Your Next Move

I was reading through the news this morning and came across an article detailing how mortgage prices were at an all time low. At a 3.6 percent interest rate, it seemed the American dream should be in reach for everyone. Unfortunately, the immediate next article read, “Generation Rent—The Slamming Door of Home Ownership.” The last few years have been an interesting ride, to say the least, but the trend toward rental versus buying seems to be one of the most telling signs of the economy we recently have endured. However, if you were financially sound and established enough going into the economic storm and put a strategic plan in place, the last four years could have been profitable in many ways.

After all, business or personal finance is a chess match. Constantly thinking five moves ahead of your competition (and sometimes even yourself) is key. The Internet Center for Management and Business Administration has a straightforward view of strategic planning.

Here are the concepts they recommend building into your strategic plan: map out your goals, do your due diligence (or what they call “environmental scanning”), formulate your strategy, implement your strategy, evaluate and control, and then adjust your strategy accordingly if necessary.

It seems simple, right? But simple enough to totally forget key steps along the way. I had one distributor tell me about a nursing campaign he launched with a color scheme all in pinks and lavenders. He completely forgot to scan the environment and later realized many male nurses were left out of the promotion. He was able to rectify the misstep with some product in navy blue, but it could have been avoided altogether. Or how about the countless times you have put a strategy into place and then forgot to evaluate your work to see if all the effort was even working? A simple survey or audit can do the trick to tell you if you are hitting your mark.