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Actual for You - How To Get Things Done: A Guide To Strategic Planning
Why is it possible to get paid for taking surveys? Many potential survey takers are wondering if it’s really possible to earn cash by just filling in questionnaires, while hundreds of thousands are already making dollars every day.First, why at all bother to complete paid surveys? Many people don’t know yet that the paid surveys industry is rapidly expanding, recruiting more and more paid survey takers every day. The reason is that the marketing industry has acknowledged the importance of consumer voice in modeling the products and services of the future. As the needs of the individual are as closely as possibly embedded in the development of products, product feature and innovations, it’s getting more and more important to know what people like, dislike and dream about. Therefore, obtaining customer opinions through online surveys has become an extremely quick and effective way to gather customer response and use it for the development of new or existing products.Companies of all scales – from small entrepreneurs and local brands, to company-wide merchants and offshore multinationals are now using the services of polling companies to get valuable customer feedback. Paid surveys have thus become an extremely powerful market research tool. Aided by the advancement of the Internet, paid surveys have gone
At this point you should be ready to move forward without dragging the past with you.
Set priorities
Using your values, beliefs, vision and strategy as a guide - establish priority issues for the coming year. Presuming your resources are limited, you may not be able to impact all ar
It is considered that to be successful in the Design and Decorating business, that nearly 90% of leads should come from referrals. Why do we constantly throw money at other forms of marketing, when a good referral system can give you the highest return on your investment and a consistent flow of leads?You must adopt a referral mind set. Everything you do in your business should be to develop a system of getting referrals. Ten reasons to focus on referrals:1) Unlike advertising, your results from a referral program can be easily measured. Referrals tell you exactly who referred them.2) Referrals are the best return on your marketing dollar.3) With every referral, your client is giving a great testimonial on your behalf.4) Happy clients are the best sales force that a company can have, they become your advocates!5) Each time a client gives you a referral, you have an opportunity to make them look like a hero.6) A flowing pipeline of referrals puts you at ease.7) Clients feel that they are reducing their risk of making a bad decision when they buy from a referral.8) Phone messages to a new prospect usually gets returned if it comes through a referral.9) Trust is obtained faster through a referral.10) Referral marketing is
You are pursuing a strategy en route to your vision. Whether it is revolutionary or evolutionary does not matter. You are on the road, committedly driving your business in a direction of your own choosing. The important thing is that you have, in fact, chosen this course.
And, once you have made this choice, how are you to realize this strategy? The answer is just like the answer to "How do you climb Mount Everest?" One step at a time. The way you realize your strategy is one step at a time - the trick, of course, is to know what steps to take, and in what order to take them. This article details an approach to developing a strategic and tactical plan.
Completing the past
The first step in creating a strategic plan is to review and complete the previous past period. For the balance of this article, we will refer to that period as a year, although your planning horizon may be either longer or shorter. You complete the past for two reasons - to learn everything possible from your previous actions, results, and mistakes, and as importantly, so that what ever left over, whatever issues are hanging over your head, are no longer a burden.
Answer the following questions:
What were your intentions, what were your goals?
What did you set out to accomplish?
What intentions did you really take action on and which ones did you merely talk about?
Specifically, what did you actually accomplish?
How effective were you? What percentage of your goals were realized? For instance, if your goal was $14 million in sales and you reached $12 million, you were 85% effective. And so on.
What did you accomplish that you didn't intend?
What were the unintended side effects?
In your opinion, what did you do "wrong"?
What did you simply skip?
One useful practice is to write a detailed, objective history of the past year. Document the year's events and results in journal form. Your records will be a big help - use your date book and your sales ledgers to reconstruct this narrative.
Gather up whatever you learned. Three questions assist you in this phase. What did you do that worked? In other words, what actions produced the results they were intended to produce? What didn't work - what actions (or lack of actions) produced something other than the desired result? And finally, what was missing - in terms of missing resources, skills, knowledge, attitudes, relationships, etc. - which if you had them would have enabled you to be more successful?
At this point you should be ready to move forward without dragging the past with you.
Set priorities
Using your values, beliefs, vision and strategy as a guide - establish priority issues for the coming year. Presuming your resources are limited, you may not be able to impact all are
Gettysburg, PA July 3rd, 1863 3:00pmAfter two hours of heavy artillery, 13,000 Confederate troops lined up, awaiting the order to charge the Union lines. It’s difficult to realize the psychological horror they faced as they prepared to march across an open field into enemy fire, knowing full well that few would survive.The order came, and Pickett’s Charge began. As the mile-wide wall of men steadily marched forward, the Union artillery and muskets fired. Waves of men fell to their death. Stepping over the bodies of their brethren, the troops continued onwards, unable to see their enemy through the great volume of smoke.In less than one hour, 6,500 men fell.What deep psychological power gives a man the personal fortitude to march to an almost certain death? For those who were lined up in this snapshot in time, it was more personal than the love of country or belief in the cause.They marched for one reason – the man on their left and the man on their right depended on them.This kind of loyalty and brotherhood is an amazing part of humanity that isn’t just present in the horrors of war. It inspires people in all areas of life and is especially powerful in business. Within your company, it can prepare your staff for any business plan set before them.Most companies t
Completing the past
The first step in creating a strategic plan is to review and complete the previous past period. For the balance of this article, we will refer to that period as a year, although your planning horizon may be either longer or shorter. You complete the past for two reasons - to learn everything possible from your previous actions, results, and mistakes, and as importantly, so that what ever left over, whatever issues are hanging over your head, are no longer a burden.
Answer the following questions:
What were your intentions, what were your goals?
What did you set out to accomplish?
What intentions did you really take action on and which ones did you merely talk about?
Specifically, what did you actually accomplish?
How effective were you? What percentage of your goals were realized? For instance, if your goal was $14 million in sales and you reached $12 million, you were 85% effective. And so on.
What did you accomplish that you didn't intend?
What were the unintended side effects?
In your opinion, what did you do "wrong"?
What did you simply skip?
One useful practice is to write a detailed, objective history of the past year. Document the year's events and results in journal form. Your records will be a big help - use your date book and your sales ledgers to reconstruct this narrative.
Gather up whatever you learned. Three questions assist you in this phase. What did you do that worked? In other words, what actions produced the results they were intended to produce? What didn't work - what actions (or lack of actions) produced something other than the desired result? And finally, what was missing - in terms of missing resources, skills, knowledge, attitudes, relationships, etc. - which if you had them would have enabled you to be more successful?
At this point you should be ready to move forward without dragging the past with you.
Set priorities
Using your values, beliefs, vision and strategy as a guide - establish priority issues for the coming year. Presuming your resources are limited, you may not be able to impact all ar
Are you -- like 70 percent of small business owners -- working without a plan?Here are three myths that need to be dispelled about strategic planning for small business.1. It has to be formal -- Not so.The value of a strategic plan for your small business is in putting the ideas on paper, creating action steps that will get you where you want to go and implementing those action steps.2. I'm too small -- Not so.Even a one-person business can benefit from a strategic plan. A strategic plan can help you make decisions about time management and budget. You can use your strategic plan to help you determine whether to attend an event or advertise in a publication. It's a check and balance tool.3. A strategic plan is like a ball and chain -- Not so.It's your plan. Too many small business owners feel like once it's on paper, it can't be changed. Wrong! Your plan should be an active document that gets reviewed and updated at least monthly, if not weekly. You're the business owner, you wrote it, you know what's happening in your market -- adjust as necessary.
Answer the following questions:
What were your intentions, what were your goals?
What did you set out to accomplish?
What intentions did you really take action on and which ones did you merely talk about?
Specifically, what did you actually accomplish?
How effective were you? What percentage of your goals were realized? For instance, if your goal was $14 million in sales and you reached $12 million, you were 85% effective. And so on.
What did you accomplish that you didn't intend?
What were the unintended side effects?
In your opinion, what did you do "wrong"?
What did you simply skip?
One useful practice is to write a detailed, objective history of the past year. Document the year's events and results in journal form. Your records will be a big help - use your date book and your sales ledgers to reconstruct this narrative.
Gather up whatever you learned. Three questions assist you in this phase. What did you do that worked? In other words, what actions produced the results they were intended to produce? What didn't work - what actions (or lack of actions) produced something other than the desired result? And finally, what was missing - in terms of missing resources, skills, knowledge, attitudes, relationships, etc. - which if you had them would have enabled you to be more successful?
At this point you should be ready to move forward without dragging the past with you.
Set priorities
Using your values, beliefs, vision and strategy as a guide - establish priority issues for the coming year. Presuming your resources are limited, you may not be able to impact all ar
Let me tell you a secret.Things don’t always go the way we want them to.Let me tell you another secret.We don’t always hear what we want to hear.Duh.These two statements are hardly secrets; we all know they are true. If they aren’t secrets, then why do we act surprised when it happens? And worse, why does the surprise often turn to pouting?Adult PoutingMost adults don’t walk around with a pout on their face, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t pouting. Pouting is when we are having an internal pity party because we haven’t gotten what we wanted, things haven’t gone the way we’d hoped they might, we heard something we didn’t want to hear or disagree with, or we have to work on something when we would rather be doing something else.So we pout.Some ExamplesWe are called to a meeting, when we wanted to be working on the important project on our desk. We think things like, “I don’t need to be at this meeting. Tammy could have handled it. Why am I here? Can’t they see that my time could be better utilized elsewhere? This is ridiculous.”Or we aren’t asked to go to the meeting and we see ourselves as really being able to contribute (or really wanting to be there because it is about an important change that we want to be in-the-kn
What were the unintended side effects?
In your opinion, what did you do "wrong"?
What did you simply skip?
One useful practice is to write a detailed, objective history of the past year. Document the year's events and results in journal form. Your records will be a big help - use your date book and your sales ledgers to reconstruct this narrative.
Gather up whatever you learned. Three questions assist you in this phase. What did you do that worked? In other words, what actions produced the results they were intended to produce? What didn't work - what actions (or lack of actions) produced something other than the desired result? And finally, what was missing - in terms of missing resources, skills, knowledge, attitudes, relationships, etc. - which if you had them would have enabled you to be more successful?
At this point you should be ready to move forward without dragging the past with you.
Set priorities
Using your values, beliefs, vision and strategy as a guide - establish priority issues for the coming year. Presuming your resources are limited, you may not be able to impact all ar
Chocolate is unquestionably the number one comfort food. Worldwide, no other word excites our hearts and minds, yes, even our palates to action. It can be obtained in many forms. There is hot chocolate, cold chocolate, and spicy chocolate. If your passion is rich, dark, bittersweet, or milky sweet it can be easily satisfied. There is even white chocolate for those who fancy a light, creamy taste without the flavor that the alternatives deliver. What is it about chocolate that so permeates our subconscious until we ultimately indulge our craving?If you look at all the characteristics that this confection is noted for you will undeniably find the list lacking nothing. The very first few that come to my mind are:Sweet or bittersweet tasteRich, creamy indulgenceWarm, inviting, comfort foodNothing quite smells like chocolate And that is just for starters. However, its features are not what we crave. We crave it for what it does for us. As I ponder this subject, to better focus on the answers to these questions, I can think of no other chocolaty indulgence that I would rather have than My Little Taste of Italy's sinfully, sensual, rich and luscious cappuccino brownies. The
At this point you should be ready to move forward without dragging the past with you.
Set priorities
Using your values, beliefs, vision and strategy as a guide - establish priority issues for the coming year. Presuming your resources are limited, you may not be able to impact all areas of the business at once. Take a look at the following list - in which of these areas do you most want to make a difference?
product development
market penetration
revenue and profit
customer satisfaction
technology and product quality
intellectual capital
productivity
strategic relationships
new customer growth
geographic expansion
employee retention
community and global impact
Add other areas which are relevant to your business. Then choose which you will focus your attention on. Some prioritizing questions to ask are: What particular area is important? By important I mean that which will move you forward in the direction of your vision, goals, etc. Why is that area important? What will a shift in a particular area provide to the business (or specific categories of stakeholders)? What will not causing that shift cost the business?
Once you have decided in which areas you will focus your efforts (and also which will not receive much attention), you then establish goals, or measures for success. Here is where things can get tricky. The standard approach to establishing measures for success is to "look around" and try to figure out what is practical. "We did X last year, now we'll do X plus 10%." Then you think about what you know how to do. "Well, we know how to do an extra 10%. Good - that's what we'll shoot for."
The catch is this approach will get you some pretty practical, incremental, and average results. And while there is certainly nothing wrong with average results, my guess is that is not why you are reading this article. To get extraordinary, breakthrough results, you have to step outside your normal confines and dream a little. Set your goals by considering what will move you rapidly towards realizing your vision, what will quickly implement your strategy, and go from there. Set goals - establish success measures which will inspire you! Do not think about how you will achieve the measures or goals before you set them. That will only limit your thinking.
Establish Measures and Goals
Establish a clear set of measures for each area of focus. In Product Development you could add two new products for your target niche, or a new product which will enable you to penetrate a targeted customer segment. In Customer Satisfaction and Quality you could reduce open
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