As the this year winds down and the new year looms now is the time to make sure you get what you want in your business next year.  That means now is the time to PLAN so you’re ready to hit the ground running starting January 1.  After all, you have a lot more wind in your face than previous years.

Rising taxes are a foregone conclusion, employees will cost you more even if you don’t give them a raise or bonus, and your potential clients will continue to make investments with great caution.  Money isn’t falling from the sky for them either.

Tighten Your Operation

There’s no time like the present to tighten your operation whether you’re a one man band or have lots of employees or locations.  One of the best ways to figure out exactly what you will do to make that happen is to go through an abbreviated Strategic Sales Master Plan.  When I say abbreviated I don’t mean quick I mean well thought out.

One of the things I’ve noticed lately among businesses of all sizes with varying levels of success is scope creep.  Diane Helbig states, “You must know the scope of the work you will do” in her book Lemonade Stand Simple: Accelerate Your Small Business Growth

When you lack clarity about exactly what you do and don’t do… several negative things happen.  For one thing you become less desirable to your best potential clients.  For another, your profits go down because you tend to under value the work you’re doing, or over estimate your capabilities to do that work.  Consequently you don’t recover the compensation required to earn a real profit doing that work.  Plus you confuse both your employees and your clients.

Single Page Strategic Sales Master Plan

Let’s set aside this month to focus on developing a single page Strategic Sales Master Plan for your business.  The elements of your plan will include:

• Positioning
• Vision
• Mission
• Purpose
• Critical Factors
• Actionable Goals
• Resources
• Focus
• Deadlines
• Tracking

Rather than just talking about it I want you to take action and actually do it.  The first action I want you to take is to download the Strategic Sales Master Plan template.  Then I want you to print this template and keep it right by your computer along with a pencil.  Finally, I want you to get ready because we’ll start working through it in the next post.

If you know other business owners, entrepreneurs, and SOHO’s (single owner home office) who need to start next year right please send them to this blog post so they can get started and work through it with us.  There’s enough business for everyone.  Everyone who has a plan to go out and get that business that is…

Coach Cheryl

Do it Yourself

Do it with a Little Help

Do it with Guidance

photo credit: kongsvinger