CEO Power Planning: Keeping Your Business Moving
I have been a true believer in 12-week or quarterly planning for a number of years. But it’s not the progress of one quarter that’s exciting, it’s the momentum of keeping your business moving one quarter after another. I’ve been doing what I call CEO Power Planning every quarter for a small group of business owners for a year now. I want to share with you the momentum they’ve built in their businesses and the value they see in the results.
Quarterly planning for me personally helps me spread my goals out so I can put consistent quality focus on fewer things at once, and get more done. This organized structure allows me to prioritize which goals are better achieved before others.
The habit of setting goals naturally prompts reflection on what I have accomplished and what worked or didn’t go so well. It shows me where I need to go back to the drawing board. Reflection is a part of this process and is a priceless learning tool.
Once you know what has and does work for you, it makes it easy to brainstorm new ideas, knowing where you are more likely to find success. I can come up with an abundance of possibilities in different areas of my business, like increasing revenue, efficiency, leader development and any other foundational business elements.
The end result is a clear and realistic strategy focused on the top goals that will have the biggest impact on my business.
And do not underestimate the value of taking time out of the day-to-day operations to think about your business and work ON it instead of IN it. This type of planning gets you to think about your business on a deeper, more detailed level - something that many business owners never take the time to do because they are struggling to keep up and get through each day.
I recently surveyed the group I’ve been working with quarterly to learn what the benefits have been for them from doing the planning process continually.
Impact on Business
Previous ideas that went nowhere and had them stuck were accomplished after two or three quarterly sessions. They accomplished more in less time by breaking down big tasks realistically. By keeping weekly plans in view to stay on track they were able to stay organized and focused with less overwhelm.
Breaking down goals and scheduling steps on the calendar allowed them to reverse engineer how things had to get done. This meant more success reaching goals with less stress, burnout, and long days.
Are The Reflection and Brainstorming Valuable?
This was unanimous - the built-in reflection and brainstorming time in the sessions is priceless. It gave them time to gather insight on the actual importance of things that fell to the bottom of the priority list and didn’t get accomplished. They know they can make different choices moving forward.
It allowed them to:
Take time to recognize accomplishments, not just critique themselves.
Become clear on what can and cannot be accomplished reasonably in 90 days
Realize they completed more than they thought
Consider what is and isn’t working and how to address and remove obstacles
Bring up ideas they hadn’t considered before
Strategize how to take action on making those ideas reachable goals
How Quarterly Planning Helps With Focus Over the 12 Weeks
Once you know the simple system of clarifying, organizing, planning, and scheduling, you can utilize your time more efficiently. No more getting caught up in the daily minutia when you have a clear strategy for your main priorities and goals.
When you’ve completed this process more than once, you can track your progress from one quarter to another, see how much you’ve done, and what’s left. And you have the documentation to show your progress. Breaking down goals is the key to task execution. It helps to check off more boxes, get ahead, and reach your goals.
Here is some praise I received from the group:
“It sounds so simple, and maybe it is, but it has changed my business.”
“Thank you!!! This process is teaching me to plan in a way that works for me.”
“I am sort of a ‘done and don't look back’ type of person however when I reflect, I feel, accomplished, proud and HAPPY.”
“I have a hundred planners and have tried lots of systems, nothing has worked until I started working with you.”
As a business strategist, I see the incredible benefits of using quarterly CEO Power Planning sessions. Registration for December CEO Power Planning will open soon. Join the wait list here.