Remember to look ahead when you plan

This month we will be talking about the importance of setting goals and creating a plan to get where you want to go. Planning on its own is a good habit, but it is a little pointless if you don’t know what you want. In order for a good plan to succeed, there must be a clear and defined goal and this brings us to our quote of the month.

“Strategic planning is worthless — unless there is first a strategic vision.”  – John Naisbitt

Unfortunately, there are a million reasons that owners and managers seem to find to justify not having a good solid vision in place.

Most owners/managers will say that their vision includes, more sales, faster production, and less problems. That’s all well and good but it’s not well defined and if you try to plan for something that isn’t well defined you could unintentionally create new problems within your business. 

One of the most common things we hear these days is that the market is so unpredictable that it’s hard to plan anything.  Trying to set goals and targets when the market keeps changing is a challenge but that doesn’t make planning any less important.

The benefits of having a strategic vision paired with a strategic plan are many. Arguably one of the biggest benefits to this is regaining control of your operation. It goes without saying that there are some things you just cannot control, however there is a lot you can control.

It would look like something like this; you cannot control if the customer brings the car into your shop (arguments can be made that you have a significant influence but ultimately, it’s their decision), what you can control is the amount of profit that will be made on that vehicle. You can do that by planning out the repair, adhering to a regimented S.O.P, and charging the right amount on the estimates.

You may not be able to control the amount of work that comes into your shop, but you can control how much gross profit you make on each job. This is really important because even if you have a lot of work coming in but haven’t planned to handle it properly, you could be losing out on a lot of potential gross profit.

You can start to see how important it is to plan for the things you can control. However, before that planning can occur, you need to have a solid strategic vision because you need to know what you are planning for. The literal definition of a plan is a detailed proposal for doing or achieving something, so by definition, you cannot have a plan if you do not have an objective.

Your strategic vision will describe the achievable future state of your shop. This may read something like, “The shop will average 40% Gross profit month over month in 3 years. This will be done by making production more efficient, producing consistent quality work and reducing variables on the production floor. Through, the implementation of SOPs and other new processes, over the next 1-2 years we will be able to adjust and create a work culture that produces high quality work, efficiently and consistently by year 3.” 

By crafting a specific strategic vision, you can now plan accordingly to meet those goals. You would create SOPs, budget for necessary expenses, delegate certain tasks and do what you needed to do in order to reach your goal. A plan like this will not be affected by the current volatility of the market because the vision is to control only what you are able to.

Looking ahead and planning for the future can be intimidating, especially now,  but we cannot underestimate the importance of having a vision and planning for it. Essentially it is the difference between your business just surviving in today’s market or your business being prosperous in today’s market. If you want to be prosperous you cannot afford to just ride the waves, you need to grab the helm and steer the ship to get where you need to go.