Focus Now for a Headstart to 2022 Success

With holidays ahead and end-of-year doldrums, many are standing still with their business due to promised motivation “in the new year.” Instead, financial advisors should be ramping up for 2022, starting the year strong with a clear vision. According to Forbes, New Year’s resolutions fail about 80% of the time. Don’t find yourself under pressure to make time for your business growth once the holidays subside. Here’s how you can focus now for a head start for success in 2022. 

6 Strategies for a Successful 2022 Business Plan

In order to achieve success in any economy, whether your business has changed significantly due to the pandemic or not, requires a written business plan. Six key steps will help you maintain focus to determine where you want your business to go and how you’re going to get it there. We help our clients discover the future of their business with the One Page Business Plan. Lucky for you, we’re going to give you a small sample of what that looks like. 

Vision

Have you ever found yourself just going through the motions in your business? That can quickly lead to an unfulfilled feeling about work. Having a vision statement to keep you focused is key for growth and avoiding the busy work slum. During our One Page Business Plan presentation, we guide you through questions like: 

 

• What will your business look like in 1, 3, or 5 years?
• What sales goals are you striving for?
• What are you hoping to build?

 

Before beginning the 2022 business plan, you must have a clear vision to work backwards, completing the essential steps that will move you closer to your goal. What better time than the end of 2021 to reflect on where you are now and where you’d like to go?

Mission

Remember, your mission statement is what you are here to do, not what you see possible for others and your business. This is where you need to get specific about your actions, tasks or goals. You need to start thinking about: 

 

• What wants, needs, desires, pain, or problems do our product services solve?
• Why does our business exist?
• What are we promising our customers?

 

For 2022 to be successful, you must go through the framework of getting to the root of your whys before selling solutions you aren’t passionate about.

Objectives

Once you have completed step one, identifying your vision, and step two, discovering your mission, you must create S.M.A.R.T. objectives. These are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-bound. Don’t blanket statement “make a million dollars this year” without putting thought into it. The key elements when creating your objectives are: 

 

• Limiting yourself to 9 objectives per business plan. Don’t overdo it! 
• Only create objectives that can be measured.
• Create accountability with dates and names.

 

If you need help writing clear, concise objectives, visit our site, the One Page Business Plan. 

Strategy

The fourth critical step in your business plan for 2022 is creating strategies that include the framework for many decisions you’ll face throughout the year. Turning to your written business plan and reviewing the strategies regularly will help you forge ahead with a clear path. Things to keep in mind are that strategies are broad statements that determine how you will build the company. Some of these strategies for consideration could include: 

 

• Guidelines for important decisions.
• Creating a framework for big decisions that may take some time.
• Create a roadmap for building and managing the company, highlighting what you will or will not do. 

Action Plans

Now comes the implementation of all your planning. Once you have the foundation to move forward, you can describe the actual “work” that will need to be done to accomplish what you’ve set out to do. These action plans are the execution steps that are implied in the Strategy and Objectives discovery process. They need to be specific, with accountability to ensure it gets done and be related to your key projects. 

 

Having this in place before the year begins helps you stay on the path you’ve created with what’s important instead of getting sidetracked with a project that isn’t going to benefit the ideal future you’ve been building. 

Purpose

During this process, your purpose will be defined by bringing together all of the steps above into cohesive values and behaviours. When you make decisions about your business that can’t be foreseen with your written plan, come back to your purpose to help guide you. 

Take a look at your calendar for the next few weeks and schedule 3 days to set aside time to work on your business instead of in it. That way, you can enter the holidays with a peaceful mind, knowing what lies ahead for 2022. Focus now for a successful start later. 

To learn more about our One Page Business Plan, visit our dedicated page here.