Potential Problems When Implementing a Strategic Plan

Communication: The strategic plan doesn’t get broadcast to the rest of the staff. Perhaps the owner keeps it on a shelf. Even if s/he shares with it with his/her top managers, it might not find its way down into the actual goals and job descriptions of the individual workers. It isn’t mentioned at every company function. Specific parts of the plan are not cascaded down through all levels and into the appropriate departments.

Cash flow: Small business owners sometimes think, “This is what we’ll do if we have the sales revenue to do it.” If the sales don’t measure up to expectation, they want to cut costs and put the breaks on the marketing/sales investments that might help them stay on track.

Personnel: Small businesses are very reliant on each employee. When one leaves, especially a manager or key salesperson, it throws everything out of whack until a replacement is hired and trained. That’s an expensive proposition in terms of both time and money.

Training and Development: Business growth requires people getting more accomplished in additional areas or in more specialized areas. Employees need to make more of their own decisions if growth is to occur. Small businesses don’t always have adequate budgets for training and developing their employees. If training and development doesn’t happen, the staff will be a limiting factor in the accomplishments of the strategic plan.

Owner’s Time and Commitment to the Planning Process: Very often a small business owner is handling the day to day activities of solving customer needs and making new sales. Many people including the owner wear multiple hats running around putting out ‘fires’. This sets up a culture of being reactive instead of proactive. A business plan is all about being proactive and preventing those ‘fires’. Sometimes it is hard for a business owner to implement the strategic plan and still take care of the day to day details.

A Framework For Accomplishing Your Plan

1. Training and development and strategic planning go hand in hand. Your people will implement the plan. What good is a plan without staff that are up to the task? Invest in your people. Make them all leaders of the plan. Help them expand their minds with possibility and creative thinking. Invest in their skills and knowledge in the use of their tools and the target markets your firm has identified. Make sure managers and supervisors have people skills in directing others, communication, decision making, handling conflicts. And by all means have each of your employees go through a practice and application program in goal achievement. Your whole plan is about setting and achieving individual goals that will be rolled up into each department’s goals, which will be rolled up into the company’s goals. Each employee’s individual goal setting habits will make or break your strategic plan. So help them establish goal achievement habits that become ingrained into the personal and professional fabric of their lives.
2. Communication of your plan needs to become the core of how you run the business. Everything you do needs to be related back to the plan in a big or small way. Every meeting can mention a portion of the plan. Employee assignments, goals, and reviews should communicate the portion of the plan that that employee is responsible for achieving. Tying the employee’s job duties to the larger goal and to the overall picture of the company’s growth makes an employee feel valued and valuable. It gives meaning to his/her work. It gives direction and helps him/her make better choices. Communication of the plan also includes communication of the company’s core values such as honesty, integrity, customer service, etc. As long as these values are actively pursued by management, the employee’s ability to grow and learn in an identified framework of goals and prioritized values makes for a very productive work environment. Everyone likes to feel productive and know that his/her work contributes to the group mission. Everyone likes to feel success. So identify what success is through good communication, and empower each employee to achieve it in his/her own role.
3. Be committed to the plan. Plan well and stick to enacting it. If you as an owner find it’s difficult to not get so caught up in the day-to-day reactive things, then get help. Invest in executive coaching to mentor you through some of the transitions you need to make to empower employees to handle the day-to-day issues themselves. Have your planning consultant come in once a month to hold you accountable for the monthly goals you’ve established. Focus on the proactive side of your business so you don’t get in your own way and sabotage your own plan. Eventually the proactive planning will prevent a lot of tho
   Get Your Printers to Print Your Business Cards in Bright Colours
   Get your printers to print your business cards in bright colours as this attracts the eye and few people will be able to resist taking a card from you. You need the name of your business to be printed in bold letters so that it is easy to read. The backs of the cards can be utilised by printing any snippet of information you might want to advertise about your company, or it could be used to display your advertisements of your special offers.Always take your cards with you no matter where you go. You never know when you will meet someone to whom you would like to give a card. Be constantly aware of the fact that you must advertise your business wherever you go as the more people get to know about it the more will visit your store.Wherever you have been leave a card behind so that someone can find it and possibly get curious enough to visit your place of business.Professional people have been making use of these little cards for a very long time. They use
   d into the appropriate departments.

   Cash flow: Small business owners sometimes think, “This is what we’ll do if we have the sales revenue to do it.” If the sales don’t measure up to expectation, they want to cut costs and put the breaks on the marketing/sales investments that might help them stay on track.

   Personnel: Small businesses are very reliant on each employee. When one leaves, especially a manager or key salesperson, it throws everything out of whack until a replacement is hired and trained. That’s an expensive proposition in terms of both time and money.

   Training and Development: Business growth requires people getting more accomplished in additional areas or in more specialized areas. Employees need to make more of their own decisions if growth is to occur. Small businesses don’t always have adequate budgets for training and developing their employees. If training and development doesn’t happen, the staff will be a limiting factor in the accomplishments of the strategic plan.

   Owner’s Time and Commitment to the Planning Process: Very often a small business owner is handling the day to day activities of solving customer needs and making new sales. Many people including the owner wear multiple hats running around putting out ‘fires’. This sets up a culture of being reactive instead of proactive. A business plan is all about being proactive and preventing those ‘fires’. Sometimes it is hard for a business owner to implement the strategic plan and still take care of the day to day details.

   A Framework For Accomplishing Your Plan

   1. Training and development and strategic planning go hand in hand. Your people will implement the plan. What good is a plan without staff that are up to the task? Invest in your people. Make them all leaders of the plan. Help them expand their minds with possibility and creative thinking. Invest in their skills and knowledge in the use of their tools and the target markets your firm has identified. Make sure managers and supervisors have people skills in directing others, communication, decision making, handling conflicts. And by all means have each of your employees go through a practice and application program in goal achievement. Your whole plan is about setting and achieving individual goals that will be rolled up into each department’s goals, which will be rolled up into the company’s goals. Each employee’s individual goal setting habits will make or break your strategic plan. So help them establish goal achievement habits that become ingrained into the personal and professional fabric of their lives.
   2. Communication of your plan needs to become the core of how you run the business. Everything you do needs to be related back to the plan in a big or small way. Every meeting can mention a portion of the plan. Employee assignments, goals, and reviews should communicate the portion of the plan that that employee is responsible for achieving. Tying the employee’s job duties to the larger goal and to the overall picture of the company’s growth makes an employee feel valued and valuable. It gives meaning to his/her work. It gives direction and helps him/her make better choices. Communication of the plan also includes communication of the company’s core values such as honesty, integrity, customer service, etc. As long as these values are actively pursued by management, the employee’s ability to grow and learn in an identified framework of goals and prioritized values makes for a very productive work environment. Everyone likes to feel productive and know that his/her work contributes to the group mission. Everyone likes to feel success. So identify what success is through good communication, and empower each employee to achieve it in his/her own role.
   3. Be committed to the plan. Plan well and stick to enacting it. If you as an owner find it’s difficult to not get so caught up in the day-to-day reactive things, then get help. Invest in executive coaching to mentor you through some of the transitions you need to make to empower employees to handle the day-to-day issues themselves. Have your planning consultant come in once a month to hold you accountable for the monthly goals you’ve established. Focus on the proactive side of your business so you don’t get in your own way and sabotage your own plan. Eventually the proactive planning will prevent a lot of th
      Dynamic Strategy Process to Increase the Value of Your Initiatives
      Introduction With numerous isolated initiatives running concurrently within an organization, there is often little idea of how they interact or overlap, leading to no clear overview of the benefits. The result is duplication and the need to repeat initiatives on regular intervals. Research shows that on average 40% of value of an initiative is not realized. However, having a logical way of structuring the same initiatives can lead to enormous benefits and a lot more realized value.Types of Initiatives The different types of initiatives in an organization can be categorized as follows: System improvement initiatives: Such projects involve using technology to streamline, automate and/or integrate processes and systems across the organization. There has been a strong focus on such projects since middle of the last decade, especially to introduce enterprise resource planning systems and during post merger system integration. Perform
      a small business owner is handling the day to day activities of solving customer needs and making new sales. Many people including the owner wear multiple hats running around putting out ‘fires’. This sets up a culture of being reactive instead of proactive. A business plan is all about being proactive and preventing those ‘fires’. Sometimes it is hard for a business owner to implement the strategic plan and still take care of the day to day details.

      A Framework For Accomplishing Your Plan

      1. Training and development and strategic planning go hand in hand. Your people will implement the plan. What good is a plan without staff that are up to the task? Invest in your people. Make them all leaders of the plan. Help them expand their minds with possibility and creative thinking. Invest in their skills and knowledge in the use of their tools and the target markets your firm has identified. Make sure managers and supervisors have people skills in directing others, communication, decision making, handling conflicts. And by all means have each of your employees go through a practice and application program in goal achievement. Your whole plan is about setting and achieving individual goals that will be rolled up into each department’s goals, which will be rolled up into the company’s goals. Each employee’s individual goal setting habits will make or break your strategic plan. So help them establish goal achievement habits that become ingrained into the personal and professional fabric of their lives.
      2. Communication of your plan needs to become the core of how you run the business. Everything you do needs to be related back to the plan in a big or small way. Every meeting can mention a portion of the plan. Employee assignments, goals, and reviews should communicate the portion of the plan that that employee is responsible for achieving. Tying the employee’s job duties to the larger goal and to the overall picture of the company’s growth makes an employee feel valued and valuable. It gives meaning to his/her work. It gives direction and helps him/her make better choices. Communication of the plan also includes communication of the company’s core values such as honesty, integrity, customer service, etc. As long as these values are actively pursued by management, the employee’s ability to grow and learn in an identified framework of goals and prioritized values makes for a very productive work environment. Everyone likes to feel productive and know that his/her work contributes to the group mission. Everyone likes to feel success. So identify what success is through good communication, and empower each employee to achieve it in his/her own role.
      3. Be committed to the plan. Plan well and stick to enacting it. If you as an owner find it’s difficult to not get so caught up in the day-to-day reactive things, then get help. Invest in executive coaching to mentor you through some of the transitions you need to make to empower employees to handle the day-to-day issues themselves. Have your planning consultant come in once a month to hold you accountable for the monthly goals you’ve established. Focus on the proactive side of your business so you don’t get in your own way and sabotage your own plan. Eventually the proactive planning will prevent a lot of th
         CEM Can Improve Customer Loyalty
         ‘A 5 percent increase in customer retention increases profits by 25 to 95 percent.’‘The greater the loyalty of customers, employees, suppliers, and shareholders, the greater the profits reaped .’This is the received wisdom from experts on the nature and importance of customer loyalty. Yet in a world of product and service commoditization and as the timelag between imitations to innovation declines, how can organizations differentiate themselves to build loyalty?The answer lies with Customer Experience Management creating the ‘emotional responses and connections with products and brands tha are difficult to build in any other way’ . In effect marketing is not just concerned with the uniqueness of the 4 Ps and more focused on the way customers feel about you through the emotions evoked by the customer experience. Need this be surprising, or is this long overdue? after all a dictionary definition of loyalty refers to it as a ‘feeling or attitude of devoted atta
         nd application program in goal achievement. Your whole plan is about setting and achieving individual goals that will be rolled up into each department’s goals, which will be rolled up into the company’s goals. Each employee’s individual goal setting habits will make or break your strategic plan. So help them establish goal achievement habits that become ingrained into the personal and professional fabric of their lives.
      4. Communication of your plan needs to become the core of how you run the business. Everything you do needs to be related back to the plan in a big or small way. Every meeting can mention a portion of the plan. Employee assignments, goals, and reviews should communicate the portion of the plan that that employee is responsible for achieving. Tying the employee’s job duties to the larger goal and to the overall picture of the company’s growth makes an employee feel valued and valuable. It gives meaning to his/her work. It gives direction and helps him/her make better choices. Communication of the plan also includes communication of the company’s core values such as honesty, integrity, customer service, etc. As long as these values are actively pursued by management, the employee’s ability to grow and learn in an identified framework of goals and prioritized values makes for a very productive work environment. Everyone likes to feel productive and know that his/her work contributes to the group mission. Everyone likes to feel success. So identify what success is through good communication, and empower each employee to achieve it in his/her own role.
      5. Be committed to the plan. Plan well and stick to enacting it. If you as an owner find it’s difficult to not get so caught up in the day-to-day reactive things, then get help. Invest in executive coaching to mentor you through some of the transitions you need to make to empower employees to handle the day-to-day issues themselves. Have your planning consultant come in once a month to hold you accountable for the monthly goals you’ve established. Focus on the proactive side of your business so you don’t get in your own way and sabotage your own plan. Eventually the proactive planning will prevent a lot of th
         The Surefire Way To Getting A Pay Raise
         If you are working for someone else, it is important to remember this fact: No one gives you a raise, you must earn it. You’ve got to prove you are worth the additional money you are asking for. And, you must do this in a professional, business-like, and diplomatic way. You do this by completing salary research and having the facts straight in terms of your worth and the additional value you bring to the table. This may mean that you are not ready to ask for a raise tomorrow. But, taking the extra time, preparation, and effort necessary to ensure that you are eligible for a raise is really the only way you are going to get one. Also, when asking for a raise, it is best to stick to business, rather than personal, reasons. It is not fair to your employer to ask for a raise “because Sally needs new braces” or “because you need to pay for Billy’s trip to Europe next summer.” Stick to the business facts of why you deserve the raise. Following is an effective three-step process
         y, integrity, customer service, etc. As long as these values are actively pursued by management, the employee’s ability to grow and learn in an identified framework of goals and prioritized values makes for a very productive work environment. Everyone likes to feel productive and know that his/her work contributes to the group mission. Everyone likes to feel success. So identify what success is through good communication, and empower each employee to achieve it in his/her own role.
      6. Be committed to the plan. Plan well and stick to enacting it. If you as an owner find it’s difficult to not get so caught up in the day-to-day reactive things, then get help. Invest in executive coaching to mentor you through some of the transitions you need to make to empower employees to handle the day-to-day issues themselves. Have your planning consultant come in once a month to hold you accountable for the monthly goals you’ve established. Focus on the proactive side of your business so you don’t get in your own way and sabotage your own plan. Eventually the proactive planning will prevent a lot of those ‘fires’ from occurring and you’ll have a smoother operation which will delight your customers and make your employees' daily work that much easier. They’ll then have more time to accomplish more of the plan.
      7. Employee retention will result from having your employees work focused on the plan you’ve communicated, directed by the values you’ve identified, and empowered by the training and development that have been an integral part of the plan. That means your plan will more likely move according to schedule and with fewer monies going to hiring and retraining replacement staff. Your staff will be more motivated to not only stay, but be more committed to their jobs.
      8. Cash flow can become tight when you’re investing in staff training and development, in new tools or new market development. This should be anticipated in your plan and, hopefully, you’ve made provisions for augmenting your cash as you strive for the next level. What if you haven’t arranged for enough, or something unexpected happens? This is where your commitment is tested. Do you stop investing? Trust your employees’ creativity to generate additional income or reduce expenses? Pull it together for a little longer until the new investments pay some dividends? This is where your executive coach or business planning consultant can be invaluable. S/he can help you evaluate the situation, shed light on resources you may not have seen yourself, encourage you to find the help you need from other sources, or understand the predicament in a new way. Getting help from someone who’s been intimately involved in your business and your management style for a while can be invaluable as your plan evolves and changes, and as you gain confidence in your ability to make positive growth changes in yourself and your organization.

      In summary I’ve identified several factors that need to be integral to your plan. Your investment in staff training and development, communication, executive coaching, and on-going accountability consulting will help you and the organization make the transition to the next level of growth. These need to be built into your plan and its budget. If you plan this implementation framework, you will have a higher likelihood of success in ending your year with the intended goals achieved. I wish you a great deal of success in your endeavors.