Follow That Puck! A Common-Sense Guide to Planning for Your Small Business
So why do such innocuous phrases as “six hat thinking” or “strategic planning model” or worse, “Hoshin Kanri,” cause your throat to constrict and set your fight-or-flight instincts into high gear?
Relax! You can demystify and defang the dreaded business planning process — and save yourself thousands of dollars in consultants’ fees — by understanding the common-sense principles and processes that underpin solid, old-fashioned marketing planning.
Once you’ve examined your own business, customer base and planning needs in that light — and who better than you to do that? — you’ll be in a position to decide whether to proceed with internal planning on your own, or whether outside help is actually warranted.
Begin at the Beginning
Situation. Objectives. Strategies. SOS, for short, and it need not always spell trouble. But all business and marketing planning begins there.
Hockey great Wayne Gretzky, when asked to explain his phenomenal scoring ability, said simply, “I skate to where I think the puck will be.”
In short, that describes Gretzky’s personal strategic plan. No one could argue the strength of its success.
Situation: He knows where he is on the ice at the moment and where his target (the puck) is at all times.
Objective: His singular, focused objective is to plot a course across the ice, through an adrenaline-pumped mob of large men with big sticks, to reach his destination.
Strategy: Gretzky’s self-described strategy is ultimately to employ his experience, instincts and knowledge of the players and the game … to place himself, and the puck, in the same place at the same time, moving unstoppably together at high speed in the direction of the goal.
Like Gretzky, any business aggressively pursuing success through action — whether the focus is system, marketing, sales, training, promotion, manufacturing — needs to plan for improvements in the “game.” Don’t just plan them, but plan them so they may be easily executed, even when the author of them is no longer in the action.
The Planning Trilogy
And to plan effectively, you must be able to knowledgeably answer three fundamental questions about your business, industry, competition and markets:
1. Where are we? List the good, the bad and the ugly, no holding back. Use current statistics and figures, and no fudging!
2. Where are we going? Be honest and realistic. If your industry is evaporating, you need to acknowledge that in order to plan your own survival strategies. If you’re on the edge of a breakthrough, say so and document what you know. It’ll impact your investment strategies and make chats with the bank so much easier.
3. How are we going to get there? Get bigger, get smaller, get leaner, get smarter, get more business, get rid of losers … whatever you believe you need to do, write it down and be as detailed as possible each time around.
To result in effective planning, the answers to those three questions must be based on facts, not hunches or prejudices!
Your Assets Inventory
Research and facts — about your business, your challenges, your competitors, your customers — should be entered regularly into a comprehensive database that becomes your roadmap to success. Call it your Assets Inventory.
You need it because research and facts, even those gathered carefully but at low cost, strengthen your judgment and will aid you in avoiding marketing and strategic landmines.
By keeping track on paper of where you are and where you’re going, you’re also tracking critical product, market and competitive information that is absolutely required to make important decisions, as opposed to using guesswork, playing hunches or following a path of wishful thinking.
The GOSTT Process
Whether it’s management-by-objectives, a SWOT analysis, Hoshin Kanri for manufacturing, or community marketing, the process, simply put, is stepped out in this common-sense and logical way:
Goals. Objectives. Strategies. Tactics. Timetables.
Goals
Your goals should be shared by and with the entire organization, and should answer the questions, “What do we want to achieve as the result of our efforts? What do we want to be or become?” Through goal-setting, you’re presenting your overall visions for your business, your workplace and those impacting it and impacted by it.
Objectives
Your objectives relate directly to your goals, and always begin with the word “to.” They’re quantifiable and measurable; they set a percentage of increase, a dollar amount of savings or a number of new customers added. They should contain a timeframe during which you expect to reach the objective, and they should be realistic, attainable and even beatable.
Strategies
Strategies are action-oriented and support your goals and objectives. They answer the question, “How can we meet our objective?” Strategies suggest specific, actionable programs or projects that, when implemented in conjunction with other strategies, will yield the desired, quantifiable results.
Tactics
Your tactics are the projects and tools you need to successfully execute your strategies. For instance, if one of your strategies is to cut prices to increase foot traffic in your store, a supporting tactic might include developing an annual promotional plan that offers off-price promotions at specific times throughout the year. Tactics, in short, answer the question, “What will it take to implement this strategy?”
Timetables
Everyone knows that if it’s not on the calendar, it’s not going to happen. So your final planning task is to start putting dates and names next to each action item. Who will develop that promotional plan and by when? How long a lead-time do you need to execute that training program? By when do you need the customer database in place in order to meet your timetable for retention programming?
Once you’ve tried your hand at implementing your own internal planning process, you will likely find that you don’t need a high-priced Hoshin facilitator. Or a six-hat trainer. Or a Total Quality blitz.
Maybe, in the end, your small business is better off without a full-blown, year-long Hoshin Kanri “policy deployment” in favor of good, old-fashioned, plain-English hard work, common courtesy and common sense! The important thing to remember is that it’s your business — you get to choose!
