Your Secret To Success - Planning By The Quarter
“An inch of movement will bring you closer to your goals than a mile of intention.” - Steve Marboli
Many financial advisors view traditional year-end business planning as a rushed, check-the-box exercise providing little impact. In fact, the success rate of this business planning is almost as dismal as my beloved New Orleans Saints football season. While I gave up trying to rationalize the Saints’ record decades ago, the lackluster success of these types of business plans is far easier to explain.
One primary reason that they’re destined to fail is due to the nature of the timeframe involved. It’s very difficult to plan a year in advance, especially considering the many variables you deal with daily that are completely out of your control. The year-end business planning you do for management can be helpful in identifying the general direction you wish to go but does very little in terms of plotting your course from here to there.
As part of this often-mandated business planning, you may outline vague tasks associated with your goals, but your real map for success lies in your activity planning. Think in terms of quarterly campaigns. Campaigns are powerful and require you to set very specific, measurable goals and pursue them with a laser-like focus for a specified but relatively short period of time. No matter how difficult the task, most people, even those with a touch of ADD are able to focus on a task for a full quarter. A year, not so much…
Decrease The Timeframe - Increase The Probability Of Success
By shortening the timeframe of your activity planning, you increase your probability of success. Everything in the business moves quickly – markets fluctuate, world events shift, and client needs change. An annual plan, created in November or December, is often obsolete by spring. Quarterly planning allows you to adapt to these changes in real time.
Annual goals can feel like wishful thinking and in many cases – overwhelming. When you plan for an entire year at once, it’s easy to lose focus or procrastinate – thinking you still have plenty of time left to achieve your objectives. Quarterly planning breaks those daunting goals into smaller, more manageable timeframes. This creates a sense of urgency and focus.
Quarterly plans:
Help you set realistic, short-term targets
Make progress easier to track and measure
Provide regular milestones to celebrate and course-correct when necessary
7 Habits of Highly Effective Quarterly Activity Planning
Gain crystal clear clarity on your destination before plotting the course. Choose three major priorities for the quarter. Take the time to analyze the why, how and when of these goals in addition to your level of commitment to them. Choose your priorities carefully. Consider them a contract with yourself and choose only those that you’re willing to commit to 100% over next three months.
Identify any and all potential obstacles or stumbling blocks you’re likely to encounter over the quarter as you pursue your goals. Outline a plan of action to deal with these problems before they occur. Instead of becoming discouraged or giving up when they arise, be prepared for them. They’re inevitable.
Break each priority down into its least common denominators in terms of specific activities required to accomplish the goal. Making this list as comprehensive as possible now will save you a lot of time later when you’re able to move seamlessly from one task to another.
Decide which priority you’ll target each month and segment your activities into three monthly to-do lists based on your goal for the month.
Once you’ve listed all the tasks required in the current month, then segment your monthly tasks by week. Know exactly the activities you must complete each week to achieve your monthly goal.
Analyze your weekly tasks and determine the three most important tasks that you must complete each day. These are your A+ tasks – the ones you unequivocally commit to completing by the end of the day. Stick with just three of these A+ tasks per day. This forces you to prioritize with a vengeance. However, this doesn’t mean you cannot or should not complete anything else during the day. It simply means that these are the tasks that must be completed first.
You can’t win the game if you don’t know the score. The only way to know what you’re actually doing is to track it. This is critical to your success. All too often, what we think we’re doing and what we’re actually doing are two completely different things. Track only the activities that you directly control.
Final Tips
The old 80/20 Rule is applicable not just to your business, but to your task list as well. 80% of your results will come from 20% of your tasks. Choosing and committing to your three most important tasks each day forces you to focus on the tasks that will produce the most significant results.
Reject the idea of completing the easy tasks first to clear time for the difficult tasks or to provide you with a quick sense of accomplishment. You can’t trick your brain. It recognizes that for the avoidance it is.
Cultivate a sense of urgency in completing your three A+ tasks each day. Use self-imposed deadlines to help foster your sense of urgency. You know how much easier it is to sell when there’s a sense of urgency. Now it’s time to create one in your own business.
As you work toward your priorities for the quarter, always focus on activity rather than results. You have no control over the markets, world events or firm policies but you always have control over your activity. Develop a confidence in “knowing” that when your activity is there, the results always follow.
