day 3: strategic action plan

Decide where you want your business to be

You need to define what you want your future to look like so you can take the right steps and direction to reach it. You should also define who might be competing for your piece of the business pie. Lets look at further on our strategic action plan 3 here.

Most small business owners don't have a clue where they want to take their business. They just let it happen to them. And if you don't know where you are going, any road will take you there.

Is that what you really want?

Wouldn't you rather create success than let it happen to you? So what future do you want? That's what you'll work on today. Pull out a piece of paper and get started.

So, where do you want to be?
1. why does your company exist?
2. what would you like your biggest accomplishment to be this year?
3. where would you like your business to be in terms of sales revenues, size, number of employees, and location?
4. who are your top three competitors and why?
5. what aren't your competitors doing that customers need?
6. what trends do you see in the market that could make your products and services obsolete?
7. what are your competitors doing to push themselves ahead of the pack?

So make sure you are honest with yourself when answering the competition questions. Few small business owners tell me they have no competition. And to that, I say, "Get your head out of the sand". We all have competition and if we are going to win in the market place we have to differentiate our small business. One way to do that is to take a long hard look at what they are doing.

That is for today. We'll look at Day4 action plan on the next edition. So stay tune for that and remember to take note of the actions that you need to take.

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