As a business owner, you must continually think about the future of your business in order to make decisions that impact it. This requires self-awareness and planning on your part. In my new book “Business System Planning”, I share three self-awareness tools I use to help me self-plan and stay on track.
If you want to create an action plan for a business and not just a report, you need a good sense of what your business needs to do to achieve its goals. This is easier said than done, especially if your business is new or not quite sure of how it should be run.
The first step is to look at the big picture. In my new book, I talk about three types of big picture planning: a general business plan, a sales plan, and a marketing plan. The key to success is to identify the goals and then understand how your business can achieve them. This requires a certain level of self-awareness.
A sales plan should be written by an expert in the field who knows the product and industry inside and out. It should be written so that it addresses any potential threats and gives you a solid roadmap of how the product will change the world. A sales plan is essentially a road map of success. It tells the sales team what you plan to do in the next three to six months, how you plan to overcome any obstacles they may face, and what you will sell to the customers.
The fact is that the sales team should be able to create a long list of priorities that they can work within. For example, they should be able to say, “I’ve been doing this for years. I’ve never done it in a billion years. I’ve never done it in a million years. I’ve never done it in a thousand years. I’ve never done it in a million years.
We have the tools to help salespeople come up with these lists. Google Docs, Outlook, and Salesforce are all great resources for creating and sharing lists. If you run out of these tools, however, then there are a few things you should consider. One of them is to start from the top. We started with the top of the list.
Don’t ever start from the top of a list. A good rule of thumb is that it’s best to start from the very first person you talk to after you’ve done your due diligence. A lot of people get discouraged because they start with a list that doesn’t meet their needs. Rather than make yourself miserable, start from the very first person you talk to about the job you’re about to take on.
I think youre making the assumption that its okay to start with the person who actually wants to hire you. But that isnt the case. Its best to go through at least two people before actually starting a conversation. One is your ideal first point of contact, and the other is the person who actually hires you.
The reason why you need to start with the person you really want to hire for your job is that if you really want to hire someone, you need to know where they are from, what they do online, what they do online, and so on. But with your real job, you need to get the most out of your relationship with them, and its important to make sure you are able to have the best possible relationship with them.
