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6 Steps to Create a Better Strategic Plan

Most strategic plans fail because they don't exist in the first place.

Allyson Lewis, 02/27/2013

"There is nothing brilliant nor outstanding in my record, except perhaps this one thing: I do the things that I believe ought to be done… And when I make up my mind to do a thing, I act." --Theodore Roosevelt

The first reason so many strategic plans fail is that so many people don't have a strategic plan.

Simply put, your strategic plan should provide a structural framework for several key elements of your business and should allow you to articulate your plan in a written format. Your strategic plan should answer, "What exactly do we do?"

It should also ask three of my favorite questions:

1. Where are we today?
2. Where do we want to be in the future?
3. How do we plan to get there?

The biggest problem is that we are all so bogged down with focusing on the distractions of our daily lives that we have difficulty taking the time to focus our full attention on creating a strategic plan. With this in mind, below are six concrete steps that we have put into a flowchart to help you develop your strategic business plan. Along with several of these steps, you are invited to visit the Member Tools section of our website to download free copies of the worksheets discussed in this article.

6 Steps to Create a Better Strategic Plan

1. Rank Your Priorities: Many strategic business plan templates begin by having you answer the question, "What do you do?" I would encourage you to take this deeper by asking several additional questions, "What is most important to you?" "What's the point?" "What do you value in life?" "What makes your life meaningful?"

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Time strategy expert and best-selling author Allyson Lewis has spent the last 30 years developing and teaching concrete, actionable business ideas all over the country. Her latest book, The 7 Minute Solution: Time Strategies to Prioritize, Organize and Simplify Your Life at Work & at Home, was released in paperback on Jan. 1, 2013. Take advantage of the worksheets, webinars, and more--subscribe to the FREE Member Tools area of our website http://www.The7MinuteLife.com and follow Allyson on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/AllysonLewis.SevenMinutes and Twitter: @allyson7minutes

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