How do you create yearly team strategies?

[Sheli]

How do you create team strategies for the year?

I own a beauty business. I'm looking for building strategies for the year. 

[DinaLRosenberg]

Well- I think you can have a yearly goal but I also think as small businesses we need to be nimble and adjust to market conditions in real time.

Using Square sales data, you can use your "numbers" to figure out what goals are attainable and reachable for your business. I like the idea of two goals- one more "reasonable" based upon data and one that's a stretch.

[doc_choc]

The nice thing about being a small independent business is that you can be agile. We don't tend to have fixed goals or strategies that we want to achieve, more of an underlying desire of where we would like to be. We have rough plans on how to achieve this but flex them through the year as the market and retailing conditions change. We gather informal input from the team, we do not load them with any goals or targets, but they know where we are reaching for so they work to their best of their abilities to contributing in attainment of this. Its seems to work for a smaller business but I can imagine a larger business will require a more rigid set of goals and focussed strategies. 

[ehflower]

When planning, we review the past three years of data and consider external factors such as weather patterns and local, state, and national economic conditions. We identify anomalies that may have influenced performance and evaluate our current costs, noting any increases or decreases.

We estimate annual overhead and add an additional 5% as a cushion. Each product category is reviewed individually to identify top-moving items, assess margins, and account for the square footage each category occupies. Square reporting makes this analysis significantly faster and more accurate.

We also follow industry influencers, trend forecasters, and subject-matter experts to ensure we carry products likely to be in demand. At each seasonal transition, we reevaluate year-round, review standing orders, and make adjustments as needed.

To support these efforts, I create and maintain an online marketing guideline to ensure alignment across planning, purchasing, and promotion.

[Eddiemunster]

Hey @Sheli good question!  Are you looking for any specific types of strategies? Staff or business? 

What we do is similar to @ehflower said however we also tackle it slightly differently.  We start planning our year in the previous year IE Oct-December is our planning time.  We look at what worked well with promotions and events, what didn't and what things we would like to implement-new products, stafff needs (training and development).  This gives us a plan for the year & plans for each month.  We also mark off on our main calendar things like staff reviews, when we plan to hold them etc. 

This gives us a number of catergories to work on for example, marketing & promotions, business plans/improvements, new items or products/services, some basic goals, and then building in staff appraisals we plan for personal growth and development.  Our yearly calendar is a plan of what we are doing each year, what we need to work on and when we are setting aside time to work on it.  For example, we have a Birthday promotion this month as we started our business 8 years ago.  That's all planned out in our Calendar/Monthly planner.  It's also the month we hold our appraisals, so we have planned a strtegy and time to prepare and go through these appraisals with staff. Each staff member/manager gets a development plan that comes from our appraisal so they have a plan and a goal to achieve (or several) to improve and develop them as a member of our team.  

When you say strategies I think of sales strategies, business goals, individual team member development and how to do this.  You might be thinking about this differently to me?  We are part of a hospitality training group and so twice a year we get away for retreat to work on ourselves and to work on the business!  This strategy is a great way to learn, plan and get organised.  It's not so much about going away and having someone teach us things we don't already know, but it's more about implementing a strategy to plan and grow.  Whether we are part of this group or not, from now on I plan to take 2-3 days twice a year (if not more often) and look at my numbers, plan out our business goals, learn something new, and generally focus on working on the business not in it!  

Let me know what you are specifically looking for as I'd love to help if I can.