THINKIN’ OF A MASTER PLAN: Business/Career Planning for 2010

The sleigh bells have already started ringing and we can just taste the eggnog already. 2009 has come to a close and we are already looking 2010 dead in the eye! So what kind of career and business moves are you planning to make in the New Year?

We all made those rhyming statements last year about what we were leaving behind in ’09, but where was the plan? Did you find that you added business ambitions to your

resolution list last year that you’ll probably be adding to the list for 2010? Make the difference this year—develop a realistic plan that will help you actually complete the task at hand. Don’t know where to start? The Social Chix are here to save the day!

1. START BROAD

Goal setting is the key to planning because identifying your what you WANT

will determine what you NEED. Ponder on your goals for the next 5 years and where you’d like to see yourself and your business. What kind of money can you make? How much do you see yourself expanding? What kind of accomplishments would you like to make? What awards in your field would you like to win? These are the kinds of questions you want to ask yourself when positioning yourself in the coming years. Think of the kind of clientele you’d like to service and what you’d like to be able to say about your career or your company.

List your goals out “brainstorm” style and decide which of these goals or what steps towards these goals can be made in the coming year.

2. BREAK IT DOWN

First, break the year into quarters. This will allow you to section off your planning and your measure of progress through the year. Next, dissect your goals and decide what steps must be taken to make each goal a reality. Try to think of the resources you may need at each step whether it’s information from business assistance agency, money, certification of some sort or someone in business you know who can help you in some way.

Develop a list of tasks for each step that leads you to each of your goals for the year. Include the steps needed to obtain the resources you’ve listed as well. Now, you can place your steps and tasks into each quarter and then identify what months each task should fall under. Once you’ve gotten this far you should begin to assign weeks and then days to your tasks. Understand that some of your plans may change and move around, but it’s so much easier to move your tasks by the day later on than to have no clue where you’re starting (which can be discouraging as hell!)

3. TRIM THE FAT

As you plan your progress for 2010, you will notice that some of your goals will take longer than just one year to complete. That’s okay! It’s also okay if you realize that some of the goals you thought you wanted to complete are no longer in sync with your overall plan—This is good! Yearly planning helps us to weed out the unnecessary “business baggage” we hold on to all year when we don’t plan. You know, the stuff you keep holding onto in the back of your mind thinking you should’ve done all the way to December.

4. GET TO WORK YOU LACKEY!

Now that you’ve planned your journey to the success of 2010, you can rest knowing you’ll be a few steps closer to your next big business move. Did we say “rest”? Sorry, if you’ve tasked out this year in as much detail as you should have, you probably won’t be doing a whole lot of resting, but you can at least feel good about the all New Year business celebrating you’ll be doing for 2011!