6 Simple Steps To An Effective Quarterly Business Planning Strategy
Quarterly business planning can help you to streamline your planning process, focus more effectively on the projects and activities that will drive the most results, and create more direction and structure within your business. Since implementing a quarterly business planning practice, I have noticed that I start and complete projects with much more ease and feel more focused as well as productive when working on tasks. What I love about quarterly planning is that it leaves room for flexibility, creativity and innovation. By looking at each year in 4 quarterly seasons, you can plan in a way that honors your own seasons within your business and life, helping you to create more balance in the process. Within this article I am going to break down my 6-step quarterly business planning strategy that you will be able to take away and begin implementing!
I first got into quarterly business planning several years back after finding the idea of planning for a whole year too overwhelming and planning for only a month at a time too short of a window. I noticed that when I would planning for a whole year that, more often than not, the things I intended to work or focus on at later times of the year shifted entirely, making me feel like I wasted a lot of time planning for something that was not even going to most likely happen. When I switched to planning month-by-month, it left me feeling like I was always in planning mode and could never catch up. I didn’t enjoy long term, yearly planning because it felt too far out and thus hard to predict, yet I also didn’t enjoy short term, monthly planning because it felt too rushed and didn’t provide me with enough time to execute things. Switching into quarterly planning has wound up being the sweet spot, where I feel like I have just enough time to plan, design, develop and execute my ideas while also thinking long term enough that I know where I am intending to head.
Finding your unique planning style
What I find to be most helpful when it comes to establishing your planning methodology is thinking both short and long term. Doing one or the other often causes things to get messy in more ways than one, yet when you combine them together it often leads to a really smooth and strategic process. I love planning in quarterly, three month windows because I can set intentions for where I want to head and what I want to accomplish for 4 seasons within the year. Doing so allows me to also consider what type of speed, pace, energy and mood I may be in during those 4 seasons, where I then plan my projects and large areas of focus according to that. For example, I often like to slow down toward the end of the year, take time off, and focus more on internal infrastructures in the winter. I do not, however, love to be in big action taking modes or be producing a lot of front facing work. Knowing this about myself helps me to set intentions for the fourth quarter of the year, assigning specific areas of focus to that period of time that align with how I like to work. I also have noticed that the first quarter of the year is typically a planning and innovation season for me. I tend to get a lot of ideas that need hashed out, developed, and then I have to make decisions about what ideas get picked up and carried onward or dropped. I do not like to be in heavy action taking mode or launch mode in the first quarter of the year for this reason, which further helps me assign specific projects and activities during this window of time that best suite the way I like to work. Furthermore, during the second and third quarters of the year, I usually am starting to push new projects into production mode, get more front end heavy with action taking and development of new ideas, and starting to market myself and my brand much more. Knowing this helps me assign specific tasks and activities to these quarters so that I am in alignment with how I work best.
Knowing how you like to work is the first step to beginning to set up a really nice quarterly planning process. We want to consider how our creativity flows, when we are more prone to being visible, active, and action-oriented…and when we are more likely to want to go behind the scenes, slow down, or focus on back end things. By designating specific themes and traits to each quarter of the year, you can now begin to lay out your quarterly planning process by following my 6-step process!
Step 1
Step one of my quarterly business planning process is all about reflection. Before we go into planning for our future, we must first reflect on the past so that we can learn from it! During this phase you want to take time to reflect on the previous 90 days. As you reflect, jot down the biggest highlights from the previous 90 days that you consider important and impactful to supporting you in getting to where you are today. Your highlights will consist of events, successes, or accomplishments you feel proud about that took place over the previous 90 days. Once you do this, you then want to do the second part of this step which is to jot down what helped lead you to experiencing those outcomes. This part is where you reflect and write down what actions, decisions, or habits helped you to create those highlights. To complete this step, also consider if there is anything you would do differently next time in comparison to your highlights and the activities that supported them in happening.
What is something I am proud of myself for accomplishing or achieving over the last 90 days?
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What is something I am proud of myself for accomplishing or achieving over the last 90 days? |
Step 2
Now that you have reflected, it’s time to assess! Part 2 of my 6-step process is all about reviewing the activities you consistently did over the last 90 days. As you do so, make a list of the activities you did most often and the areas you invested the most of your time, focus and energy into. Once you make your list, rate the activities to help you decide which ones you wish to do less of, more of, or keep doing the same amount. What this is going to help you to do is identify what you did over the past 90 days, supporting you in seeing what contributed to you getting to where you are today. As you rate your actions, think about what activities felt the most impactful in driving your desired results versus what activities may have not felt very beneficial. This is going to guide you in identifying what activities you are going to want to carry into the new quarter.
What do I want to do more of and what do I want to do less of over the next 90 days?
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What do I want to do more of and what do I want to do less of over the next 90 days? |
Part 3
The next part to this strategy is to design your vision for the next 90 days. Begin identifying the vision for the next 90 days by laying out any themes, concepts, and areas you want to primarily focus on over the course of the next 3 months. Remember what I mentioned in the beginning of this article about theming your quarters of each year based on how you like to work and what will best support your creative flow, considering what season you are about to enter into and how you like to work within it. To help you shape your vision, think about what you want to grow, nurture, and maintain within your business within the upcoming quarter as well as what you want to start, stop, or put on pause. Once you craft your vision, you should now know what theme your upcoming quarter is and what you want to be focusing on in a broad sense.
What do I want to grow, nurture and maintain over the next 3 months?
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What do I want to grow, nurture and maintain over the next 3 months? |
Part 4
Referencing your vision for the next 90 days, begin defining the main goals you wish to be working toward for the next three months. Remember to think about what you want to grow, nurture and maintain as well as what themes, concepts and areas you want to focus as you set your goals. When setting goals, remind yourself that they need to be specific, tangible, and trackable. If you are unsure how to track your goal, find out or reach out to someone who specializes in helping people within the area you are looking to focus on! Once you identify your goals, declare why it matters to you and what projects you need to work on to support the goal in actualizing. This is the most important part of goal setting because it helps you connect to the purpose for your goals and what you need to do in order to see your goals come to life. Its great to set goals, but what matters most is attaching a reasoning for them and a game plan for how you will accomplish them! To complete this part of my strategy, end by defining the ranges for your goals that will help you decide how you will define the success rate for the goal. As an example: Say that one of your goals is to increase your audience size on Instagram. That’s a great goal and is surely trackable as well as tangible, but we need to define how we will track it and what we need to take action on so that the goal becomes a real thing! You could establish a range of success for this goal by stating that you want to grow your audience between (low) 100 to (high) 500 people over the course of the next quarter. Doing so gives you a low ball and high ball measurement for where you are trying to go and then you have specifics to track and measure! Once you establish your range, you then want to decide what activities you will consistently be implementing over the quarter and what projects you will be focusing on to help you achieve that goal. A project for the above example could be to develop a communications and networking strategy for your business.
What do I need to take action on in order to see my goals come to life?
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What do I need to take action on in order to see my goals come to life? |
Part 5
Speaking of activities, as we move into part 5 of my quarterly business planning strategy we are now establishing the activities you need to do in relation to each project that supports your goals. The projects that are attached to your goals are the things you need to put into place to support your goals and the activities you attach to your projects are the tasks you need to complete in order to complete the project! As an example: If you are wanting to develop and release a new course within the upcoming quarter, your project would be to create the course and your activities would be the things you need to do to complete the creation of the course! During this phase you should know what you are focusing on for the quarter you are planning for, what projects you are working on for the quarter you are planning for, what your goals are for the quarter you are planning for, what your vision is for the quarter you are planning for, and now what your activities will be. Your activities list is something you want to consistently keep coming back to, updating, and further developing throughout the quarter. How I personally approach this is that, once I know what my vision, goals and projects are for a quarter, I then sit down and dissect the projects themselves in a way that gives me a master list of activities I need to complete in order to execute my project. What’s nice about this method is that, once you have your activities list, you now have your project to do list that can be built into your weekly and monthly calendar. You can also begin to establish deadlines and due dates for activities to be completed and projects finished!
What activities will help me execute and complete my projects?
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What activities will help me execute and complete my projects? |
Part 6
The final part of my quarterly business planning process is to define what your daily, most essential, habits are. Think about what habits you want to instill into your day to day workflow that will support you in moving toward your goals as well as completing your projects. Chances are, there are certain activities that you need or want to be doing every day during work hours that will ultimately support your vision, goals and projects in completing. This is the time to identify what habits (both work actions and non-work habits like self care practices!) will support your quarterly strategy. As an example, when I plan my daily habits they often include my daily self care practice because that helps my energy levels, mood, productivity and focus. My habits also include things like checking and answering my emails and DMs, networking and communication activities, client work and client communication. Depending on what projects, goals, and vision I have for the quarter I am in, I will then also have daily habits that may not be every day, but rather, on specific days in the week. For instance, if I am working on developing and releasing a new service, I will have specific days in the week designated as my ‘project development’ days, where I block off time on my calendar for working through the activities i’ve assigned to that project. If I have the goal to grow my brand presence, then I would have specific days blocked off on my calendar for activities that would help me do so. This final part of the planning process is all about properly managing your day to day life, schedule and calendar in a way that creates an environment that is conducive to growing your goals!
What daily habits do I need to instill in order to create an environment that is conducive to achieving my goals?
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What daily habits do I need to instill in order to create an environment that is conducive to achieving my goals? |
Now that you have my 6-step strategy for quarterly business planning, you can begin to start implementing each step on your own. If you would like additional support in planning or have some pretty lofty projects on the agenda to begin tackling in future quarters and would like some support, i’d love to chat and be of service in helping you create a seamless process for your projects to come alive! Feel free to reach out to me about helping you implement a solid business or project planning strategy into your own business or check out The School of Business with a Conscience Resource Library where you can access and download my Quarterly and Yearly Planning Workbooks!
Until next time…
Natalie Brite
