If I asked you right now, “Is your revenue goal high enough to pay yourself…
So you know planning for your business is essential, but you are trying to weigh up annual planning vs quarterly planning. Well, you probably aren’t going to like this, but it shouldn’t be one or the other. You need to do both for your business – annual planning and quarterly planning. Keep on reading to find out why annual planning and quarterly planning are both important for your business, and how combining them will help you achieve all of your business goals.
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ANNUAL PLANNING VS QUARTERLY PLANNING: WHY YOU NEED BOTH
Annual Planning: What it is and why your business needs it
Annual planning is where you plan for the upcoming year or 12 months in your business. Annual planning is important as this enables you to think more long-term. If you’ve got a long-term vision for the business you can use that to set your annual goals and create your annual plan with the aim of achieving those annual goals.
Given with annual planning you are looking at a 12-month period it is a long enough time to be able to plan for achieving some considerable goals. You might set yourself an annual financial goal or an impact goal where you will have X number of customers or clients. But you might also have goals that require more than 3 months to happen. For example, you might want to write a publish a book, pivot your business, or run an event. These types of goals usually take more than 3 months to achieve and so annual planning gives you the ability to map out how you are going to achieve those goals.
The other reason why annual planning is so important for businesses is because it enables you to plan and take into consideration seasonality. For example, if you’ve set an annual financial goal, the likelihood is that you aren’t going to consistently month after month achieve 1/12th of the goal. Your business will most likely have some seasonality and therefore you should be adjusting your monthly financial goals based on seasonality, and that will in turn affect what you plan to happen in each month.
| TAKE YOUR ANNUAL BUSINESS PLANNING TO THE NEXT LEVEL BY WORKING WITH ME – BOOK A STRATEGY DAY
Doing your annual business planning with someone external from your business, with a tried-and-test annual planning process, and with tons of business and marketing experience and expertise makes a massive difference. I’ll support you to face the facts about your current position, dream big about the future and get really strategic about what you need to do in order to achieve those big business goals. So if you are planning on preparing for the next 12 months and you want to get your annual planning done in the most effective and efficient way, book a Strategy Day. |
Quarterly Planning: What it is and why your business needs it
Quarterly planning is where you focus on the upcoming quarter. It is also common for business owners to refer to making 3-month plans, 90-day plans and 12-week plans. Regardless of whether you are planning for the quarter, 3 months, 90 days or 12 weeks, the principles and the value of the planning is the same.
Given that with quarterly planning you are focused on a 3-month period you can plan in more detail than you can on an annual basis. Quarterly planning enables you to plan on a week-by-week basis and you can take into consideration even more so what is happening in the world and in your personal life. For example, if you or a member of your team is on holiday you can account for that.
Why you need both annual planning and quarterly planning
As you can see, annual planning and quarterly planning serve different purposes. Annual planning is going to give you the opportunity to think big, to set goals for the year and then map out on a month-by-month basis what needs to be happening. Whereas quarterly planning enables you to plan in more detail. You can take into consideration internal and external factors more and create a week-by-week plan that enables you to work as efficiently and effectively as possible.
If you decide to just do annual planning, then you’ll have the big goals and a clear direction, but may struggle when actually working in your business to know what is the best use of your time, energy and money. If you decide to just do quarterly planning, then you can have a productive quarter, but it may not be moving you in the right direction of where you want your business ultimately to go.
That’s why I highly recommend you combine annual planning with quarterly planning. Spend one day out per year to do your annual planning, and then have a 1 to 2-hour session once a quarter to put your annual planning together.
This combination will mean that you have annual goals that are related to your big vision. You have a plan for how to achieve your annual goals on a month-by-month basis. And then you’ll use quarterly planning to check your progress against your annual plan, and then go into more detail so on a week-by-week basis, you know what you (and your team) need to be focused on and achieving.
Practical tips for using both in your business
Decide what your “year” will be
Some business owners like to set their annual goals aligned with the calendar year, some with the financial year of the business, some with the tax year of the country their business operates in, and some will just decide the day they come across annual planning to start there and then. There is no right or wrong as long as you feel comfortable with your “year”. And if you are reading this as a time where it doesn’t align with your ideal year there is also nothing stopping your first annual plan being shorter or longer. It may be you end up doing a 9-month or 18-month plan. Either is fine to get you on track to then do 12-month plans following that.
Set aside a whole day for your annual planning
Technically, you can do your annual planning with a few hours there and a few hours there, but in my experience of working with small business owners worldwide the best way to create your annual plan is to choose a date and block it out in your diary. Tell your clients, your team, your loved ones and anyone else who needs to know that you’ll be unavailable during this day.
Have an annual planning process to follow
To get the most out of your annual planning day, you need a process to follow, otherwise you can end up sitting there with your notebook or laptop and not knowing what to do.
I’ve been helping small business owners with their annual planning for years and now have a signature annual planning process that guarantees you’ll get your annual plan created in just one day. To find out more about my annual planning process and how you can plan for the year ahead with me click here.
| TAKE YOUR ANNUAL BUSINESS PLANNING TO THE NEXT LEVEL BY WORKING WITH ME – BOOK A STRATEGY DAY
When you put together you’re annual plan with me I’ll take you through my signature annual planning process. By the end of the day you’ll have mapped out how to achieve all of your business goals for the next 12 months – and have complete confidence about the actions you need to take. So if you are planning on preparing for the next 12 months and you want to get your annual planning done in the most effective and efficient way, book a Strategy Day. |
Plan before the year / quarter starts
If possible with both annual planning and quarterly planning I recommend you plan before the year or quarter starts. This means you are ready to hit the ground running when the quarter or year starts. Also, being that big ahead of yourself can mean that if during your planning you realise something needs to be in place before the quarter or year starts you have some time to make that happen. In my business I plan for the year ahead in December and I’ll plan for the quarter a week or two before it starts.
That’s it. You now know why it isn’t annual planning vs quarterly planning, and the reality is you need to do both for your business.
There is no doubt that by doing both sets of planning you’ll put your business in the strongest position possible. Annual planning will ensure overall your business is moving closer to being the business you dream of, and quarterly planning is going to help you, and your team, to use your time, energy and money as effectively and efficiently as possible.
If you are ready to get planning in your business then I would love to help you. As I’ve already mentioned, I have a signature annual planning process, which means in just one day you’ll get your plan for the next done – and felt confident about being able to achieve all of your goals WITHOUT working yourself into the ground.
For more information about my one-to-one annual planning strategy days click here.
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