Strategic Planning for Small Businesses

Strategic planning is essential in any business, no matter the size. A strategic plan will help define your business purpose, layout your business ideas and your organizational goals, define your action plans and strategies to reach your goals and it will help in monitoring your progress.

There are several reasons as to why business owners may not have put together a strategic plan. They may not know how to do strategic planning, they think they have a strategic plan but it’s really a business plan—these two are not interchangeable, there hasn’t been enough time to sit down and lay out a plan. Whatever the case may be, strategic planning for your business is crucial to ensure business success.

In “Strategic Planning: Not Just for Big Business”, Smallbusinessnotes.com, helps business owners by defining what strategic planning is and what should be included in a strategic plan.

“Strategic planning has become a concept that is commonly suggested as the "solution" to many business problems. Some days it appears that the chief product of many businesses is their strategic plan. Don't misunderstand me, strategic plans are wonderful when used appropriately, but they do need to be a tool of a business, not a goal unto themselves. And, most definitely, they should not be a major consumer of valuable employer/employee time.”

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Competing Against Your Competition

It is inevitable that a business owner will face competition. There is always going to be a company offering products and services that are similar to what you offer. You, as a business owner, can spend hours researching your competition. However, by doing that you are taking away valuable time that could be spent on other issues that will help your company to achieve business success.

The Alternative Board® President and CEO, Jason Zickerman, agrees that it is a good idea to keep an eye on your competition, however, setting your own standard of excellence and competing against that, may put you ahead or your competition, while improving your business at the same time.

“As a business owner, you should keep an eye on your competition. However, spending hours researching and focusing your team on understanding your competition may not be the best use of the company’s time. When it comes down to it, you should know what your competition is doing, but your biggest competitor may actually be your status quo.”

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Inexpensive Marketing in a Tough Economy

With the economy being in its current state, many business owners have already had to cut their budgets. Although there may not be as much money as there once was, it is crucial to keep marketing in a tough economy.

Using referral marketing is a great, low-cost way to help grow your business without breaking your bank. It allows you to meet potential new clients, network and possibly gain new business ideas that could help you reach your business goals.

TAB Certified Facilitator, Allan Himmelstein, lists several tips for referral marketing on his TAB-Scottsdale blog that can help you gain an edge when it comes to referral marketing.

“Before this recession, many businesses relied solely on referrals for business. Now that those referrals have dried up, how can a business start being pro-active in developing referrals? Understand the process of getting referrals before you just boldly ask.”

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Tips to Support Your Twitter Following

In a short time period, social media sites have become some of the most popular areas to help promote and market yourself and your business. These sites also allow individuals to network, share business ideas, strategies, etc., with others to try and achieve business success.

Twitter is one of the most popular social media sites and allows you to follow others and also have others follow you. Twitter allows you to get the most up-to-date information on what your peers are doing. Small Business Trends provides several tips to help you benefit the most from Twitter.

“At nearly 6 months into our B2B Twitter experience, we’ve been more successful at developing a following and engaging our target audience of B2B marketers than I initially expected. These gains have come through a combination of focus - rather than trying to tackle the entire world of B2B social media opportunities all at once, we tackled two blogs and two Twitter accounts with two FTEs - consistent measurement and a healthy willingness to test a wide range of Twitter tactics rather than just following existing “best practices”.”

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