Year-End Updates to Business Plans

This continues our series on actions you can take at years end to grow your business next year

Hopefully you have started cleaning up and protecting any tax, legal, and other loose ends before December 31. In addition, you may have implemented your plan to remember and strengthen client relationships. Once you set your goals for next year, you need to update your business plan to achieve the goals you set. I want to help you identify the sections of your plant that need updating.

To achieve the goals you set for next year will require both a plan and action. In a previous post we evaluated the benefits of following your business plan rather than preparing the plan for others. I urged you to ensure that your business plan changes and evolves as your business grows.

Update Sections of Your Business Plan

Year-end provides a perfect opportunity for major updates to your business plan. The changes should lead to achieving the goals you set. You will need to update the following sections of your business plan If you set the goals we discussed last Saturday. You will:

1. Include  new products or services in the summary and operations plan
2. Add any new competitors or changes they made to the market analysis section
3. Refine the human resource portion to accommodate labor transformation
4. Alter the operation plan to include changes to operation flow & production efficiencies
5. Adjust costs, discounts, prices, or vendors in the purchasing section of the financial plan
6. Incorporate market research findings into all appropriate sections of the business plan
7. Add or modify campaigns in the campaigns pillar of the marketing plan
8. Change monthly, quarterly, & yearly forecasts in the sales section of the marketing plan
9. Adapt the pricing section with all of it’s overhead and cost accounting to reflect change
10. Redo the finance sections to reflect new funding and accounting practices

I remind you that these may not represent all the sections of your business plan that will require alteration. I will also remind you that the more you use your plan, the better you will recognize the sections requiring edits based on your year-end goals.

Outline Specific and Clear Action You Will Take

Your changes to the business plan should outline specific actions and tasks that you will either modify or begin performing. You will enhance your success if you include deadlines or milestones in your action plan. Transfer your action steps to your calendar system and incorporate it into your time management system.

We will explore some simple steps of time management in Thursday’s post. Join us!!