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By Heather Isch

Early is on time and on time is late. That’s a rule we live by here at LKF. The same principle can and should be applied to strategy as well. After all, it’s never too early to start planning for next year!

The most successful businesses have a plan, strategy, and goals in place. If you don’t create plans and set goals, you will never know when you have arrived.

We love working with teams to create a vision for their organization and set the strategy for accomplishing the vision. Our process begins with a series of questions.

  • Does your company have a 3- to 5-year sales goal?
  • Does your company have a 10-year sales goal?
  • Have you completed a SWOT analysis?
  • What’s going on in your industry, the world, your community, or the government that could threaten your plans? Do you have a plan to address the threats you’ve identified?
  • Are the weaknesses you identified something you can overcome? Do you have a plan for addressing the weaknesses? Could they become strengths or opportunities?
  • Do you understand your opportunities in the marketplace? Do you have a plan for leveraging your best assets to address those opportunities?
  • Are you staying true to your company mission? Do have plans in place that leverage organizational strengths?
  • Is a marketing strategy in place for communicating with your target audience(s)?
  • Have you set a budget for marketing activities?
  • Do you have the resources to accommodate the growth set forth in your plan?

Most of the teams that we work with understand that utilizing a consultant to help guide the conversation, draw out the teams necessary, and craft unique strategy gets the best results.

It is very difficult to step out of the day-to-day operations and clearly see what’s going on around you. A consultant is neutral and can sometimes see what your team can’t.

Want to accomplish big things? We recommend starting your plan for the upcoming year during September and having the final, approved plan in hand by the end of December (if you are on a fiscal calendar).

Need some outside perspective? Contact us!