Having a solid plan can help you achieve a euphoric company exit one day
As a frequent guest speaker on the topic of strategic planning, a common theme heard from owners and CEOs of privately held companies is they understand the value of having a strategic plan but what they lack is the certainty as to how to effectively develop and execute one.
My guidance is that strategic planning at the core embodies a military mantra – having situational awareness and operational effectiveness. Ask yourself, do I have good awareness of the threats and opportunities outside and inside my four walls and do I have the needed operational effectiveness to navigate all in a way that helps me achieve my end in mind.
So where to begin? With the end in mind.
Ask yourself these questions to get your strategic planning underway:
- What time frame do you want your plan to address? 1 year, 5 years, 20 years?
- Imagine you have reached the time frame you identified, now describe using short statements how your company will be described at that future point in time? (revenue size, profit level, type of organization, market/customer types served, portfolio of products and services offered, market share, competitive uniqueness and valuation you would like to receive if selling toa third party)
- With the future end in mind now better articulated, ask yourself what is the gap between where your business is today in each of the categories listed in the parenthesis versus where you want to be at the future time? Take each item and identify your starting point today and list next to it, what you’ve identified as the future end in mind.
In a future blog posting, we will outline the next step which will relate to your situational awareness as you begin the journey of addressing any gaps you now see between where your company is today versus the end in mind.
Strategic planning is a muscle you want to build for yourself and your team. This muscle is built by following a repeatable, scalable process (or what we call a campaign given the magnitude of it) which we can provide you. Begin with the steps above and circle back here for next steps in the campaign to accelerate the worth of your company and get you on the path to your future euphoric exit event.
