In this episode of MakersTV I talk about the five steps to create a Strategic Plan for any area of your business – marketing, new product launches, overall business plan… it works for everything!

I delve deeper into one of the 7 key areas and discuss about what your strategic plan is for your business. This may refer to a business plan, marketing plan, strategic plan for social media and product releases, among others.  Your plan is one of the most comprehensive in all of the core strengths. I refer to it as a map in order to work out where your business is going and what your objective is. I must highlight that it is impossible to follow someone else’s map because each path going to your endpoint is unique.

Need a little help? Download the free Makers: Plan Your Year workbook now

So how do you create your own plan? How do you ensure the path to success? Where do you want to go? Where are you now? and what happens in between? To answer these questions, let these steps to create a plan that guide you on what works for you:

Yearly Focus / Intention

What do you want to focus on for the year? It could be a whole range of different things and it’s up to you to decide which one it is in order to achieve your intention for your business. It’s quite broad and it can change but this serves as a guide to work out the other strategies of your plan.

Quarterly Goals

I’ve said this before and I will say it again, goals should always be SMART. Personally, quarterly goals instead of yearly goals, work better for me because it’s harder to achieve yearly goals. Break down your yearly goal into quarterly goals especially when it comes to saving money. It is more achievable and 90 days is a good amount of time to get a lot of things done. It also allows you to update and reassess your direction. Just be flexible about it.

I talk about goals a lot on this website – You can read more about them here.

Monthly Priorities

So from quarterly goals I like to break it down into monthly priorities. What you need to do to make your quarterly goals happen, you break it down into 3 priorities for the month. This helps you focus on what your end goal really is.

Weekly Tasks

From monthly priorities I break it down further into weekly tasks. I limit it to 1-2 weekly tasks to ensure that everything falls into place and I don’t get overwhelmed with everything I need to do.

Daily Action Steps

Weekly tasks then gets broken down into daily action steps. From your over all quarterly goal down to your daily action step, it all works out to help you achieve your plan for your business.

Each step I mentioned is different for everyone and there is no one way to do it. This is the basic idea of the plan your year system and focusing on one thing at a time. You can use this strategy for any area of your business to ensure that everything is focused and organised. To help you with your plan, you can download my Makers Co yearly wall planner here.

So that’s it! And if you think you still need help creating your own strategic plan for your business and if you want to learn more ways to strengthen your brand, you might consider joining the Maker’s Academy which is a membership for makers and creatives such as yourself wanting to learn how to sell your stuff so you can replace your 9-5 job with something you are more excited about.

Need a little help? Download the free Makers: Plan Your Year workbook now