Day 28: Take Time To Think About The Future

Now that we are almost done with the 31 Days to Better Business, you should have received some great tips to help grow and build your business. Some of the tips are relative to the present day and time and some might have applied to the days to come. This is what I want to talk about right now, the future.

Any good business person knows you have to write out a 5 - 10 year business plan. I am sure some people never really visit that plan after they have written it out. They treat it like a term paper, write it out and turn it in then move on the the next project. For those of you who do revisit the business plan, how does it look? Are you on course for what you planned?

I know these plans are essential to the success of your business, but I am not going to focus on the business plan today. What I am going to focus on is the near future, basically just a year in advance. The good thing about this is it will stay fresh in your head and might help keep you on track. Of course once you get close to the end of that year, turn around and start on the next year.

So first you want to write down everything you feel you might want to accomplish in the next year. This can be anything from growing your customer base to cutting back on your work expenses. Be sure to write them down in a clear and understanding way so when you have to look back at them in a few months you know what it means.

Once you have these goals all hammered out what you might want to do is share them with some of the key people that can help you accomplish these goals. Make them aware of what you are trying to accomplish and how they might be able to help you with this goals. To make sure you are staying on par with these goals, maybe everyone should revisit them at the beginning of each month. If your employees are helping you meet one of your major goals you have set, be sure to reward them in the appropriate manner and this might help them to make sure the other goals are met.

Katie Laird, one o the hosts for the BusinessMakers Overtime, said once that she has a white board in her office that she writes out all her goals on. This way she can easily keep track of what she needs to get done.

So don't forget to look at your short term goals when planning for the future. Share with us any tips you might have to reaching your short term goals at our