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Casual Articles - Planning for the Future, Planning for the Now, Planning for Success
For many years I managed a computer training centre. During those years I handled the financials, sales and marketing, human resources and anything else that required input. During this time I also on rare occasions and as an emergency, took over in reception answering the phones. This was not difficult and I did a fair job of it. Certainly never had any complaints! I abided by the easy principle of being friendly to people. I would hazard a guess that I would not be able to find employment as a receptionist as I would not have sufficient work experience.What experience would be considered essential to being a good receptionist? I would guess, being able to deal with people would be the m
What else you need to know about planning
--> Involve others in the planning process. A plan is that much stronger when you have multiple viewpoints and input. Also, share the plan. Employees and staff will buy-in to the actions when they understand the goals and the plan.
--> Do what you’re passionate about. If you create a plan around what you love and love doing, the passion will come through in both the plan and the implementation.
--> Don’t make planning a harsh ‘should’ in your life. See it as an opportunity to create what you want for your life, professional and personal.
--> Be kind to yourself. This isn’t about pointing to the cracks in your company; it’s about understanding your capabilities and building a plan that plays to those capabilities. And it’s about finding work around for those areas of cracks.
At the end of the day, you get so much more than just The Plan. You have a process for y
During a client interview, it is important to show that client what makes you different from other VA candidates. This is a competative world and clients now search for the most qualified VA by weighing their skills and determining how the VA will benefit them. Skill emphasis during the interview is a must for landing a new client or business project.The majority of clients will search for VAs who stand out based on their experience, their expertise, and their ability to enhance the clients project. Budgets can be expanded and profits can be higher when skills are emphasized properly.There are three main kinds of skill emphasis needed:1. Knowledge Based Skills 2. Transf
The value of planning isn’t just about the result, The Plan, at the end of the day. Planning is about the process, the act of thinking about your company, and your goals, and how you’re going to get there. There isn’t a right way or a wrong way to plan, but there are better ways than others to think about planning.
What’s involved in a plan, then?
A plan considers your goals for your company and the actions you’ll carry out to reach those goals. While you want to make sure those goals are realistic (are you really going to roll out two new products next year, or can you really go from revenues of $1 million to $3 million in one year?), at the same time, you never know what you could achieve with a plan. You may be successful without one, but you may never know what other possibilities there were beyond your current success without a plan.
Part of the value in planning is that it shows you how you are successful. Often companies are very successful, but they can’t really tell you why. And while we don’t want to take away the magic by analyzing away, we can learn to clarify who we are that makes us successful and build that into the plan.
So, you have a plan. Now what?
Does it sit on your shelf in your office, never to be looked at again? Absolutely not. Your plan is a living document and needs constant attention. This means that you need to look at it often (monthly at least) to determine if you are on track to meet your goals. If you find you’re not on track, that’s okay. The goal of the plan is not to have something etched in stone, but something that develops as your company does.
What happens if a new opportunity arises that you didn’t plan for, didn’t take into account? If you use the plan you developed as the yardstick to measure the current opportunity, you might determine that even though it’s a great opportunity, you as a company (or as an individual) may not be ready at this time. Using the existing plan helps us make the critical judgments all executives need to make as conditions change.
A word of caution about changing the plan.
Usually the problem with changing the plan is not the changes themselves; it’s that we make changes without considering the current plan and the assessment that goes with it. We plan, we create goals and actions to meet those goals, and we take into consideration the business and the individuals as part of that plan. If we change the plan, then we could go off course from our original plan without any thought or assessment of this new opportunity against our original goals. Does this new opportunity get us where we want to be, or does it change our direction? If we change direction, is that a good thing or bad? Do we have the resources to implement this new change? What do we need to shift around, and how does this new opportunity impact other parts of the original plan (training/staffing issues, for example).
What we most often do is simply jump into this new area without the careful consideration we gave the original plan. So we haven’t thought of the what if’s and how to’s. We don’t consider the implications to other parts of the plan and organization. A change in one part always affects some other part. We can’t simply decide to change something and incorporate the change into the plan.
You’ll find that as you review your plan (monthly at least, remember?), assess, make changes, and incorporate new opportunities, that you are fully entrenched in the process of planning. You’ll find as you go along that each year your plan will be more useful as a tool to assist with making business decisions based on information and facts. Ultimately the information one gleans month after month, year after year is what is powerful, the information provides us the power to make informed choices for our department, our business, and ourselves.
What else you need to know about planning
--> Involve others in the planning process. A plan is that much stronger when you have multiple viewpoints and input. Also, share the plan. Employees and staff will buy-in to the actions when they understand the goals and the plan.
--> Do what you’re passionate about. If you create a plan around what you love and love doing, the passion will come through in both the plan and the implementation.
--> Don’t make planning a harsh ‘should’ in your life. See it as an opportunity to create what you want for your life, professional and personal.
--> Be kind to yourself. This isn’t about pointing to the cracks in your company; it’s about understanding your capabilities and building a plan that plays to those capabilities. And it’s about finding work around for those areas of cracks.
At the end of the day, you get so much more than just The Plan. You have a process for y
Selling your business note for a lump sum is a viable option if you need fast money from your business. For most note holders, the game plan is simple: sell the company and then get paid monthly until it is paid off. It is a stable scheme, but some people cannot wait the entire term to receive their money. If you are one of them, why not cash in your business note instead? Here’s how to go about it.Normally, you sell your note a professional called a note buyer, whose job is to evaluate your note and put a cash value on it. Each business is assessed differently, but some general conditions apply when you’re selling your business note, such as your business experience and FICO credit score
Part of the value in planning is that it shows you how you are successful. Often companies are very successful, but they can’t really tell you why. And while we don’t want to take away the magic by analyzing away, we can learn to clarify who we are that makes us successful and build that into the plan.
So, you have a plan. Now what?
Does it sit on your shelf in your office, never to be looked at again? Absolutely not. Your plan is a living document and needs constant attention. This means that you need to look at it often (monthly at least) to determine if you are on track to meet your goals. If you find you’re not on track, that’s okay. The goal of the plan is not to have something etched in stone, but something that develops as your company does.
What happens if a new opportunity arises that you didn’t plan for, didn’t take into account? If you use the plan you developed as the yardstick to measure the current opportunity, you might determine that even though it’s a great opportunity, you as a company (or as an individual) may not be ready at this time. Using the existing plan helps us make the critical judgments all executives need to make as conditions change.
A word of caution about changing the plan.
Usually the problem with changing the plan is not the changes themselves; it’s that we make changes without considering the current plan and the assessment that goes with it. We plan, we create goals and actions to meet those goals, and we take into consideration the business and the individuals as part of that plan. If we change the plan, then we could go off course from our original plan without any thought or assessment of this new opportunity against our original goals. Does this new opportunity get us where we want to be, or does it change our direction? If we change direction, is that a good thing or bad? Do we have the resources to implement this new change? What do we need to shift around, and how does this new opportunity impact other parts of the original plan (training/staffing issues, for example).
What we most often do is simply jump into this new area without the careful consideration we gave the original plan. So we haven’t thought of the what if’s and how to’s. We don’t consider the implications to other parts of the plan and organization. A change in one part always affects some other part. We can’t simply decide to change something and incorporate the change into the plan.
You’ll find that as you review your plan (monthly at least, remember?), assess, make changes, and incorporate new opportunities, that you are fully entrenched in the process of planning. You’ll find as you go along that each year your plan will be more useful as a tool to assist with making business decisions based on information and facts. Ultimately the information one gleans month after month, year after year is what is powerful, the information provides us the power to make informed choices for our department, our business, and ourselves.
What else you need to know about planning
--> Involve others in the planning process. A plan is that much stronger when you have multiple viewpoints and input. Also, share the plan. Employees and staff will buy-in to the actions when they understand the goals and the plan.
--> Do what you’re passionate about. If you create a plan around what you love and love doing, the passion will come through in both the plan and the implementation.
--> Don’t make planning a harsh ‘should’ in your life. See it as an opportunity to create what you want for your life, professional and personal.
--> Be kind to yourself. This isn’t about pointing to the cracks in your company; it’s about understanding your capabilities and building a plan that plays to those capabilities. And it’s about finding work around for those areas of cracks.
At the end of the day, you get so much more than just The Plan. You have a process for y
Cleaning and detailing boats is a very good business especially for the nautical type person who would rather spend their time at the marina that just about any other place. But how does one go about getting customers and marketing their services. Better yet how does on market thru referrals for their boat cleaning and detailing business?Well, simple really. You see you need to get with the other business who operate the marinas and services business. For instance if you make a deal with a Marina operator they may allow you to put your business cards and flyers in the monthly slip fee statements. Be sure to give a discount to those at that Marina, this also makes the marina look good.
A word of caution about changing the plan.
Usually the problem with changing the plan is not the changes themselves; it’s that we make changes without considering the current plan and the assessment that goes with it. We plan, we create goals and actions to meet those goals, and we take into consideration the business and the individuals as part of that plan. If we change the plan, then we could go off course from our original plan without any thought or assessment of this new opportunity against our original goals. Does this new opportunity get us where we want to be, or does it change our direction? If we change direction, is that a good thing or bad? Do we have the resources to implement this new change? What do we need to shift around, and how does this new opportunity impact other parts of the original plan (training/staffing issues, for example).
What we most often do is simply jump into this new area without the careful consideration we gave the original plan. So we haven’t thought of the what if’s and how to’s. We don’t consider the implications to other parts of the plan and organization. A change in one part always affects some other part. We can’t simply decide to change something and incorporate the change into the plan.
You’ll find that as you review your plan (monthly at least, remember?), assess, make changes, and incorporate new opportunities, that you are fully entrenched in the process of planning. You’ll find as you go along that each year your plan will be more useful as a tool to assist with making business decisions based on information and facts. Ultimately the information one gleans month after month, year after year is what is powerful, the information provides us the power to make informed choices for our department, our business, and ourselves.
What else you need to know about planning
--> Involve others in the planning process. A plan is that much stronger when you have multiple viewpoints and input. Also, share the plan. Employees and staff will buy-in to the actions when they understand the goals and the plan.
--> Do what you’re passionate about. If you create a plan around what you love and love doing, the passion will come through in both the plan and the implementation.
--> Don’t make planning a harsh ‘should’ in your life. See it as an opportunity to create what you want for your life, professional and personal.
--> Be kind to yourself. This isn’t about pointing to the cracks in your company; it’s about understanding your capabilities and building a plan that plays to those capabilities. And it’s about finding work around for those areas of cracks.
At the end of the day, you get so much more than just The Plan. You have a process for y
Many companies out there are using the phone interview to screen out applicants for pharm sales or other high demand sales positions. This is due to the need to reduce the high number of applicants for each sales position to a manageable number for personal interviews. It’s a time management strategy on the part of the hiring companies.If you sent in your resume for a sales job and you get a call from the company’s human resources department asking you if you have time to answer some questions on the spot, they are asking to do a phone interview.Phone interviews are like mini interviews designed to help the companies narrow down the high number of applicants to smaller short list
What we most often do is simply jump into this new area without the careful consideration we gave the original plan. So we haven’t thought of the what if’s and how to’s. We don’t consider the implications to other parts of the plan and organization. A change in one part always affects some other part. We can’t simply decide to change something and incorporate the change into the plan.
You’ll find that as you review your plan (monthly at least, remember?), assess, make changes, and incorporate new opportunities, that you are fully entrenched in the process of planning. You’ll find as you go along that each year your plan will be more useful as a tool to assist with making business decisions based on information and facts. Ultimately the information one gleans month after month, year after year is what is powerful, the information provides us the power to make informed choices for our department, our business, and ourselves.
What else you need to know about planning
--> Involve others in the planning process. A plan is that much stronger when you have multiple viewpoints and input. Also, share the plan. Employees and staff will buy-in to the actions when they understand the goals and the plan.
--> Do what you’re passionate about. If you create a plan around what you love and love doing, the passion will come through in both the plan and the implementation.
--> Don’t make planning a harsh ‘should’ in your life. See it as an opportunity to create what you want for your life, professional and personal.
--> Be kind to yourself. This isn’t about pointing to the cracks in your company; it’s about understanding your capabilities and building a plan that plays to those capabilities. And it’s about finding work around for those areas of cracks.
At the end of the day, you get so much more than just The Plan. You have a process for y
There I was on the stage harmonizing with my band members. With each note I suffered in quiet desperation. I was totally broke. Sucked dry by one too many Multi-Level Marketing membership fees that had hit the old checking account, triggering a slew of charges for insufficient funds.Yes, there I stood “pickin 'n grinnin”, in debt to the bank for several thousand dollars. Eight months prior to this night I thought I had found an MLM sponsor who really cared more about building a good team than making a quick buck.Now, I felt as played as the fat strat Fender knockoff I stood strumming. It was so easy to believe he and my other upline would help me “build a network”. Who wouldn't ju
What else you need to know about planning
--> Involve others in the planning process. A plan is that much stronger when you have multiple viewpoints and input. Also, share the plan. Employees and staff will buy-in to the actions when they understand the goals and the plan.
--> Do what you’re passionate about. If you create a plan around what you love and love doing, the passion will come through in both the plan and the implementation.
--> Don’t make planning a harsh ‘should’ in your life. See it as an opportunity to create what you want for your life, professional and personal.
--> Be kind to yourself. This isn’t about pointing to the cracks in your company; it’s about understanding your capabilities and building a plan that plays to those capabilities. And it’s about finding work around for those areas of cracks.
At the end of the day, you get so much more than just The Plan. You have a process for your business, a litmus test for all your actions, and a road map to your goals, whether those goals are to reach a certain revenue point, sell the company, turn over management, or whatever designs for your business you might have.
Linda Finkle's Planning Gone Wild (tm) is 12 lessons designed to walk you through building a plan to make your business a wild success! Sign up for the first lesson free at http://www.PlanningGoneWild.com
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