BRX Pro Tip: Annual Planning
Stone Payton : And we’re back with Business RadioX Pro Tips. Stone Payton and Lee Kantor here with you. Lee, today’s topic: annual planning.
Lee Kantor: Yeah. Annual planning is something that every leader should be doing. You should, at least once a year, have some kind of goals that are a year-long. Obviously, you’re going to tweak and adjust things as you go on, and you should be checking on the progress of that throughout the year. But most professionals aren’t even doing that. They’re just kind of living week to week, month to month, quarter to quarter, reacting to whatever is urgently in front of them.
Lee Kantor: But when you step back and you plan annually, then you can start to become a little more strategic. In January, figure out what success looks like for the year, what revenue do you want, how many clients, what relationships do you want to build. What processes do you want to put in place that help you get to the outcome you desire? What skills do you want to develop? All of those things are important, but when you look at it through the lens of a year, you can kind of drop them in throughout the year so that you’re getting to where you want to go by the end of the year.
Lee Kantor: So sure, break things down into smaller milestones, maybe weekly, monthly, quarterly; weekly, monthly, quarterly actions that you’re going to take. And then you work backwards. So, every week, you’re working towards that plan instead of just putting out a fire that occurred yesterday. You’re going to feel more in control. You’re going to hit your goals more often.
Lee Kantor: This is something that doesn’t have to be super complicated. A one-page document with just kind of annual goals, quarterly milestones, and monthly focus areas is probably enough for most people. It’s probably a good idea to block off a few hours at the end of the year to do this, and a few hours month to month to make sure you’re on track.
Lee Kantor: So, if you don’t know what next year is going to look like, then maybe you should start planning for it today.
