A Guide for Writing a Sustainable Business Action Plan
You’ve made it! Your business was launched, has grown, and you are ready to move to the next level.
When you began your company, you created a business plan. That may have been for your own purposes or to attract loans and/or investors. However, it contained all of the information and projections you needed to determine whether your business idea was viable and had a good chance of success.
Now it is time to move even further. And that will mean you will want to establish business action plans for continued growth.
The Difference Between a Business Plan and a Business Action Plan
Your business plan is not a business action plan. But you do use your business plan as a guide as you establish a business action plan. Your business plan outlined what you intended to accomplish; your business action plan outlines exactly how you plan to achieve the objectives you have established for growth.
Key Components and Steps in Formulating Your Action Plan.
An action plan is based upon an objective you set for your business growth and comes with a time frame for achievement. Here are the key components of that plan and the actions you will take to implement them.
1) Identify the Gap
What is the difference between where you are right now and where you want to be in a specific time period? Do you want to enlarge your customer base by a certain number? Do you want to establish an international presence? Do you want to add a new product or service? Each of these objectives will require a different action play, but all of them point to expansion that will increase revenue.
2) Take a Realistic Look at Your Financial Status
Any growth will entail a financial investment. Project the cost of your new initiative. What are your current sources of revenue? What funds have you or can you set aside for implementing your action plan? Will you need to seek loans or additional investors? You cannot begin any initiative until you know you will have the necessary funds. Maintaining a keen eye on your finances is critical.
3) Any Action Plan Will Involve Customers
Think about it. Whether you are developing a new product or service or enlarging your customer base, the bottom line is getting more customers for more revenue.
Certainly, you know who your current customer is. And that profile should be researched and updated regularly. Purchasing behaviors, values, etc. can change over time. So, be certain you have a full handle on your current audience.
You may be looking to enlarge your customer base in some way – either moving into an additional demographic with a new product or service or perhaps expanding your market internationally with current products or services.
Expansion of a customer base will involve research – lots of it. For this, you will probably want to use data science technology. Fortunately, data science services can help you formulate the right questions to ask, gather data from the ocean of content on the web, organize that data, and then provide full reporting to you. As a result, you will know whether there is a real market for what you want to sell to any new demographic; you will know their needs, their values, and purchasing behaviors; you will know how much competition you face. Targeting audiences really has become a scientific endeavor today.
4) Determine How You Will Establish a Unique Position in Your Market
What separates you from your competition? First, you need to understand the key pain points of your audience and determine how you will show that you provide a better solution than the others. Craft a clear, simple message the will “hit home” with your audience.
A perfect example of this is Dollar Shave Club. Disposable razors had been on the market for years. But what were the pain points of these customers? They had to remember to stop by the store and buy shaving blades; otherwise, they would be left with dull, dirty razors. What if those razors were delivered to their doors once a month, so they didn’t have to worry about the logistics of having a supply? And that is just what this company established – a subscription service for razors! The founders had established their unique position in the market and turned that company into a multi-million-dollar business.
Identify the benefit you provide that your competition does not. This is the message to your expanded target audience (via marketing, of course), and it is what potential lenders and investors will want to see.
5) Set Benchmarks
Depending on your action plan, you will have a “destination date,” the date at which the implemented plan has achieved your objective. Even if the action plan is only 90 days in duration, you will still want to establish a calendar with identified benchmarks along the way and the actions to be completed by each benchmark.
6) Determine your Marketing Channels and Strategies
You already know what marketing strategies and which platforms have been successful with your current audience. If you are expanding your audience, you will need to use your data science research to understand several things:
Their pain points
Where they hang out online
What they value in products or services they purchase
What they value in the companies with whom they do business
Any content you create will take these points into account.
The other part of this critical piece is the assignment or delegation of a responsible person for creating the content, publishing it, monitoring its effectiveness, and revising as needed. If your business is small and without the staff to do this, then you may want to outsource this function, if only for a review and grammar check of what you have crafted. You can start with GetGoodGrade, an online writing service that has a department specifically devoted to business content, and its customer reviews are quite positive. Many of these companies serve students from high school forward, but many have also developed an expert department for all types of business writing, as this need has grown.
7) Continue to Monitor and Evaluate
All of the above 6 components will require persistent and scheduled reviews to ensure that you are on track and to modify what may not be working well.
No Business Action Plan is Carved in Stone
Consider your action plan to be a framework and a starting point for achieving a business objective you have identified. Each component should be considered flexible as you move forward with it. Your finances may change; you may discover new things about your target audience; a new product or service in the works may take longer than expected to produce. Allow for these events and your need to modify your plan accordingly.
Jessica Fender is a copywriter and blogger at Writeload with a background in marketing and sales. She enjoys sharing her experience with like-minded professionals who aim to provide customers with high-quality services.