Long-Term Strategy Planning: 6 Tips for Your Business
Before you start a business, it’s critical to think about the future of it. While you have things you need to do on a day-to-day basis, you’ll need to look at the bigger picture. What do you hope to accomplish? What is your ultimate goal? By doing long-term strategy planning, you’ll be able to figure out the important answers to all of your questions.
Need help with long-term strategy planning for your business? Then get in touch with Robin D. Perry. The Law Offices of Robin D. Perry & Associates provide vigorous representation to clients and are a goal-oriented and values-driven firm. We develop creative strategies to win every case, every time and are confident we can help you with your business contract. Reach out to us today to schedule a consultation.
Why Do Long-Term Strategy Planning?
Whether you’re opening up a new venture or you want to improve your current processes, it’s important to do long-term strategy planning for your business. There are a number of benefits to doing this kind of business planning.
You’ll be able to see your vision for your business on paper and the strategies you need to pursue to accomplish your goal. Essentially, you’ll have direction instead of doing different daily tasks that may not be contributing to your overall mission. It’s easy to get caught up in your daily to-do list and lose sight of what you really hope to accomplish.
With your plan, you can not only plan for what you want to go right, but what may go wrong as well, like ups and downs in the market or problems with business partnerships. You can be on the offense so that when issues come up, you aren’t scrambling to fix them.
In addition, with a long-term business plan, you can get stakeholders, like your employees, clients, and shareholders involved, so everyone is on the same page. They can determine what they need to do to contribute to the overall goal as well. Plus, it can foster teamwork by stoking the sense that all of you are working together on the same goal.
Long-term strategy planning can be for a few years into the future, like three or five years, or it can be for 10+ years. You can make separate plans for each, if you’d like. It’s up to you and what works best for your business.
To get started with your plan, here are six tips.
- Write Down Your Business Vision – When you put pen to paper, write down your vision and mission for your business. Where do you want your business to be in a few years’ time? How about way into the future? For example, if you’re an eco-friendly toy maker, your mission could be to continue to provide your toys to children around the world, grow your business, and give back to environmental causes. Make this vision very short and succinct so you can easily share it with your stakeholders and come back to it at any time.
- Do a SWOT Analysis – A SWOT analysis involves defining your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. What are you good at? What are the areas that require improvement? What opportunities do you have that you aren’t currently exploring? How are you different from your competitors, and what makes you stand out in the marketplace?
With a SWOT analysis, you can determine what you’re doing right and keep doing it, and figure out how to improve in areas where you’re lacking. You can also find out how your competitors are outpacing you and decide what you can do differently to come out on top. If there are any threats, you can foresee them before they strike.
- Include a Plan of Action – Once you do a SWOT analysis, come up with short-term goals you can revisit again soon. These goals need to be S.M.A.R.T. (specific, measurable, actionable, reasonable, and timely) so that you will actually work on accomplishing them. If you have vague goals like “be successful in 10 years” or “make millions within five years,” then you have no roadmap for how to fulfill these dreams.
By spelling out and working on S.M.A.R.T. goals often, you will be likely to get much more done. Checking off each goal from your list will help you stay motivated to keep going.
- Include Your Stakeholders – Though you should be leading your long-term strategy planning initiative, you also need to include people who are involved with your business. Survey your clients to figure out your business’ strengths and weaknesses. Consult with your shareholders on where they see the business going. Ask your employees about their experiences. Come up with goals with your company leaders. You have tunnel vision, and you need other people’s more objective perspectives incorporated into the mix.
- Conduct Research – You’ll need actual research to back up your long-term plan. Conduct market research to see where you stand, look at your sales numbers, evaluate your budgets, and more. Finding the hard numbers will tell you much of what you need to know about your business and help you figure out the best course of action to take moving forward.
- Share Your Long-Term Plan and Divvy Up Responsibilities – Once your plan has been created, you can see who needs to do what to fulfill your business’ goals. Share your plan and come up with tasks that your stakeholders can accomplish on a short-term basis. Along the way, give them feedback and encouragement so they can stay on the same path or change what they’re doing.
Of course, it’s important to revisit your plan, especially if something isn’t working or going the way you pleased. You can always contact a mentor or business advisor, along with a business lawyer, to work on your plan and change it as needed.
By utilizing professionals who have done this before and are experienced, you will gain valuable insights. You will also be able to take some shortcuts, especially if you’ve never created a long-term strategic plan in the past.
Being a business owner comes with its own set of challenges, but with the right professionals on your side, and a long-term plan in place, you can fulfill your vision as well as grow your success with your business.
Reach Out to Robin D. Perry & Associates
If you need help with long-term strategy planning, then it’s time to get in touch with the Law Offices of Robin D. Perry & Associates today. No matter what, we will fight on your behalf during your time of need. Call us at 562-216-2944 or contact us on our website to schedule your consult today.
Attorney Robin D. Perry has been part of the Long Beach Community for over 25 years handling business litigation, employment litigation and advising, criminal defense, personal injury and code enforcement defense for businesses.