Implement a plan for your business that uses your time management and organization practices. Set goals for what you’d like to accomplish in your business.
Break them down into smaller pieces. Distribute those goals to the rest of your company.
Work together to make it happen, and check in along the way.
Set Goals
Set aside time to think about what you’d like to accomplish over the next year. Set goals that are concrete and realistic, and break them down.
- If you’d like to improve sales by the end of the year, what will that look like on a monthly basis?
- What weekly and daily steps will get you there?
Set the goals you want to accomplish, and then make sure you understand the concrete ways you’ll get there.
The goals should come from a bigger overall picture. You’ve taken the time to understand what you want out of your business and why you got into it in the first place. Make sure your goals support that.
When you’ve set these goals for your company, take into account the members of your team. It’s important here to understand the capabilities of others.
This means knowing what tasks you can assign to which people. If there is a need for training to allow your employees to better support your goals, think about how to schedule that early on.
Put everything in writing and make sure it is worded clearly.
Distribute
Now that you’ve firmly established your goals for the company distribute them to the rest of your employees.
Share your overall goals, how you hope to break them down, and which parts each member will be in charge of. An important step here is to get feedback.
Since you’re sharing your goals with the whole team, you can make sure that what you’ve written out is actually clear to others. Make sure that everything seems attainable to your team.
Address concerns if some things seem out of reach, and figure out what adjustments you can make to change them.
This part of your business plan development will encourage communication within departments. Each person has access to the overall goals and what other members are trying to accomplish.
They can check in with each other, and they will know who to ask questions about which part of your company’s goals. This also creates more open access to you.
Your team will have a chance to ask you questions directly when you’re going over goals. They will have the tools to understand what you’re trying to accomplish, and you can get everyone on board with the same overall vision for the company.
Work Together
As the work begins, you’ll find that delegating at the outset helps you immensely down the road. Sharing your goals for the company with your employees is empowering for everyone.
You’ll have more time to concentrate on the aspects of those goals that only you can make happen. Your employees will have more responsibility and take on your goals as their own.
Pretty soon you’ll be getting feedback from your employees about which parts of your goals have been accomplished as if your goals are theirs.
And with that ownership, their creative energy will go into expanding on the goals they’ve adopted as their own. The act of making and sharing your goals is an investment.
Check In
However, simply making and sharing those goals won’t be enough to sustain you over the next year. It might take you through the first one or two months, but you’ll have to schedule in followup time.
Come up with questions to ask at the end of each week and each month.
- How are your goals coming along?
- What has been difficult?
- What has and hasn’t been accomplished?
- Why?
At each point, you’ll be learning about what does and doesn’t work for your company. This is a reminder that the more comfortable you become in the discomfort of change, the more you’ll be able to improve.
If something isn’t working, it’s time to try a different approach or even re-orient your goals. Designate specific times to communicate with your team.
Make it clear that this is a learning process for everyone, including yourself. Not delivering on a weekly goal may just mean changing your approach.
This mindset will help your employees meet difficulties with creativity, instead of freezing for fear of failure.