The Awesome Lyn Dong from Condon Associates is my dedication of this article. She is a master thinker and knows action plans inside out!
I was very lucky to meet with my colleagues and one of our great clients who is quite an impressive health entrepreneur who shall rename nameless (but she knows our admiration and respect for her). It was a few of us meeting over dinner and as we worked away – the main purpose of the meeting was to build a “90 Day Action Plan” for our client.
The action plan is basically fancy wording for working out what you are going to do, in what order and who is responsible for what in the next 90 days. It’s as simple as putting it into an Excel Spreadsheet – and despite it’s simplicity, it’s extremely powerful in it’s benefits for the business owner.
I have found over the years that there is quite a bit of misinformation out there. You get people running around saying “Oh Plan your 1 year and 5 year plans” with very little attention to what you have to do immediately to get results & more profitable clients.
My take is that it’s great to have say a 5 year outlook, clear 1 year goals – however you have really strong details and guidelines as to what you have to do over the next 30, 60 and 90 days. One of my awesome colleauges Lyn Dong is a master of this type of exercise. She gets tasks, projects & items – and puts them into coherent lists so all gets done.
I use this planning approach myself (as I recommend to many successful clients) and the simple reason is that you can say whatever you want in planning 12 months from now – but the true reality is that if we aren’t carrying out “Profitable Actions” now, there is no way we can realize the improvements we seek in our businesses.
The other key aspect I have noted as well is that things “Tend to Unfold” as things proceed. If we just sit there planning / plotting our future, it can be very easy for weeks to months to pass with no results. If we start even the most basic plan, we get more experience, may get some great business results and in short – we start getting more knowledgeable and picking up what we have to do next.
My advice? If you are in business and say stuck – or say busy but * you know * you aren’t investing in the right projects – putting together a 90 Day Action Plan with key tasks is great. It’s best to focus on the 30 to 60 days more – and get right into wins that will give you traction. Quite often it may be finishing off a website, updating Facebook, LinkedIn, Coffee Chats, writing up Sales Material – basically whatever is required.
Do it, get into it and love it.
Thank you for the read and love your work! Edward Zia – Marketing Mentor and creator of “The Awesome Marketing Vault” >> Access it Here!
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