Its often the first 100 days of a new plan are the most crucial time for action, its during this time that leaders establish their own standards and that of their team. The 100 day business plan is an awesome challenge for any business to help kick start and motivate a business owners ideas and goals. It might initially sound like a long time however if you think back over the past three months it seems to have flown by. Setting a goal as a business owner creates some accountability and direction in a often unsure world.
Why 100 days?
There is a honeymoon period for any new project, but within a 100 days there should be every expectation of seeing success and making sure that the correct decisions have been made of a business plan. The 100 day plan is a confidence tool, its not only showing that you can develop an action plan for your business but you can act on it in a timely manner and see real results.
What to do?
Think of where your business is now and where you want to be. By creating tangible goals we can work backwards with the steps to achieve them. Shooting an arrow at a target is a lot more measurable of a successful action rather than firing it off into the distance. Write down the key objectives of your business plan and review them at key intervals at 30, 60 & 90 days before the finale.
Simple put the 100 day business plan can be broken down into;
- What are we doing now? ( a key performance indicator such as sales numbers or a dollar figure)
- What are we aiming to be at in 100 days at this KPI?
- What steps are we going to implement to achieve this? (SEO, advertising, sales leads etc.)
- How are we going to measure this KPI along the way of our 100 days? (Weekly sales figures
What to include?
- It’s okay to make adjustments along the way, that is part of effective business management
- Demonstrate your ability not only to the world but yourself
- Involvement of key stakeholders such as staff, customers and clients
- Learning its okay to not have all the answers straight away and this is part of a learning process
- A plan for support to achieve these goals such as mentors or a support network
- Be ambitious in your goal setting, it is better to aim high and miss than aim low and hit.
Conclusion
Review your results at the end of 100 days of where you were, where you ended up and how you got there. Review what you got correct and what wasn’t done so well so you can plan better for the future. The only true failure is not learning anything.
Most importantly take some time to reward yourself and your team for your efforts because if you truly take on this challenge you will put yourself under pressure to grow.
Powell Enterprises is an accountant and small business accountant on the central coast NSW based in Wamberal servicing the Newcastle, Central Coast and Sydney Areas.