No matter which side of the world you are, I hope it is beautifully snowing, just like where I am. Or at least, I hope you get the same Christmas mood as hoped. Lights shining their way to our hearts, the sound of Santa laughing in the face of children, and the presents unwrapped create a beautiful mess. And freshly baked cookies waiting for you to read this article and go back to them.
Christmas is about family, miracles, and cozy feelings. But everyone deserves a three-minute break lying down in bed. That’s how much it will take you to read this and learn how to build a business plan until next Christmas. While the days around Christmas are far from your working thoughts, New Year’s Eve is around the corner and I want to help you get through it the right way.
So – the sooner the better. That’s why it’s better to set your mind in a direction that soon you’ll need your business plan for 2019 and if it’s in the spirit of the wonderful white Christmas, then even better for you. Now, let’s start!
The Clock is Ticking, It’s Time!
One of the most important matters to set a plan for is time. Considering you are creating a business plan for a year ahead, then you know the goals you set must be coordinated with time itself. Even more, it’s best if you could make a plan for each month.
If you think of each month separately and combined, it will be easier for you to plan your promotions, and your ideas and think of the best time to share a new product for example, or to launch something else. To set goals considering how much time has passed.
Throughout the whole year, there are a lot of holidays and important moments that you can connect to your future promotions if you are in the eCommerce business. And if not, a simple blog post can be scheduled by the events of the year. You can even set a timeline for your social media posts and the campaigns you’ll run. This will help you have a clear and clean calendar.
Determination and Goals – The more, the better
Of course, that’s the other most important matter in how to build a business plan – the goals you’ll set for the following year. This is a moment where you need to be careful because setting the right goals is crucial to what you’ll achieve. If your goals are set too high, you’ll probably never reach them and it will make you feel like you didn’t do enough. And if they’re too low, then… what are you doing?
Furthermore, the goals you set need to be specific, measurable, attainable, and relevant. The right goals to set is a very important task and not as easy as it sounds.
A lot of managers, entrepreneurs, and business owners focus on setting a goal that is connected to monetary gains and profits. But this shouldn’t be yours and most of them lose or don’t achieve the goals they are setting. If you concentrate only on gaining more users or earning money, you’ll use the sight of what you actually need to do in order to get them. instead of thinking about the numbers you want to see, spend some time on your personal tasks.
What you need to do better, is how to get closer to your buyer personas, how to talk to them in their language, and get them to engage more. Focusing on that will naturally bring them to you and help you achieve your main goals easily. Don’t forget to be objective and not lose focus on what really matters. At the end of the day, you will feel better if you completed your tasks and you know you gave your best.
When learning how to build a business plan you might leave behind the fact that you need daily tasks too. When you focus on two or three things a day – your main tasks, then you get more and more done each day. Start your every day with the thought of those two or three things and finish them first. This way every other assignment you have will look easier and faster to be done.
Actual Targets – Yes, More!
To learn how to build a business plan you must know that there are two definitive parts to it. One, all the above I already wrote – your personal goals, determination, and what you need to do better, to learn, explore, and achieve. But two, you need to think about where your business will be going. It doesn’t matter if you are running a website, eCommerce, or you are an owner of some other business.
Either way, you must have a clear thought about where to take yourself. If you have a website – then think about:
What positions do you want to get it to in SERP?
Are you going to start a blog?
How many views on a page do you want to get and how will you increase website traffic?
What is the bounce rate you aim at?
Are there design changes that need to be done and how to redesign without losing SEO?
And for that matter, all the other questions you have for yourself and the actual aiming that you need to do.
If you are on the other hand, owning a business that is not positioned yet on the Internet, then maybe you need to think:
Are you giving enough attention to Social Media and do you know why social media is good for you?
What about planning to create new partnerships? Do you have a team to think about?
What more can you give them, what more are they willing to do? How can you motivate them more?
Are you positioning yourself in the right places?
Where do you want to be?
Don’t you think it’s time to get your business the deserved website as a present?
By creating the right goals, you will easily learn how to build a business plan and master it!
Prioritize Everything!
To learn how to build a business plan and for it to be a successful one, you really need to learn how to prioritize if you haven’t. And if you have, then simply include it in the plan. Determining which goals are more important, which tasks are sooner, which actual problems need to be fixed sooner, and which ones can wait for their time.
Giving power to the right things will work better than anything else. Deciding where to start and what has more importance over another will help you do the right things at the right time and drive your business to a better place.
Writing the business plan and deciding what your goals for the following year will be is not the only important matter. Creating the right order for your plan is actually the secret to its success!
To Sum it Up!
When you start learning how to build a business plan for a year, there are a few things that you need to acknowledge. If you want it to be successful and for your plan to realize, then here are the bullet points.
Time is of the essence and you need to include yours in your business plan. Set goals as things you need to do better, improve, and grow. Also, set goals that are major for your business and follow them constantly. The secret to the success of it all is the right prioritizing and the following everything by its importance.
We hope this helped you learn how to build a business plan and lead you to a great new year, filled with opportunities, better ideas to chase, and more success that follows.