our 5 day action plan to help you kick start your small business

day 1: strategic action plan

Absolutely nothing will happen to your small business until you take action.  You may not think so now, but you can realize your small business dream. It takes planning and action.  Many small business owners skip the planning step because they are too busy taking action. But it's the wrong action!
Working on yesterday's problems, not tomorrow's dreams. If you take one hour a week to sit down and formulate a plan of action for your business, then take the steps you identify, you can and will reach the success you seek.

To make changes in your business and stay on track so you are doing the right thing to reach your goals rather than just being busy, you need an action plan. You can create one in five days (or less!) and then be kicking it in gear creating success for your business. Here’s how.

Where are you now?
Assess your current situation.

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There’s no better time than the start of the year FY2014-15 to create a brand new action plan, whether you are thinking of starting your new small business or having an existing small business. If your results have been lackluster, why keep doing the same thing and getting the same results? To achieve your goals you need a road map to follow. It’s time to focus on those things that are working for you and add some new, more effective actions into the mix. So, starting today, we’ll begin our five day strategic action plan for the new year. Your first step is to take a look at where you are right now. Take out a piece of paper and work through the following strategic action plan step one.

Where Are We Now?
Assess your current situation. Identify what your business is doing well and why. This is key. Be as specific as possible. If you want to improve your success and grow your business, you have to know what you are doing well. If you’ve never taken the time to really look at what’s going right in your small business, this can be a real eye opener for you. Sure you might “know” what’s going well, but writing it down can create a whole new set of “ahas” for you and show you where your business can focus on a niche that wasn’t so obvious to you before you started.

What services / products do we provide to whom and what are their expectations?
Now that you have a list of what’s working, you need to take a look at who they serve.

• Are you targeting the right market? 
• Do they expect more from you than what you are providing?
• Is a product or service giving them “too much” at one time? 

For each item you identified above, make sure you take this step so you know why you’re selling, who you’re selling it to and what expectations it meets.

That’s it for today. Take at least an hour to work through each of these questions.
We'll look at Day 2 action item soon. If you have any question please feel free to leave me a message.

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