Well it’s been a long and arduous year, sometimes it feels like all your effort is simply tiring and the rewards are few and far between. Throughout the year, there have been a few times where you honestly felt like giving up…. But being the determined person that you are, you know you won’t, so we will just push on striking at every opportunity that comes our way! Won’t we?

Mind Mapping

Business is a lot easier if you plan, it is rewarding and you will be surprised just what can be accomplished if you map out a trajectory. This article is about Mind Mapping.

If it’s not written down, you will never know how you are really performing!

1. How to Start

Mind Mapping begins by identifying the core business elements:

• What are the essential business products and services, list what your business will need to retain to stay in business and forget what it can afford to loose (keep it brief and simple)
• What are the biggest risks to those essential products and services, how are these best managed?
• Who are your biggest competitors? How do you protect your customers from seeking alternative competitors?
• What are your current industry trends? How do competitors position themselves to combat the changing market trends? (you need to undertake regular market research)

Now that you have listed the core business focal elements and you know what will damage your business; but most importantly, you know what things are needed to overcome potential adverse situations.

2. Create an Action Register

We need to build an ‘Action Item Register’ which begins by listing the priority points “Red Flags” that you have already outlined from above.

Give the item a description, what is the item is called and what is it about? (use something simple that will remind you every time you see it)

• Why is this item important, list the potential danger if it is not completed
• Who is responsible for completing the item – delegate responsibility
• What date is the item going to be “closed out” (timeframe must be reasonably achievable or it is pointless)
• Does the item require a series of targets to be documented before the objective is fully accomplished; if so, make the targets sub categories and achieve them one-by-one

3. Strategic Growth, Targets and Objectives

It is fundamental for any strategic business plan to identify business objectives; those ‘business growth and sustainability’ measures, objectives are achievable through an array of pre-determined and documented targets. By simply achieving the targets sequentially, the business is directed towards achieving the objective.

What are the most important targets and objectives?

Each business is different, however this list may be a prompter to help your business mind mapping:

• What complimentary services or products will either grow or promote the existing core business? (refer items 1 & 2 above)
• What resource integration techniques will streamline existing business services or products?
• What technology is available to advance the business services and products that competitors aren’t taking advantage of?
• What improvements are required to add value to the customers experience, how can you offer something that customers want that competitors don’t have?

These items are standard vertical and horizontal integration techniques, which are the most common forms of business growth and sustainability planning.

What other strategic targets and objectives are there?

Based upon existing business trends, the business core products and services and be optimised. This is about maturing the core business:

• What is the best time to promote the business, approach customers, make key product or service decisions to give the business the best growth foundation?
• What are the legislative requirements for the business operation, can those compulsory business compliance tasks be reciprocated or collaborated throughout the business to initiate a simple and cost efficient approach to regulations?
• How do you maximise the customers involvement with the service or product experience, consider re-envigorating your brand?
  Are there assets that need to be replaced, and if so, are there plans in place to finance the ongoing maturity of ageing assets? How does this impact customer satisfaction?
• What recurring charges affect the ongoing business operation (insurance, taxes, rent, registration, licensing, administration, service costs etc.). These MUST be reviewed to ensure the ‘recurring charge strategy’ is not overlooked. It is very important to optimise the efficiency that recurring charges have upon the business.

Just because the business has always done it, doesn’t mean it always has to be done. Shake it up, and seek better alternative options!

So the biggest “Business Sustainability” issues, targets and objectives have now been addressed. This will let us get onto the “Business Growth” end of ‘Mind Mapping’ – which is where you can let yourself go and set some entrepreneurial goals for the year ahead.

4. Create Growth Objectives

“It takes and ambitious person to dream it, it takes an audacious person to achieve it.”

The growth objectives are about identifying the ambitious business opportunities that could be conquered if the business focussed on achieving them.

 

Generally, these items are extensions to the above list, taking the most audacious approach towards each line item and exploring the objectives might be able to ‘end up’ if there was enough drive, determination and focus made to achieve them.

For example: if you were a potato farmer, it would extend beyond just delivering the potatoes to the market utilising your own trucks; it would be about distributing the potatoes to your own chip making factories on every continent on earth and becoming the biggest agricultural and supply chain company on earth…!

Use what you already know, and then explore well beyond what most people will ever conceive is possible. It’s about creating something extraordinary!

These are often goals that traverse years to achieve, although they have to start somewhere! so write it down and get things moving…..

5. Watch Out for the Pitfalls

These are regular pitfalls when it comes to people using these strategies in Mind Mapping!

1. Don’t use the value of money as a driver (a target or an objective) – this will cause you to be distracted.
2. Don’t share your goals with people who don’t need to know them – this will cause you to be distracted.
3. Don’t judge your ability by not achieving all your goals – focus your satisfaction on the positives and forget the negatives.
4. Nothing is ever achieved overnight – business success is a work in progress. Don’t stop working, embrace every achievement! Continually Reflect….

So if you have ever contemplated growing your business – The most important thing about business planning is starting by writing things down. The Mind Mapping process is a great starting point.

 

Written by Geoff Pike, Entrepreneur, Speaker & Business Mentor

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/geoff-pike-australia

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ABOUT GEOFF

Geoff founded a sole trader plumbing business in a remotely located and vastly underpopulated location in outback Australia. Starting business with only enough money to pay 4 weeks wages, Geoff persisted by growing the business into a multi-disciplined trade services company. Over a period of 12 years, the company Geoff established grew to employ a workforce of over 300 personnel covering an area almost half the size of Europe, receiving international award recognition with an annual revenue of over $30mil. Geoff knows what it takes to overcome adversity.