Expert Panelists are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within the areas of Business, Mindset, Leadership, Lifestyle, and Sustainability. Members of The Brainz Magazine community of experts will share their best tips, advice, ideas, and hacks on different topics.
Expert Panelists
1. Using your business plan as your very own compass
Every day, keep your business plan in mind. It is your compass. It is your lighthouse. It is your North Star. While navigating the wild ocean of your company’s day-to-day management will help you keep your destination in sight. At least for a while. Furthermore, ask yourself if what you are currently doing helps you achieve your business plan goals, staying the course on the end arrival. If the answer is yes, keep doing it. If the answer is no, stop doing it. All actions that don’t lead to our goals distract us from them.
2. Hiring a good business coach
Once you have a business plan in place, it's time to start putting it into action. Here are three key things entrepreneurs should do to ensure their business plan is successful:
Network: One of the most important aspects of running a successful business is building relationships with potential customers and partners. Take advantage of networking opportunities to gain valuable insights and build connections that can help your business grow.
Monitor Progress: As your business grows, it's important to stay on top of progress against your original plan. Make sure you are tracking key performance indicators and making adjustments as needed so that you can keep up with changes in the market or adjust for any other unexpected developments.
Get a Coach: The nature of entrepreneurship is that plans will often change quickly and unexpectedly. Be prepared to pivot when necessary so that your business can adapt. This is where getting a good business coach can make all the difference.
3. Implementing your plans
Having a plan is indeed fantastic. But implementing it is equally, if not more essential. Action, even in face of uncertainty is needed. Data is abundantly clear that we learn more from mistakes than from reading or listening. Thus we need to develop a culture of failing forward, rather than blame-shifting. Also important is the flexibility to change the business plan based on market input, performance, outcomes, analysis and real-time data.
Ketan Kulkarni, SavvyPhysician
4. Maximizing your time
You've got a business plan. Now what? It's time to reset your productivity patterns, become more efficient, and bust through the roadblocks to implement your plan and make the money you deserve. It's important to prioritize your tasks and work on the projects only you can do.
5. Identifying and clearing any limiting beliefs
As someone who has worked with many brilliant and successful people, I have found that an essential first step when creating any business is to get honest about what projections, expectations, judgments and points of view you have about the business and yourself. If you have fears or doubts, you need to identify the beliefs creating those feelings and challenge/shift them; otherwise, your fears may become a self-fulfilling prophecy, risking the success of your business. Ask yourself, are these beliefs actually true? What would it create if you let them go?
6. Knowing the aligned and best strategies for your goals
Knowing which actions/strategies are aligned with both you and your goals is often difficult. I developed a hack in my own business that I call “Money DNA” which worked so well, I use it in my teaching to others. In essence, “Money DNA” is about cultivating a fundamental understanding of how you best create wealth. This gives you clarity of vision and the ability to skip the trial & error, taking you straight to the actions/strategies that will yield the best results for you, and see your plans to fruition. Planning can make the action steps easier and more expedient… but remember that you still have to take them, in order to experience results.
7. Creating weekly "TOPs"
Once you have your strategy and your plan, you want to ensure you are setting yourself some clear targets to hit each week. I call these your weekly TOPs (Tactical Operating Procedures), so essentially the action you will do, to deliver the plan. Consistency in implementation is key to seeing results.
