Writing for SBA.gov, business planner extraordinaire Tim Berry suggests that following five simple “business refresh” ideas will help you manage your business goals, growth, and execution. These are condensed versions of his insightful suggestions.
1 | Refresh Your Strategy Framework
Step back from the day-to-day details and look at the long-term strategy of your business.
- Think about your identity as a business. That’s what makes it unique. It’s strengths and weaknesses, core competence, history, and long-term branding.
- Think about your target market. Think about an ideal customer. Remind yourself who isn’t a customer, and why. Don’t try to please everybody. Try to please your specific target buyers.
- Think about your business offering. That’s what you do, as a business; what you sell. Relate that to your identity. Relate that to your target market.
2 | Refresh Your Tactics
Tactics are how you execute strategy in everyday business. They are decisions you make and follow about business basics including pricing, delivery, channels, promotion, personnel, policies, and so forth.
3 | Refresh the Key Metrics
Managing by key metrics gives you something to shoot for that is objective and measurable. You can track progress over time. And you make good and bad results visible, and actionable.
4 | Refresh Your Milestones
Milestones are events, achievements, and accomplishments that a business can work towards. Setting milestones helps people work better towards reachable, manageable goals rather than just vague ideas about the future.
5 | Refresh Your Forecasts
All business owners benefit from a simple forecast. It’s about getting your assumptions into an organized form, understanding the drivers, and setting up something you can track monthly with plan vs. actual analysis that leads to revising and refreshing often.
VIA | SBA.gov “Five Ways to Give Your Business A Strategic Refresh” by Tim Berry
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