Planning fo the New Year!

  The holiday season has arrived.  We are past Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday.  One of the questions that you are probably asking is, “How did I do, did I get any of the hype that the media talked about?”  Well, that is a great question, “Did you?”
   Of course, we don’t know unless we have DATA.  DATA comes in many forms, sales receipts, increased traffic counts, more phone calls, more folks into the stores, more deliveries and installations scheduled.  Depending upon your type of business determines the type of data you may have.  However, one thing that is crucial now at this time of the year is to begin planning for next year.
    Here is a link that my friend Rebecca Helvik, our Small Business Development Center director here in Billings, Montana  sent me.  Strategic Planning as discussed in Entrepreneur magazine.  They call it business planning, however, it is really strategic planning.  Now, this is not complicated or impossible.  Business Planning is the roadmap to tomorrow!  You know where you are today, planning is going to help you define the road to tomorrow.  This is not hard or complicated, however, many of our clients have found that working with us going through this actually saves time, money and lots of frustration and questions.
    When you use a consultant to help you plan for next year, you get an unbiased, objective viewpoint of your business that you may be unable to provide otherwise!  Our goal is to help you improve your business– we want to do that any way possible.  The checklist and defined items in the article give you a great start.  Give it a shot.  Get started!!!  If you need some help, or just want to talk, give us a call.