by JimRaffel on January 2, 2012
Planning works. A year ago, I shared The 2011 Plan and last week I shared the success story of that plan when I wrote “How to make what you write come true.” Finding a planning method that works for you is, unfortunately, not so easy. I’ve settled on a method that combines Chris Brogan’s three words method and the visual thinking approach of Sketchnotes, which results in the drawing included with this post.
The 2012 Plan dissected
Growth – One of last year’s words was “customers” and it turned out to be the key word. We learned two important pieces of information about our customers in 2011: Who they are and where to find them online. Armed with that knowledge and the other two words in this year’s plan, significant growth of the ventures I am involved in is achievable.
Automate – Late last year, I had an “ah-ha” moment related to automation. A task worth doing manually is worth automating. If it’s not, then stop doing the task entirely. Your business is not truly systemized until most – if not all – of the business processes are automated. It takes more time to delegate and train those to whom you are delegating if the process is not automated. Automated tasks have a much higher probability of being done correctly.
Teams – It’s one thing to hire people to help you. It’s quite another to empower them to manage the team without you. This year, progress must happen without my involvement. Handing over business processes that have been automated is one way to ensure this outcome. While I can and sometimes will be a player on the teams I help create, I don’t intend to ever be the coach.
Back to growth
The strategy that came out of this planning exercise is: More and more of my time must be dedicated to tasks focused on long-term enterprise growth. Some might call this sales. I’ll be out searching for the relationships that allow us to partner our technology and knowhow with new audiences in 2012.
Here’s to an awesome 2012. Lets’ do this!
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by JimRaffel on December 5, 2011
This past Saturday night, the Wisconsin Badgers defeated the Michigan State Spartans in the first ever Big 10 championship game and secured a coveted spot to play in the Rose Bowl. If you’re not a college football fan, just trust me that this is a big deal for the team. This was not an easy win for the Badgers because the Spartans were just one of two teams they had lost to all season. The Badgers won the game by sticking to their game plan for the entire 60 minutes of play.
Do you stick to your game plan?
We defeat ourselves by bailing out of our game plan when we suspect it’s going bad. We start to improvise and shoot from the hip when we don’t have sufficient time to think things through. The Badgers didn’t do that Saturday night. They stuck to their game plan. Yes, they made adjustments throughout the game; but I suspect even those adjustments had been planned out before the game as contingencies.
Planning works. Planning pays off.
When you bail out of your game plan, you are most often defeating yourself; not being beaten by your opposition. When I look at my own business successes, the biggest and the sweetest are the result of well thought-out strategic plans.
Fly by the seat of your pants with a plan
On the other hand, when I look back at the not-so-successful points in my professional life, I notice an overwhelming lack of plans and/or a decision to deviate dramatically from the plan. In other words, I decided to improvise the game plan on the fly with no real empirical evidence that the plan needed changing. I defeated myself. Even when I do choose to fly by the seat of my pants, I do it with a plan in place. Plan for contingencies before you need those contingencies.
I try to start each week by assessing my to-do list left over from the previous week. Then each morning, I take a look at the to-do list and prioritize the three things that must get done to maintain forward momentum. It’s a small investment in time to make sure that I don’t spend all day reacting to the priorities of others. Instead, I’ve got my own game plan that comes first.
Photo Credit
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