The Future As a Priority
Small and medium sized businesses move a thousand miles a minute. Constant decisions need to be made to keep the ship moving in the right direction. With every situation that comes up there are thousands, if not tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars on the line. Budgets need to be met and every incremental dollar made is of utmost importance. However, micromanaging day to day decisions sucks many important resources from the company. It leaves little time for everything else and without it tomorrow may never come, right?
During this repetitive process businesses go through, many lose sight of a goal that is just as, if not more important which is how the company will fight through the current level of success to achieve higher goals. While maintaining current operations helps the company get by today, a lack of a long term growth strategy will surely risk the company’s chances of flourishing in the future. So how does a company find a way to ensure there is a strategy for next level success?
Although meetings can be unproductive time spent away from the here and now, there are two meetings that need to take place once a month designated for preparing for a better future. The first should entail each manager meeting with their individual team. These strategy sessions should have an agenda for ideas and plans for the following time frames: 3, 6 and 12 months as well as 3 and 5 year components. These sessions should have a whiteboard brainstorming aspect to them — where ideas are generated and discussed. After these meeting are complete the second meeting should be a session with the key leaders of the company to brainstorm new products, services and efficiencies based on the ideas generated in each team meeting. In this meeting concrete plans should be implemented to ensure these long term goals stay on track and are not pushed aside during the normal course of business.
Incorporating this long term strategy with the short term will help you protect the thousands of dollars in revenue today but also create a continuous pipeline and the potential for millions down the line.
