Long-Range Goals AND Short-Term Actions on the Same Page
When you’re running a company it’s easy to drown in the day-to-day details. How do you know for sure that:
- You accomplish your highest priority task each week? Each month?
- You know what your highest priority task is each week? Month? Quarter?
- As you hire more people, they each know where you’re taking the business and how you plan to get there?
The Single Sheet Business Plan gives you, and everyone on your team, a line of sight from your 30-year vision all the way through to the actions necessary in 5 years, next year, next quarter, and today—so you can all always be driving toward that vision and move fast doing it.
You’re not running a multi-billion dollar company so you don’t need a multi-page plan. You can get your plan all on 1 sheet of paper. The SSBP enables your team to get on board and pull their oars in the same direction. It provides a line of sight between your long-term goals and the actions that you and each person on your team needs to take to accomplish them.
The Single Sheet Business Plan is the “living” document that charts your company’s course and gives you a simultaneous view of where you are today, where you want to be in the distant and near future, and the next step you need to take. It’s planned and written by you, usually with the help of your key leaders, so you can adjust it as circumstances change. In fact, it’s set up so that once per quarter you review it for any needed adjustments.
The SSBP is a compelling way to hold yourself accountable and to hold every member of your team accountable because it’s easily communicated and because you visit and update it regularly. It energizes your employee since it helps them understand their role and how they can contribute to the vision.
The SSBP comes from the excellent work of Verne Harnish’s “The Rockefeller Habits” and you can download it from his website. We’ve modified our version over the years based on our work with what real small and mid-size business owners need on it. It’s an 11” x 14” spreadsheet, also downloadable, and you can complete it online or with a pencil.
Your SSBP is your whole business on a single sheet of paper. It’s your hopes and dreams laid out and your roadmap to achieve them spelled out. Your SSBP is your inspiration when you lose hope and your compass when you feel lost. When you’ve had a string of crazy days, your SSBP is the place you can turn to remind yourself where you’re trying to take your business.
Without this strategic operating plan, you miss the deep thinking that’s so necessary to running any business. There’s amazing confidence that comes from the sure knowledge that what you’re doing today will get your business where you want it to be. That can only come from having a small and mid-size business strategic operating plan. Why not put it all on a single sheet of paper so you and everyone on your team can see what to do today to get you where you want to be years down the road.
Truly, a well-thought out Single Sheet Business Plan almost guarantees your company’s growth and success.
Download the Single Sheet Business Plan template and create your 2024 plan.
Or register in-person or virtual for the 1-day Growth Plan Workshop and work on your plan with expert business coaches there to help you in real time.
Brian Kemple, Business Coach
Brian Kemple, Business CoachWith 30 years of experience across all areas of business in the Automotive, Industrial, and Life Sciences, Brian has led his clients through a multitude of challenges and opportunities in organizational turnarounds, downsizing and combining organizations, as well as the construction of new facilities. To book a complimentary business analysis, go here , or email Brian@InspireResults.com.
