What are short-term and long-term growth plans for a business?
I Need to learn how to grow a business and how can I go about establishing short term and long term goals so that they are inline with my objectives.
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Sep 22, 2014
I recommend creating a business action plan with specific milestones for each category of business. By setting specific milestones with deadlines, it will help you get focused on activity that will help you grow your business. If you need some help, send me a private message and lets set up a free session to go over your business.
Sep 22, 2014
Three simple things will help you define and achieve growth.
1 Get a good business accountant
2 Invest in a sound business plan
3 Engage an experienced marketing consultant
Sep 21, 2014
David ...Short-term is this week, next week, this month, next month, this quarter, next quarter, and this year. Long-term typically is 2, 3, 4, and/or 5 years into the future.
Your goals, strategy and tactics will be different for each time period. I would highly recommend that you start by looking at where you want to be at in 5 years. For example, you want to have $3M in revenue with 5 employees working from an office or a retail location selling 'widgets' or providing some sort of services with X% of business from 'widget/service 1', Y% from 'widget/service 2' and Z% from 'widget/service 3'.
Then you work backwards toward today and what needs to be accomplished. For example, write my business plan by the end of October. To do this I need to conduct market research on market potential, competition, office space and costs, typical of business entity to form, etc. this week. Next week I will decide which business entity form the business will have, need to fill out and file paper work with state to establish my business.
Your business plan will include financial, operational, sales and marketing elements. There is some great software like Business Plan Pro or LivePlan that will help walk you through the process. If you are in the United States, which your provide says, I would highly recommend going to your local SCORE office and find yourself a mentor(s) who can ask any questions you might have and they can also guide you through the process.
As Jacky mentioned your goals and plans must be SMARTER: specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, time-bound, evaluated, reviewed.
Sep 21, 2014
Creating a business plan and a marketing plan will help you determine the areas you need to focus on. These go step by step and determines what you need to do and what you need to change. If done correctly, these should answer your questions. If you have any other questions, let me know.
Sep 21, 2014
Hi David,
Your goals should be achievable, measurable outcomes that help you achieve your objectives. List your objectives and identify the ways to achieve them. If you need a template for goal setting, please send me a message and I can send the forms to you.
Sep 20, 2014
Whenever you do business, try to build a reserved capital to be used during crisis. This is mandatory. Gradual investment and stepwise expansion is good even if you have surplus capital.. otherwise investment takes an ungoverned route.
It is not about short-term or long term goal, but a steady growth.