Creating a business plan for the New Year

We have approached the end of 2022! December is a great time to start planning for the upcoming year. As a business owner, evaluate who of your employees is part of your A-Team. Look at ways you can grow as a leader and how you can encourage those around you to do the same. As business owners gear up for the new fiscal year, budget planning should be at the top of their priority list. Budget planning doesn’t just shed light on the dollars and cents, your overhead and projected profits. It can also help to provide beneficial insight based on data on what areas of your business you’re successful in and the areas that require more of your attention and some tweaking. Sometimes, what may seem as the most minor of adjustments, can have a long lasting and beneficial impacts on your business.

When creating a budget plan for the new fiscal year, you may want to ask yourself these questions. Do you know what your current monthly projected income is? What are you basing this information off of? Do you know what percentage each of your customers contributed to your bottom line? What will you do if you lose a big client? In the same respect, what are your monthly expenditures? Is it the same each month? Can you cut any costs? How much of your assets are liquid? Do you have enough saved up to move money around when and if you need to?

Your budget plan is a significant part of the roadmap to success. Knowing where you stand financially month to month and setting up financial goals for the year; will allow you to make better strategic decisions. It will also help you to not only meet your goals but hopefully exceed them. Communication is key and when you communicate with your team, you should be basing the information off of data. If you know where you are at the present moment and where you would like to be six months or a year from now and HOW you can get there; your team will be able to make that a reality.

In a 2009 Ted Talk by Simon Sinek, he discussed inspiring action through leadership. In his discussion, he talks about how all great leaders think and act the same way. He took the successes of others and codified it into what he refers to as the “Golden Circle”. On the outermost part of the circle is What you do. This is easy for people to explain. Everyone knows WHAT they do. Next, you need to be able to explain HOW you do what you do. The innermost part of the circle, is WHY you do what you do. Very few people have this part down. Most business owners operate from the outside in. The most successful people operate from the inside out. WHY they do what they do is so compelling, that potential clients and customers are convinced that working with them or buying a product from them is far better than working with or buying from their competitors.

Business owners can’t do everything themselves. For a company to operate smoothly and to be successful, it requires the work and help of others. Every CEO needs an A-Team. James Clear, Author of Atomic Habits, states it perfectly. “Nobody accomplishes anything significant alone. But nobody accomplishes anything significant by accident either.” Knowing WHY you do what you do and assembling a staff that both understands that message and are good at what they do are essential characteristics of the individuals you consider to be on your A-Team. Your A-Team is more than a group of your employees. They are individuals you can trust to get the job done, to support the work that you do and motivate the other employees in your company to be and do their best.

Leadership development is critical not only for you as the CEO but to also encourage and provide meaningful learning opportunities for your staff to build up and sharpen their own skillsets. A successful business requires a competent and insightful leader at the helm. A good leader understands that by building others up around them, everyone benefits. Leadership development is also an ongoing process. Strive to learn something new, improve your knowledge on a topic by reading a book on the subject, attend a lecture or a workshop. When you come across something meaningful that has impacted your way of thinking, pass it along to others. Individuals who are eager and hungry for knowledge are more likely to excel in business and in life.

Peer Advisory Groups, Executive Education and Professional Development are all ways to foster and encourage leadership development. At COMPEL CEOs, we offer several different types of Peer Advisory groups for owners and executives, each focusing on a different level of business – whether you’re a mature, established business working on strategy or a solopreneur aiming for greater growth. COMPEL members seek to progress during their career as business owners, moving from tactical CEOs to strategic CEOs with the end goal in mind of either the sale or transition of their business. Having a forum at your disposal where you and your peers can discuss your challenges and HOW you overcame them can provide you with innumerable benefits. Executive Education programs are another great way to help business leaders gain new skills and strategies to tackle the obstacles they will face and aid them to make better decisions in real time. These opportunities will allow you to reimagine your company’s future and take your concept of success to new heights.

Best,
Jamie Ramerini