- Team & Operations: We will hire a Director of Sales with at least five years of industry experience by September 1st.
- Finances: We will raise 500,000 EUR from a UK-based venture capital firm by December 1st.
- Other: We will identify and on-board three mentors or advisors to support our growth.
Set action items to achieve each goal
At this point, you will have a set of 15-25 goals in place that together, create a clear path to your Destination.
You now need to create a set of actions that will help you achieve your goals.
Keep in mind that a goal is the outcome you want to see after completing a series of actions.
An action is step you take to achieve a specific goal.
Under each goal list a set of specific actions you will take to achieve that goal.
How many actions you set depends on your personal preference but be careful not to get too lost in too much detail.
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Apply the 80/20 Rule: focus on 20% of your actions that will deliver 80% of the results.
As you identify specific actions, make sure you maintain a clear connection between each level of planning, so that a focus area, leads to a goal, which leads to an action.
How to implement your action plan
You now have all the pieces in place to implement your action plan.
Take these four steps to ensure you get the most out of this exercise.
1. Share your action plan with all stakeholders.
This step ensures the proper level of awareness, alignment, involvement, and commitment across the entire organization. What does this mean?
- Awareness: All your partners, team members and financial backers will be aware of the company’s goals and actions.
- Alignment: Everyone will agree on the company’s strategy. Different people in an organization often have a different view of what needs to be done. This is like sitting in a rowboat with someone else, and rowing in different (or worst case, opposite) directions. You end up putting a lot of effort into your business and going around in circles.
- Involvement: Everyone responsible for implementing the action plan will understand what role they play in achieving the organization’s goals.
- Commitment: Each team member will have a high level of personal commitment to achieving their goals.
2. Prioritize and take immediate action
Don’t try to do everything at once.
Select your Top Three goals and make these the focal point of your actions for the next week, month or quarter – whichever fits your planning cycle.
Commit to implementing one of your action items to support your Top Three goals every day over this period.
Maintain a ‘to-do list’ so your next actions are always in front of you.
Take a look at Getting Things Done if you want to learn more about how to boost your productivity with the help of to-do lists.
3. Track your progress
If you’ve gone through the trouble of creating an action plan, the last thing you want is to have it sit at the bottom of a desk drawer.
Make sure your action plan is ‘front and center’ and easily accessible so that you are constantly reminded of what you set out to achieve.
Commit to reviewing your progress against your goals on a regular basis, either at a regularly scheduled status meeting or at the end of each week before you head home for the weekend.
As your business becomes more mature, and fewer things are likely to change in a short time you may choose to look at your goals and track your progress less frequently, say monthly or quarterly.
4. Adjust your goals and actions as needed
While your Destination should be firm and revisited only on an annual basis, your goals and your actions should be living, breathing parts of your life that are revisited regularly.
It’s only natural that some goals may become obsolete or may prove to be unrealistic as you progress in building your business.
If you see that either of the above has happened, change or adjust your goals so they match your current circumstances.
Be careful! There’s a fine line between adjusting your goals to match changing circumstances and giving up on achieving your goals prematurely.
Make sure you’re changing your goals for the right reasons, and not just because they are hard to reach.
Action Items will be completed, updated and added to on a daily basis.
Action plan: Just do it!
Creating an action plan may seem scary at first, but nothing beats the power of Nike’s classic advertising slogan to get past your initial hesitation.
Just do it!
Follow my tips on how to create an action plan and you’ll not only have a clear idea of where you and your business are headed, but you’ll be able to focus your efforts and deliver better results more quickly.
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Need help creating an action plan?
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Schedule a 30-minute FREE CONSULTATION with me and learn how you can create a high-impact action plan. I also share how I can help you find your focus and accelerate your business growth as your personal mentor.
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