As I tab through what we have produced on this business blog since we started, I'm actually quite pleased and proud of the material that exists here.
Undoubtedly, at some point in the future, it will form a phenomenal AI resource that you'll be able to type a question into. That's part of the strategy that we will get to with all of the digital material we produce.
So, on that subject of strategy. I want to give you a little hack to allow you to set your 3-year business plan in its most basic possible sense from here (hopefully based on some of the advice above or below in the previous blogs).
If you take a piece of A4 paper and turn it landscape and then draw a line in from the margin about 5 to 7 centimetres, vertically down. Divide the piece of paper into a series of 5 lanes and then divide each of that and then divide the lanes vertically into 12 sections.
It effectively performs a grid with a small margin on the left-hand side, along the top line, leaves the top left square blank and then writes Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4, all the way to Q12. That's each quarter section for the next 3 years.
On the left-hand side, write the titles of the sections you want to complete. They would be vision setting, finance, marketing and sales, HR and leadership, then start to decide what you're going to work within those topics in each of the quarters coming up.
You can have a separate list of the side of you about all the things that you've decided need to be done, and you can annotate that list into ones and twos and threes and fours and fives
One being most urgent, five being least urgent.
Populate the left-hand side of your ‘swimming pool’ with the ones and the twos, so that in the first year or 18 months, the most important jobs in each of the areas are being carried out, but pay attention to how much capacity you've got for the work that needs to be done.
Complete the rest of the chart with the threes, fours, and fives, the fives taking the point at the furthest away on the right, and then when you get to year three, 36 months from now, you will have the most extraordinary version of the business that you have today.
Of course, there's a bit of insight, knowledge, and reality and realistic time setting involved in this, but I promise if you sat down and did that today and followed through with what you said, you would not be disappointed when it got to 3 years from now.
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