How to Create a Strategic Plan Without the Fluff

 

You can’t run a business without a plan. You can try, but you won’t get very far. With a plan, you can turn your vision and ambitions for the business into a clear, actionable roadmap. But, don’t fall into the trap of creating a plan that’s full of fluff; this means industry jargon that confuses people, vague ideas that everyone struggles to follow and filler that sounds impressive on paper, but doesn’t actually guide any of the day-to-day decisions that need to be made. If you want your plan to actually make a difference and drive the business forward, you need to get rid of the fluff and focus on strategy.

What Does a Strategic Plan Look Like?

To put it simply, a strategic plan looks at where the business is going, why you’re working towards your chosen objectives and how you’re going to get there. These plans tend to include details on what the future of the business could look like, the business’ mission and core values. Priorities – the major focus areas that will drive growth or improvement – and objectives are also included, giving specific and measurable aims for everyone to work towards.

It’s also important for a strategic plan to have detailed steps, timelines, accountabilities for achieving key objectives and KPIs detailing how success will be measured and tracked over time. When done right, a strategic plan becomes the main reference point for all your business does, guiding everything from hiring and budgeting, to marketing and day-to-day processes.

Why Your Business Needs a Strategic Plan

Without a strategic plan, most businesses fall into working in reactive mode. You’ll likely find yourself constantly responding to the latest problem or opportunity, without a long-term plan to follow. This leads to wasted resources, missed opportunities and confusion among employees, as you’re always trying to keep up with everything that’s being thrown your way.

However, when you have a strategic plan, you can:

• Better Align Your Team – When everyone knows the business’ priorities, your team can work towards the same goals, knowing what they should be focusing on.
• Make Stronger Decisions – There’s always a decision to make at work, but a strategic plan means you can quickly determine if a new idea fits your current direction, or if it’s something to ignore.
• Organise Business Resources – Running a business requires money, time and energy, none of which are limitless. A strategic plan makes sure your business’ resources go towards the most impactful activities.
• Measure Your Progress – With a strategic plan detailing your main objectives, you have a clear guide for what success looks like. This helps you to measure your progress, and make changes if you’re not moving forward in the way you want to.
• Adapt When Needed – Market conditions change and there’s no knowing what’s around the corner. But, a strategic plan helps you to pivot and continually align with those changes, without losing your way.

Don’t Let Your Strategic Plan Fail Because of Fluff

If there’s one thing that’s guaranteed to make a strategic plan fail, it’s fluff. You don’t need to fill your plan with unnecessary content; it gives the illusion of substance, but offers very little in terms of information or direction. Fluff comes in many forms including using a lot of buzzwords that have very little meaning, and generic statements so broad they could apply to any business.

Though it’s important to add some history and context to a strategic plan, you don’t need
pages of historical context that don’t inform future strategies You also don’t need overly complex diagrams and visuals that look impressive, but are hard to dissect. If your plan is excessively long, it’s likely full of fluff. No one has time to read pages and pages of text, especially if it’s not relevant to the business’ future.

Filling a plan with fluff is time-consuming and it leaves your team unclear on what they’re supposed to be doing. For example, stating that you want to increase customer happiness isn’t helpful, as there’s no way to know what that means, how you’re going to do that or how it’s measured. By removing the full, your plan will be focused on results, actionable, memorable and flexible.

How to Create a Strategic Plan Without the Fluff

• Use Easy to Understand Language – You need to write your plan in a way that can be easily understood by someone outside of your industry. Avoid industry jargon unless absolutely necessary, and always explain what you mean if it’s unclear.
• Define Measurable Goals – Avoid including vague aims in your plan, and replace them with specific, measurable goals. Don’t simply say that you want to increase your customer base, say how much you want to increase it by and give a timeframe for achieving that.
• Don’t Look Too Far Into the Future – You don’t have a crystal ball to see the future, so avoid including overly long projections in your plan. These tend to be based on guesswork, and they’re likely to change as your business evolves. Instead, focus your strategic plan on the next few years.
• Prioritise Your Goals – Though you’re likely to have multiple goals, they’re not all equally important. Focus your attention on the most important strategic priorities, and then put all of your effort into them. If you have too many goals, your resources will be spread too thin and you won’t reach the finish line anytime soon.
• Keep It Short – You don’t need a strategic plan to be pages and pages long, as this is where fluff creeps in. Aim for a strategic plan summary of two to three pages, and make it accessible to all employees. Create supporting documents that provide more information about different areas of the plan – and encourage employees to refer to these when they need to – rather than including everything in the core document.

 

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