4+ Strategic Planning Checklist Templates
Whether your business is still new to the industry or is entering its next year, coming up with a good strategic plan for it is always going to be important. The start of a new year is a great way for your business to come up with new smart goals and strategies that will help achieve your short-term and long-term goals. You may also see Checklist Samples.
This is why you have to make sure that you plan out everything that would lead to the eventual success of your small business. This article is going to focus on how you can create a checklist that will allow you to strategically plan what your business should achieve. You may also see Checklist Templates.
Strategic Planning Checklist Template
Restaurant Strategic Planning Checklist Template
Strategic Sales Plan Template
Strategic Plan Template
Structuring your planning meeting
The most successful strategic planning meetings are well-organized with clear goals. Here are the things that you have to put on your checklist to make sure that your meeting is a success:
- Set aside a whole day to do the free meeting. You need a lot of time to think about everything and to be creative. Decide on the people that you would like to have in the meeting; these would usually be you and anyone in your key business management team.
- Make sure that there will be no interruptions. Have your secretary reject any calls or any other impromptu meetings as you need to make sure there are no disturbances while you are discussing important company matters. You may also like behavior checklist templates
- There should be no interruptions during the general meeting as well. Make sure that nobody has an excuse such as needing to use the phone or the toilet. State that the only way that they may do this is during the allotted break times that have been generally scheduled. The only time that a meeting as important as this can be bothered is if it is something as serious as a fire or a natural disaster.
- Take notes during the entire meeting. You can either do this yourself or you can appoint someone to be responsible for taking down all of the important ideas that were developed, which can then be further reviewed during the final decision-making.You may also see training checklist templates
Checklist Steps to Planning an Annual Meeting Template
What to discuss during the actual meeting
- Start with discussing the meeting agenda. This is very important as this is what makes sure that everyone stays on track with what needs to be discussed from the beginning all the way until the end.
- Do not to try to rush everything that needs to be discussed during the staff meeting. You will have more than enough time to share everything that needs to be shared. However, while you should not rush through the meeting, you also cannot let things take too long. Make sure that you set time limits on just how long discussions should take so that everyone involved will be able to voice out whatever concerns they may have. It is best that you assign someone as the timekeeper so that things will keep on moving. You may also like marketing checklist templates
- Start the meeting by doing a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats). Set aside at least 30 minutes to an hour to discuss each of these so that everyone will know where your business currently stands in the market strategy. Assess your strengths and figure out how you can use them to gain a competitive advantage over your competitors. Know the weaknesses of your business so that you will be able to find the solutions that will allow you to fix them.
- Find opportunities that your business should pursue such as developing a new product that customers may be more willing to purchase. Consider all of the possible threats that your business is going to face and figure out what you can do to eliminate all of them. It would be great if you discuss the results of your marketing research during the meeting to ensure that everyone gets a better understanding of how the business should operate from then on.
- Set specific financial goals for your business for the upcoming year. Just how much of an increase in your sales do you expect? Is this financial goal realistic? What about profits? To achieve your profit goals, will you need to reduce expenses and, if so, how much? When you answer these questions, you would have a better idea of how to formulate your final business strategy.
Once you are done with the meeting, you have to make sure that everyone was able to capture all of the good ideas that were shared. More important than that, you have to follow through with them. It is essential that everyone in the company is on the same page, so you have to make sure that the business plan is in written form so that everyone may take a look at it whenever they need to. You may also see seminar checklist templates
You should hold another meeting where you discuss with other executives how the plan should be written to make sure that everyone understands it perfectly. You may also like work checklist templates
For other business-related articles, such as how to conduct a thorough market analysis, check the rest of our website.
More in Business
