Thinking big isn’t often the problem for entrepreneurs and small business owners. We like to dream and aspire and reach for higher heights. But with this strength, comes a consequential weakness.

The problem is turning our lofty goals into reality. Entrepreneurial people don’t much like the detail, even though we know that our ideas only become reality when our head is in the clouds at the same time that our feet are planted on the ground.

To be successful in business, we need both the big picture and the detailed picture. So to give you a hand at getting through from the big picture to the detailed picture, and thus increasing your chances of success, here’s a checklist to anchor your vision into daily action:

STEP 1: Express Your Lofty Strategy

__ Write a vision statement that inspires you to become something bigger.

__ Write a mission statement that focuses you on the value you bring your customers.

__ List the values that will underpin every decision you make and action you take.

__ Articulate your strategic theme for the coming year, and the goals that support it.

__ Choose a few very powerful KPIs (metrics) to track your goals.

STEP 2: Clarify Your Business Model

__ Describe who your ideal customer is.

__ List the products and services that support your mission and vision.

__ List the core business activities that support your product and service delivery.

__ Create your Operational Budget.

STEP 3: Map Out Your Service Delivery/Sales Plan

__ Quantify the sales and revenue each product and service should make next year.

__ Translate these figures into monthly estimates, for trend monitoring.

STEP 4: Write Your Strategic Project Plans

__ Decide on the most important strategic change projects (ie working ON the business).

__ For each project, articulate its purpose, results, milestones, timeframe and inputs.

__ Create your Strategic Budget.

STEP 5: Create Your Personal Development Plan

__ Ponder what skills and knowledge you’ll need to execute your strategy.

__ Write yourself a personal develop plan, for training, coaching or other learning.

__ Add your personal development to your Strategic Budget.

STEP 6: Set Your Monthly Work Plan

__ Design how each month should look if you were executing your strategy.

__ Draft a monthly work plan to guide how you’ll schedule your time.

STEP 7: Detail Service Delivery and Strategic Project Task Plans

__ For each change project and service delivery process, list the tasks required.

__ Add who, when, how much and how long to each task.

__ You’re ready to execute your strategy!

TAKE ACTION:
If you haven’t detailed your action plan for making your big ideas become reality in 2010, now is the perfect time to do it. Don’t start 2010 without knowing what you’ll be doing first day back at work after the Christmas Holidays!

Stacey Barr is a specialist in performance measurement, helping micro and small business owners to move their business results from where they are, to where they want them to be, using powerful, transformational measures. To grab your free copy of Stacey’s Special Report “7 Clues to Measure What Matters In Micro & Small Business”, visit www.staceybarr.com/smallbusiness.

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/management-articles/from-strategy-to-action-a-checklist-for-how-to-make-your-business-plan-executable-1521247.html