small business gurus - the blog of Cat & Keith Matson

by Cat Matson

‘tis the season to be jolly for sure... and merry and grateful and happy.

It’s also the season to be reflective, giving thought to the year coming to an end and what lies ahead.

And of course it’s also the season to be busy and often overwhelmed, tired and in need of a holiday.

Many business owners ‘check-out’ at this time of the year, ‘running on empty’ to cross an imaginary finish line around Christmas Eve.  They then resurface (usually physically but not in spirit) sometime after January 1st.  Token thoughts are given to ‘Resolutions’ for 2010.... but in most cases we stay in half-work – half-business mode until school returns.  By then it’s February, things are starting to get busy again... and a month of the year has already gone. 

For savvy business owners however, this time of year provides an opportunity to ‘check-in’ with the business.  You can review your performance for 2009 and establish objectives and goals for the year ahead. 

Sounds boring I know... particularly when there are so many other fun activities calling.  But taking some time out to reflect on your business and set some new year’s goals doesn’t have to be a drag... rather a mindset that you incorporate into your holiday festivities.

In these remaining days before Christmas, start a dialogue with the people around you about their goals for 2010.  This allows you to be in conversation about your goals too... at the very least, thinking about them.  Use downtime (in between appointments, doing the shopping) to jot down some of those thoughts ...  this will help your thought process and invite your mind to keep working on them in the background. 

Then when you do have some quiet time during the Christmas week (even New Year’s Day itself), review those notes and commit to some objectives – doesn’t have to be fancy, just give yourself a couple of goals to work on as projects for the new year.

And then 2010 will be the season for what you want it to be.

(if you want to continue these kinds of conversations, check out my PowerSource workshop, combining the best of strategic planning, real-life resourcing and MasterMinding).

Igniting your business performance

Alito - business advisors, mentors and consultants

by Cat Matson

As 2009 draws rapidly to a close, I, like many other achievement orientated business owners, found myself working on my business plan for 2010.  Having 'planned' a lot and often being disappointed with the results, this year I've taken a different approach.  This year I wanted a plan that was easy to use, simple to update, kept me focussed on what is 'really' important to me in the business sense and took into account the 'rest' of my life.

The first step was to recognise the weaknesses in prior planning processes.  For me, a key weakness has been what I call 'ideal-world-planning' - planning goals and outcomes based on a 'perfect world'.  This involves setting goals that would be fantastic to achieve, but 'forget' the current context of the business owner - working part-time, young kids at home, other committments both in and outside the business, working on less-than-a-shoestring budget just to name a few.

The second step was to see how my business goals align (or otherwise) with each other to ensure they're synergistic ... not a distraction.  This then expanded out into the activities I'll pursue to achieve my plans ... making sure that all the 'things' that I 'do' on a day-to-day basis actually contribute to my desired outcomes. 

The third step was to keep it simple, make it visual and get it on one page.  Why?  Well, the simple part ... because I have a tendency to get lost in the details and spend days and days nutting out the n-th degree of detail.  This for me is unnecessary time wastage, one, because I'm a naturally detailed person anyway, so the 'details' will happen as a matter of course, and two, because by the time I get to exectute my plan, the 'details' may not roll-out as planned.

Being a visual plan on one-page means I can have it on my desk, right-in-front-of-me, ALL the time.  This helps me stay focussed.  And for me, it needs to be on my desk I think - not on the wall as it has been in the past.  I spend SO much time on the computer, my line of sight is generally between notes and files on my desk and my computer screen.  So I've put my plan in a plastic sleeve and taped it to my desk like a desk-pad.

The over-riding thought-process while developing my plan was asking myself how these goals and required activities fit into my life?  Do I want to do what's required to achieve these goals?  Can I make my desired income in my available work-time through these kinds of activities?  What could go wrong and what resources will I need to make these plans come to fruition?  This particular part of the planning process is still 'in progress' and I'll revisit in a day or so after this plan has had time to 'settle' in my head. 

As I work on this plan over the next few days I'll let you know how I progress ... still to map my key measures for this plan (what gets measured gets done) and key milestones.  Stay tuned ....

Cat

Igniting your business performance

Alito - business mentors