Strategic Planning | Teik Oh

Back To Front Planning

Sep 20 2016

How do you plan for something? Created some goals right? Identified what you wanted to achieve this year or in 5 years’ time, then worked out strategies on how to get there?

Well, how do you know if those goals and strategies will get you to a place you really desire and not just some random point on the way there? Where even is “there”?

Stephen Covey said it best: “Begin with the end in mind.” I believe that you always have to start your planning from the back end, from where you want to end up, and then go back to where you are now. Otherwise, how can you create goals and strategies to go “forward” when you’re not clear where “forward” actually is?

And I don’t mean some wild and wooly “vision and mission” statement – I mean a clear, quantified, specifically described, ideal future situation. You absolutely need clarity on this before you plan for anything, so that you can ask “Will this goal or strategy or action get me nearer there and only there?”

Watch this video on the one way I recommend to clarify what your “vision” is and what it actually means when it has been achieved.

If you use this method you can cascade the detailing of what your ultimate dream business is, all the way to the detailed steps and actions you need to take – try it out! Remember:-

The first question is “what do I mean by my ideal…..(business)?”
Then keep asking “what do I mean by…..”

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How To Explain Your New Big Plan

Jul 26 2016

So, you’ve completed your plan? Is it a Business Plan, or a Strategic Plan, or perhaps a Marketing Plan?

Whatever it is, apart from starting to implement it – do you know what’s the most important thing for you to do now? Explain it!

Who do you explain it to? Well it depends – if you have a team of employees, you need to explain it to them. If you are a solopreneur and you use contractors, virtual assistants and even friends to help you – you need to explain your plan to them. Even if you work totally alone – you need to explain your plan to at least your spouse and family, if not your bank or other people involved in helping you. These are the people corporates call “stakeholders” and you need to explain your big new plan to them because people hate change, and a plan represents change. If your plan affects them (how could it not?) you need to explain it to them.

I discuss here in this week’s video how you can communicate and explain your plan to them in a way that allays fear and encourages buy-in. It’s exciting to you – make it exciting for them.

So here again are the four points:-

Explain the exciting new opportunity;
Provide the exciting change vision;
Explain the big-picture initiatives; and
Ask for help in making sure everyone knows what to do.

I’d love to hear how you have implemented new plans in your business – and brought your “stakeholders” along – click here to go to the blog and leave a comment under this video telling me how you implemented your plan and communicated it.

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Comment 13

The Vision For Your Business

Jun 07 2016

I cannot say this enough – whatever you intend to do, start a business, attain a goal, arrive at somewhere, you need to start with a clear picture of where you want to end up.

Call this your “business vision” the “purpose” of your business, or the “why” of your business, as Stephen Covey says “Begin with the end in mind”.

Having a detailed picture of where you want to end up simply clarifies a lot of details and makes a lot of small day to day decisions suddenly easier. You want to hire someone – will they fit into what the place will look like in your vision? You are thinking of a new process – will it bring you closer or faster to your vision of how the business will work? You want to introduce a new product – does it fit in with your vision of how the business will look to the public?

Yet, how do you get to that detailed picture?

In this video I discuss one way of describing your vision, and then clarifying all the details that the vision implies. It’s as simple as having a conversation with yourself where you just ask “What do I mean by…?”

Remember:-

Start with a simple question; “If I want to build my dream (business), what do I mean by my perfect (business)?”
Then for each description of that ideal you come up with, ask: “So, what do I mean by (descriptor)?”

You can keep cascading those questions down until you end up with a highly detailed, quantified, version of your dream business.

As usual, the fun starts after the learning! Go to the blog at teikoh.com and post a comment to this video and tell me – What is the one single most important way you use your vision?

I’m also offering a free download of my Entrepreneur’s Business Health Checklist which assesses the health of your business in 6 key areas – get it here.

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Good Business or Great Business?

May 31 2016

I was talking to a client recently when he mentioned that he had been reading my posts in my blog and thought that while they were interesting he didn’t need to know all the stuff I wrote about planning, marketing, and organising people. He said he thought he was a good business man, in his words “not brilliant but I know my stuff”, because he had learned how to run his business through experience.

Now let me set the scene. Let’s call him Will.

Will is not an old business person dyed in the wool in the old ways. He’s in his early 40’s and while he struggles a little bit with tech, he uses the internet a lot to research and find new suppliers and markets. He’s not what I’d call conservative and he has run his business successfully for over 10 years.

What do I mean by “successfully”?

Well, it’s a small business that supplies raw product to manufacturers. It’s not a big market so Will keeps his small customer list happy and has only lost customers when the customers have gone out of business, never through dissatisfaction. As a small business with a small customer list Will doesn’t care about brand – he just makes sure his product is of the right quality. He was caught out once when he bought in a cheaper product but as it failed in use he withdrew it quickly. Will only employs three people, they are labourers and work part time so there’s no real need for organisation charts and detailed job descriptions, they do what he tells them to do as he needs them to do things. He calculates a more or less fixed margin to his inventory so that a percentage is attached to his purchase price – up to a point where he can decide to reduce the margin to larger customers or more popular products, which he has had to do several times when he was asked to.

And Will makes money. Over the 10 years he’s probably saved over a million.

So what’s wrong with that? That’s pretty successful huh? Read More

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So, How Are Your 2016 Resolutions Going?

Mar 29 2016

You have to admit, I’ve given you a chance! I haven’t asked you about your New Year resolutions until now so you have to agree I’ve given you a good head start, right?

So, how are your New Year resolutions going? Are you ticking them off? Or like many others have they fallen off the cliff after 2 or 3 months (or should I say weeks)?

If you have been working on them, and you are on track – hey, congratulations! You are amongst that elite group who pick out what’s important and focus on the end. You follow through!

As for the rest of you, don’t feel bad. You haven’t failed! All that’s happened is that you now realise you don’t have a system to follow through. So, don’t give up, if your resolutions or goals are that important to you, keep trying.

But this time, arm yourself with a winning formula for following through.

In this video I’m providing training on the formula for following through on your resolutions and goals.

Here’s a tweetable that comes out of the training for you – Hit your goals everytime by keying in on key goals @OhTeik

Remember:-

Fewer (but key) goals
Make real written plans with deadlines and resources
Commit – believe you need to do this and you can do this
Review regularly – set yourself up to succeed
Don’t forget to celebrate every win!

For more ideas and tips on creating great strategy, show leadership and grow your business, go to my website at teikoh.com – subscribe while you’re there, or just subscribe here, to get these valuable ideas delivered to your inbox for free!

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Category - Strategic Planning

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Back To Front Planning

How To Explain Your New Big Plan

If you want a taste of what you can get for free, download my Entrepreneur’s Business Health Checklist here.

The Vision For Your Business

I’m also offering a free download of my Entrepreneur’s Business Health Checklist which assesses the health of your business in 6 key areas – get it here.

Good Business or Great Business?

So, How Are Your 2016 Resolutions Going?