How to create a 90-day plan for your business

Want to know how to create a 90-day plan for your business? Planning as a business owner is so important to ensure you use your resources (time, money, people) in the best way possible. If you’ve come across the idea of 90-day planning and want to give it a go for yourself, then you are in the right place. Keep on reading to find out how to create a 90-day plan for your business.

 

 

 

This page may include affiliate links, which means that if you choose to make a purchase, I may earn a commission. This commission comes at no additional cost to you. 

 

Please note: This is a simplified 90-day planning process as this blog post has been created for primarily for solo and micro service-based business owners.

 

90-day planning versus annual planning

Before I share how to create a 90-day plan for your business I want to quickly discuss 90-day planning versus annual planning. I am a big fan of BOTH types of planning. There are some business owners who have an annual plan and then feel this means they don’t need a 90-day plan as well, but I disagree with.

Annual planning is really important and I talk about this mo here – The importance of annual planning as a small business owner. Annual planning gives you the opportunity to think big and set the overall focus for the year. This is especially important when you want to make significant changes in your business such as pivoting niche, introducing new services, growing your team etc. Most of these changes require more than 3 months and so by taking the time to plan annual you’ll be able to plot when in the year and how long those changes may take. However, on the whole annual planning is fairly topline. When I work with clients timeline activity is limited to plotting on a month-by-month basis.

Whereas the beauty of 90-day planning is that with a smaller timeframe you can plan in more detail. It is feasible to plan on a week-by-week basis, which is why it is great to maximising productivity and ensure you use your resources (time, money, people) as efficiently as possible.

To reiterate I am a big fan of both. In an ideal world I recommend that once a year you take a day out to do your annual plan – which is why I offer one-to-one Strategy Days where I take business owners through my annual planning process. Then this should be supported by taking a few hours once every 90 days to put together a 90-day plan.

 

 

HOW TO CREATE A 90-DAY PLAN FOR YOUR BUSINESS

Step 1: Refer back to your annual goals

For this step I am assuming that you have got some annual goals. If you are starting a 90-day plan without any annual goals then stop and set some (You can read this to help you – How to set business goals). Having a bigger picture before you start 90-day planning is key because the point is that when these 90 days are over you are closer to achieving your annual goals.

 

Step 2: Review the last 90 days

If you had a 90-day plan for the last 90 day you can refer back to that, but even if you didn’t you can still review the last 90 days. Look back at what you did and what the results were. If you set goals did you achieve them. If you didn’t try to work out why. There is a big difference between not taking action and not achieving a goal versus taking action and still not achieving a goal. Getting a clear picture of where your business is right now, and why, is important.

 

Step 3: Set your 90-day goals

Now it’s time for the fun to begin and it all starts with having clear 90-day goals. On the whole your 90-day goals should be aligned with your annual goals, but it may be that you also have a wildcard in there too.

 

There are a number of ways to approach setting your 90-day goals if you have an annual goal. For example, if we look at revenue. Say you set your business the revenue goal of 150K. Now you could simply take your annual goal, divide it by 4 and then use that figure for your 90-day goal. So in this case that would be 37.5K. However, for most businesses that isn’t the best way to approach setting your 90-day goal. You need to think about the time of year, allow for seasonality and then set the goal accordingly. If you are coming into a peak moment for your business you might aim for 50K or 60K, whereas if you know it is a low period you might aim for 25 or 30K.

 

Breaking down numerical goals is one thing, but what if you’ve got a goal that isn’t numerical. In that case it might be that you have a specific action for the goal. For example, if you set yourself the goal of launching a new offer and generate 50K by the end of the year and right now the offer doesn’t even exist for your 90-day goal it might be to create and launch your new offer.

 

And as I said sometimes a wild card goal might come in too. Something that might not have even been on your radar at the begining of the year might be of interestt now. Having one wildcard goal is fine. But remember in an ideal world the less goals you can have the better.

 

Once you’ve got your goals you should look over them and try and ensure they are as SMART as possible. SMART stands for…

• Specific
• Measurable
• Actionable
• Realistic
• Timed

 

When working with clients I always ask them ‘Will it be clear if you’ve achieved the goal?”. If the answer is yes then you’ve done enough and you can move on to planning.

 

 

WANT HELP TO MAKE YOUR NEXT 6 MONTHS YOUR BEST IN BUSINESS?  Setting goals is just the beginning. Next you need an action plan and even that isn’t enough. Many business owners (because they lack the skills, knowledge, motivation or confidence) fail to follow through and actually implement their plan. That’s why I offer 1-to-1 mentoring. Where during our time together I’d run two quarterly planning session, but then you’ll also get the training, support and accountability to ensure you implement your plan and achieve your business goals. To find out more about my 1:1 Business and Marketing Mentoring click here.

 

Step 4: Consider your possible actions

 

For most goals there may be multiple ways to achieve it. For example, if you’ve got a revenue goal and have several offers in your offer suite, there will be multiple sales combinations that will enable you achieve that revenue goal. Also with some goals there will be options around the actions you can take in order to get to the same destination.

 

At this stage, the aim is to write down the actions you could possibly take. Imagine you are advising someone else, let your mind be free and write down everything that’s an option (and don’t filter at this point).

 

Step 5: Put your 90-day plan together

At this point you’ve got a whole load of options and it’s time to decide what you are going to commit to doing and put them in your plan. One thing to note with actions are there are two types – independent and sequential. If you have sequential actions you need to be aware of this, especially when you are working with other people, as you need to ensure you are leaving sufficient time when planning.

 

Depending on the level of detail you feel comfortable with you might plan in 30 day chunks, 15 day chunks or a week-by-week basis. The more detailed you can plan the better, but the aim is to leave with a timeline where you can see the actions you are meant to be taking in relation to each goal.

 

 

WANT HELP TO MAKE YOUR NEXT 6 MONTHS YOUR BEST IN BUSINESS?  Having an action plan is great, but it is just the beginning. Many business owners (because they lack the skills, knowledge, motivation or confidence) fail to follow through and actually implement their plan. That’s why I offer 1-to-1 mentoring. Where during our time together I’d run two 90-day planning session, but then you’ll also get the training, support and accountability to ensure you implement your plan and achieve your business goals. To find out more about my 1:1 Business and Marketing Mentoring click here.

 

 

Step 6: Monitoring

 

If you want to achieve your 90-day goals then the worst thing you can do is make your plan and never look at it again – and trust me business owners do it. 90-day is still a long period of time so you want to make sure you are doing the right monitoring.

 

Metrics – For goals that are quantifiable you can decide what metrics you’ll monitoring. For example for your revenue goal you can track your revenue on a weekly basis. If you have a goal to write a book you could track how many words you’ve written each week.

 

Milestones – For goals that might not be quantifiable sometimes milestones are better. For example if you want to launch a course by the end of your 90-day you could have deadlines for when you should have decided what the course will be on, decided what software to use and signed up, created all the content, uploaded all the content etc

 

Accountability – As a small business owner it is easy to not follow through on actions, especially if no one else knows what you are working towards. This is where accountability is so powerful. Think about whether you need to pay for a professional, like myself, or whether you have someone else who will provide accountability. Ensure they know your milestones and there is an agreed frequency for check-ins.

 

 

That’s it. You now know how to create a 90-day plan for your business.

 

A 90-day plan can take anywhere between 90 minutes to 3 hours depending on the level of detail you want to go to, but it is worth making the time. Creating a 90-day plan will not only enable give you the opportunity to focus on your goals and where you want to go next with your business, but it will mean you’ve planned out how to use your resources as efficiently as possible.

 

I hope you’ve found this blog post useful and it’s has motivated you to create a 90-day plan for your business.

 

I swear by 90-day planning. I use it in my business and it forms the backbone of how I work with my 1:1 Business and Marketing Mentoring clients. So if you want to grow your business at the moment, and would love to get 1:1 support to create, and implement, momentum-building 90-day plans you should definitely check out my 1:1 Business and Marketing Mentoring.

 

 

WANT HELP PLANNING FOR THE NEXT 12 MONTHS?  This blog post has focused on planning for the next 90-day but it can be hard to plan for the next quarter when you aren’t clear about the bigger picture. I have a tried-and-tested process that I’ve used for years to guide business owners to set goals for their business for the upcoming 12 months and then map out the overarching strategy to achieve that. Oh and did I mention it only takes one day! You fill in a questionnaire before our day together. Then on the day I’ll guide you through my annual planning process, take notes so you are free to just talk and then create your annual plan and timeline. The next day you can get back to your day-to-day work and you’ll receive your plan and timeline. It couldn’t be easier! For more information and to book a Strategy Day click here.