When we were children, our parents would take us on cross country road trips. They had a glove box full of road maps and my mother would navigate while my father drove. As we got older, they started using AAA TripTiks. The TripTiks were great because it broke the trip down into segments and you would simply flip the page on the spiral bound booklet to get to the next set of roads for your trip. Now we use more sophisticated GPS systems that offer “turn-by-turn” directions from a pleasant sounding woman. The one thing these maps had in common was they had a plan to help us reach our destination.
The question is do you have a road map for your business?
You chose your profession or opened up your own business for a reason. May it was to just be your own boss and create some freedom in your life. Perhaps you had bigger goals than your previous employer. But what may have gotten lost in the traffic jam of your day-to-day operations was the end goal, or DESTINATION.
Where do you want your business to be next year? In 5 years? In 20 years? Perhaps your plan is to grow the company so that you can sell it off. Or maybe you want to leave it to your children, ensuring the success of their future. Maybe you just want to make enough money so you can retire on the beach and sip margaritas. If you don’t have the answer to these questions, you need to pull over, stop the car and decide what your DESTINATION is.
It’s up to you to create a vision, goal and plan for the future.
Remember back to when you started your business and decide where you want it to go. Do you have a growth goal to build your business in terms of size, location or additional products and services? Once you know where you are going, you need to create a plan.
Benjamin Franklin said “If you fail to plan, plan to fail.” Would you get in your car and drive across country without an ending destination in mind? Maybe, but it’s unlikely. And if you were going to drive from Florida to Alaska, would you do so without a map, TripTik or GPS? I hope not!
The same holds true for your company. Create your own turn-by-turn plan for creating a sustainable business that can be sold or passed down to your children. And once you have decided where you are going, and WHY, get your family and your team on board. They should be invested in your vision and goal as well because it will affect them.
If you don’t have a plan for your company’s future, talk to your business coach. Together you can assess what is most important to you and develop a road map for your success!