Do it like they do it in Corporate
Corporates don’t get everything right, but the way they approach strategy is worth paying attention to…
The corporate way
Because corporate’s are typically listed on the stock exchange, they have investors who want to have visibility of performance, strategy and direction.
There are various requirements of corporates, like an Annual Report, and company filings, but as well as this, many of them do Strategy Planning really well.
Let me tell you more…
The typical corporate set up
Corporates often have a Strategy Team in place. This is to look at market opportunities, develop future propositions, and be in charge of the overall strategy of the company (this is what I spent my corporate career doing!). They will normally have a Strategy Plan in place for the current year, and sometimes they have a 3 year plan too. And they will have Board Style meetings either monthly or quarterly to hold their leaders to account against the strategy…
As a small business, we can learn so much from corporates in this respect. I want to share with you my recommendations about how to translate what the corporates do, into Strategy Planning in your business.
Starting with Your Strategy Plan
So first of all, you need a Strategy Plan. This could be your business plan (which you may or may not have developed yet). However in an ideal world, your Strategy Plan is slightly different to this. Your Strategy Plan is more succinct, current and relevant, compared to your Business Plan which you develop right at the start and is sometimes used to gain funding approval.
When I work with clients, we start off with a 12 month Strategy Plan. This is because anything longer is quite hard to visualise and plan for in a small business (although I definitely believe in having long term goals in your business), and anything shorter creeps up way too quickly.
Your Strategy Plan will have various elements and could include:-
Your vision and mission
Your goals
Your target customer
Your market offering and pricing
Your marketing strategy
Your sales strategy
Your financial forecast and targets
Your milestone plan
After you have your Strategy clearly written down (there is a lot of power in getting this down on paper), then it’s about execution.
Setting up your Quarterly Strategy Reviews
When you run a business you spend a lot of time ‘in the business’ and typically, it’s hard to find the time to be ‘on the business’… A great thing to do, is to split your year up into Quarters like this (based on a typical calendar year):-
Q1 - January, February, March;
Q2 - April, May, June;
Q3 - July, August, September; and
Q4 - October, November, December.
By dividing the year into 4 quarters, you can consider the market trends and consumer mindset during each quarter (e.g. demand at Christmas, or the holiday mindset in the Summer). You can also look at business performance for each quarter and ensure you are on track with your overall strategy.
Holding your Quarterly Strategy Reviews
Once you have divided your year into 4 quarters, I recommend you take between 90 minutes and 2 hours out of your business every quarter to conduct your Quarterly Strategy Review. You can do this on your own as a business owner, or with the other Company Directors if there are a number of you. Go somewhere different to your usual workspace - a cafe, a co-work space, or somewhere you feel creative.
The point of this time is to take the opportunity to reflect on the previous quarter, and plan for the next quarter. So the dates I’d recommend for you to do this (based on a typically calendar year for your business) are:
early April to review Q1 and plan for Q2
early July to review Q2 and plan for Q3
early October to review Q3 and plan for Q4
early January to review Q4 and plan for the following year
Taking time out to reflect in your business is so important. It allows you to take that step back and allow all the ideas to settle. It allows you to plan and consider what you’ve got coming up. And it allows you to look at past performance and implement some learnings.
This is something I do with a number of my clients… If you are intrigued and want to find out more about holding Quarterly Strategy Reviews in your business, get in touch here or send me an email jennie@jenlister.com and I’d be happy to have a chat.
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