“I’m currently doing my forward business planning. How far in advance should I do my strategy?”
As part of my Leeds Business Podcast here is another FREE business solution, as part of the podcast’s Business Surgery sections, for Business Owners like you who are ‘lonely at the top’.
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Here’s the transcript;
[00:00:03] Phil: Before we go on to what you’re doing now we’ve got a new segment in the Leeds Business Podcast, and it’s called the business surgery.
[00:00:11] Phil: I’ve asked listeners and viewers to send in their business problems and I will try and give some sort of solution and, and, and my guests will as well.
[00:00:21] Phil: This week’s problem, if I can find it, was sent in by Nigel Croft.
[00:00:27] Phil: Not sure what Nigel’s business is, but thank you, Nigel.
[00:00:30] Phil: Nigel says, I’m currently doing my forward business planning. How far in advance should I do my strategy?
[00:00:38] Phil: Now, that’s a really good question, actually.
[00:00:40] Phil: I’ll answer first, then Mark, Mark can give his answer.
[00:00:43] Phil: when I work with my clients, I always start with asking the question, what does perfect look like in a year’s time?
[00:00:52] Phil: Then work with them. I’ve got a, I’ve got a five step process, which I call the Fraser Five Step. just so childishly I can write FFS in, in lots of emails and snigger
[00:01:05] Mark: that works for me…
[00:01:07] Phil: and that takes, that takes clients through a five step process to put a one year strategy together. And the reason I do one year is because things, I mean Mark’s a perfect example of this
[00:01:19] Phil: things change so much over even three months, six months, a year that I think anything further, have a BHAG in place, have a big hairy audacious goal to aim at that you vaguely know where you’re going. But I think anything over a year is probably a bit too far.
[00:01:41] Phil: Having said that by the time this episode comes out, I will have spoken to James Kempley from Troy Foods, who he’s talking about five year plan because he’s got big investment and big expansion plans.
[00:01:56] Phil: And yes, if you’re a big company with big investment needs then yes, you’re going to be longer but, but my answer would be a year max.
[00:02:07] Phil: Mark, what do you think?
[00:02:10] Mark: Yeah, I completely agree.
[00:02:12] Mark: I’ll name check Gary from from Tendo, Gary King.
[00:02:17] Mark: And you see him talking about this and saying about people with five year plans. It’s like, there’s very few businesses that can actually do that for realistically.
[00:02:24] Mark: I, I agree with a year.
[00:02:26] Mark: I tend to take the view that businesses like It’s often like trying to build a hand, a house on sand there’s always this shifting sands. You need a few steel rods driven through that you can hang on to and say, this is what we’re about and, and build a 12 month plan around that.
[00:02:45] Mark: At the end of the day all the standard stuff, what’s the purpose of the business? What’s the critical success factors look like? What’s your departmental purpose? How do you measure those KPIs?
[00:02:55] Mark: And you can flow all that things down but you can also end up with a space where you get paralysis through analysis.
[00:03:02] Mark: And, and it’s, so for me, it’s, you’ve got your daily operations, do right by your people, doing well, make sure everyone in the business has got four things that they understand about what your business is about or five, whatever it is but, and, and get alignment behind that, you know.
[00:03:16] Mark: If it’s too far in the future, at what point do you start discarding things?
[00:03:22] Mark: You know, but this is a day to day issue now, but we want to do that in 48 months time.
[00:03:28] Mark: Well, okay, but how much, where is it now with your short term goals?
[00:03:31] Mark: So, absolutely agree 12 months, and a shorter plan with everyone behind it is better than a longer plan that no one understands.
[00:03:40] Phil: Yep. I like that. I like that. There you go, Nigel. I hope that answers your question about business planning.
[00:03:45] Phil: And if anybody has got a business problem they want to send into the business surgery just drop me an email phil@leedsbusinesspodcast.com. And hopefully me and a future guest will solve your problem.
Each week on the podcast, the Business Surgery allows myself and a guest to offer our solutions to your problems. You can more of them here.
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