Forgot to create a strategic plan for 2025?
Not to worry — these 3 steps can help you set direction, craft goals, and build momentum towards success.
By Alex Teece
NFL playoffs started last weekend. Each team vying for a chance to compete in, and win, the Super Bowl.
Imagine a team showing up having no offensive game plan? No play calls, no red zone strategy, no two minute drills — nothing.
In business - no strategic plan means no offensive strategy. The defense may be there — offering last year’s products and programs, responding to market factors, checking in on a few clients, doing a bit of social media and website work; however, no clear offense to put up points and win.
Nearly 9 out of 10 small businesses spend little to no time on strategy, so you are not alone. Do you know what the 1 in 10 are out there doing? Winning. They are winning new clients, winning contracts, and winning marketshare.
The silver lining at this point: you do not need to spend weeks or months strategic planning, although this would have been nice. In a few hours, you can have a winning strategic plan for 2025, and beyond. Let’s examine how to make this possible in three succinct steps that will open up this year to growth and possibility.
I. Quick baseline and key project retrospective (~60 mins)
Your first step to understanding where to go in 2025: where did you land in 2024?
Create a baseline of key numbers and factors
You may not have all of your financials audited, accounts settled, or reports finalized. However, you can still draw a baseline and get a clear sense of where you are starting. I recommend spending some time getting clear across these four categories:
Your top line - what was your total cash generated, across all segments, and across all 12 months; let’s get clear where you landed here before addressing seasonality, nonrecurring cash flow, anomalies, or anything more granular. What is the big number?
Your bottom line - what was the EOY balance? Where did you land? You may want to assess which areas of your business, if any, were more profitable than others, as this will help your more clearly align 2025 priorities and strategies with growing or promising areas you want to focus on over the coming months.
What was good (and bad) on the inside - here is where you hold the mirror to you, your company, and your results. Don’t go on a self-discovery journey; just identify and write down the top 2-3 positives of 2024 (e.g., big clients landed, major contracts awarded, new location opened), and perhaps the top 2-3 main challenges, or areas you want to improve upon (e.g., staff turnover, profitability, new business acquisition rate).
What major tailwinds (and headwinds) exist externally - on the outside, what is helping you? What is hurting you? A short list of the top 3-5 factors will allow you - and others - to gain clarity around your company’s position, and help to level set growth expectations for 2025.
Beginning with a baseline offers you a logical starting place and ensures your goals do not ‘hockey stick,’ or jump too quickly at a pace unsustainable for you, your people, or your company. This is not to say you won’t build momentum, crush your goals, and end up in an aspirational place by year’s end. However, it does ensure that you don’t get in well over your head in Q1 and find yourself scrapping and scraping to catch up to where you said you would be. Position yourself conservatively, which is to say, be honest about where you came from in 2024.
Complete abbreviated retrospective on major initiatives
Your second step, and if you haven’t already, will be to complete a brief retrospective (also referred to as a post-mortem) on 2-3 key projects or initiatives. A post-mortem is exactly as it sounds: identify what did and did not work, draw a small number of evidence-based conclusions, and suggest aligned changes to incorporate into your operating model. If you had weeks and months to complete this process, you might run a more stringent protocol including data, key personnel interviews, additional research, and fact-finding - but, you don’t. You are trying to create a working, functional strategic plan that you can implement immediately, build from, and win with.
A ~30-min retrospective across 2-3 key initiatives means spending ~10-15 minutes doing the following:
Find the delta: isolate the tangible, objective difference between (a) where you thought an initiative was going to land, and (b) where it actually did (note: make this a clean, clear, and simple as possible);
Consider personnel: identify the 3-5 people who might hold ~90% of the responsibility for this initiative and consider how they need to hear and internalize the message you will have for them;
Identify 1-2 key changes: keep is simple and succinct - these are small changes that will result in noticeable quick wins for the team and company; and
Craft communication: draft the initial e-mail or memo that will be sent to stakeholders who will be responsible for the small changes in process (don’t send yet; just draft).
Ensure that you don’t get in well over your head in Q1 and find yourself scrapping and scraping to catch up to where you said you would be.
Once you have the what, who, how, and the talking points of how you will communicate, you can schedule the actual implementation for another time. Remember: we are just strategic planning right now, trying to find our baseline, and identifying a few key initiatives that can be reprogrammed to better deliver results. The actual work is yet to come.
II. Frame 2025 with these points (~45 mins)
In the How to create a one-page strategic plan that wins business and produces results perspective from fall 2024, emphasis was placed on “something is better than nothing” and “a little strategy goes a long way.” In your current predicament, never has this been more true. As a leader, manager, and/or owner, January is a critical time when you set the course for the year and communicate what is important for the months and quarters ahead. Your colleagues, clients, and even your competitors are seeking clarity from you.
Clarity should happen across vision, priorities, and strategies and goals. Even if you have not started yet, you can frame the coming year with a simple one-page plan that integrates these key elements. These four elements are as follows:
Vision and what is truly important by December 31st: this can be a 1-2 sentence statement that will serve as the North Star for your, your team, and your organization this coming year. It will help your people - colleagues, clients, stakeholders - know what you stand for, and know how to engage with you in 2025;
Your top 3-5 priorities: at least 2 should be new, or improved upon areas (these enable your vision);
Assign a “state of winning” to each of these priorities: describe what will be true if these priorities are met, or are working; and
Back that state into quarterly goals to enable progress assessment: now, break down the path to that state of winning into four distinct parts. If it is hiring, or client acquisition, or sales — make sure you have a consistent, incremental, and quantifiable pathway to achieving the state of being.
Most business leaders find this step administrative, academic, and misaligned to their day-to-day operations. However, if you don’t have a destination in mind for your business, or a plan to get there, how can people follow you? How do your employees know what can and will be different this year? How will clients view you?
As a leader, manager, and/or owner, January is a critical time when you set the course for the year and communicate what is important for the months and quarters ahead.
With no strategy or planned destination, you are likely to stagnate and begin the inevitable decline into irrelevancy. What got you to January 2025 will likely not get you to January 2026, as the world, competitors, and peoples’ expectations are changing all around you. Do not rest on past successes and assume they will carry you forward. Spend the time now — you will be glad you did.
III. Draft a Q1 Win plan (~60 mins)
Starting the New Year strong is on every meme and workout ad. “New Year, New Me,” and all the other cliché slogans floating around out there. Fun (perhaps annoying) to read… however, now is the moment when you can immediately and significantly separate yourself from your competition, and even your colleagues.
This is what you need to ask yourself: where can I find short-term wins (we are talking weeks, not months here), and what will not only (a) tee up success by the time baseball season starts (I know, boring), and (b) the final 8-9 months of the year (April - December)? The short game is showing results; you also have to build momentum, and seed future wins that you can and will realize later in the year — so long as you start with a plan. This start will signal to your people, your clients, your competitors… 2025 is your year.
Here is how I structure my 10-week win plans.
I start with what it will take “to win” by April 1. Winning can look different for the small business, the restaurant, retail shop, non-profit — but, get clear on what winning looks like after the first ~3 months of the year.
Then I create 3-5 top priorities. These are the main strategies I will follow, or buckets I will focus on as I build momentum towards my April 1 state of winning.
From here, list the 2-3 levers that will be pulled to activate and energize those buckets of work — these are the more granular actions or steps you will be doing and completing week-to-week.
List 5-7 risks and challenges you will likely need to solve for, and at least your first step to getting around them (don’t build the plan, just a solution starter).
Last, but not lease, create a quick top 10 list of key contacts, people, and energizers — this is who you will be assembling either directly or indirectly to enable progress and achieve success over the first 10 years of the year.
An example is below to illustrate the win-plan philosophy and ease-of-design and implementation. This is merely a guide to help you organize your thoughts, channel your actions, and begin to make immediate progress this month.
Nearly half of small and medium-sized businesses do not have a clear strategy or strategic plan in place to help their business grow. Of those that do, 25% have a verbal strategy, and 23% have a vague goal.
Imagine the critical, competitive advantage you will have if you take 2-3 hours to complete the three steps outlined in this article. With a solid baseline from 2024, a clear vision for success in 2025, and a 10-week win plan to achieve results and build momentum by April, you will have signaled to your internal and external audience that you are confident in and committed to the journey ahead.
Try it. If you need some perspective or a guiding partner, please do not hesitate to reach out. A more prepared business is a better business for staff, clients, and the marketplace where you engage. Don’t let another day go by that you manage and lead unplanned. Create the guide for others to follow this year — it will make all the difference.
EXAMPLE
Let’s use starting an ice cream shop as an example. Say we want to launch Memorial Day Weekend, so the next 10 weeks serve as a critical set-up period to get ready for open.
To Win: By April 1, the ice cream shop will have a permitted, renovated location with 3-5 committed wholesalers and growing interest from the local community.
Top priorities:
Signed lease for high-traffic, visible location to serve as brick-and-mortar launch site
Committed general contractor with subs lined up ready to improve aesthetic and flow of the space
FFE ordered and scheduled for delivery and installation
Sourced ice cream partners with working agreements in place
Internal and external stakeholders are curious about and committed to the ice cream shop
Levers per strategy:
Start-up site
Engage local brokers and tour spaces
Negotiation LOI, lease, and final agreement
Occupy, insure, and permit space
GC & subs
Bid and contract
Walk-thru and design space
Align on budget and schedule
FEE scheduled
Shop for and purchase display case, freezer, and
Read manuals and understand installation, calibration, and maintenance protocols
Source ice cream partners
Research creameries, producers, and locally sourced wholesalers
Engage potential partners, scope agreement
Sign contracts and align on delivery cadence
Stakeholders engagement
Staff recruitment, hiring, onboarding, and training
Establish and develop loyalty program for local customer base
Increase regional awareness through advertising and marketing campaign
I might then spread the levers out across a 6-8 week time horizon to leave flex room in our win pan schedule and to see the linear, longitudinal nature of making progress and building momentum towards our wins.
Top risks or challenges to solve for:
Weather does not cooperate for opening weekend/week (draft rainy day ice cream plan)
Construction or lack of access / parking (create access plan for walk, bike, drive)
Lack of awareness at open (boost social media and loyalty program)
Staff does not show up to run store at open (keep schedule clear and have back-up, on-call staff options)
Ice cream melts or freezers are faulty (order long lead items early and test over the course of weeks with various products)
Key contact list who will enable plan:
Local real estate broker
Business banker
Top 3-5 friend/family investors
Growth consultant
Social media advertising consultant
Chamber of Commerce and small business groups
Top local ice cream wholesaler in the area
Former Cold Stone manager
Commercial ice cream equipment manufacturer
Loyal future customer (taste tester)
Small side note, a non-profit version might have the following 5 categories as strategies to lead to winning by April 1.
Internal (culture, PD, efficiency, the buzz)
External (partnerships, comms, socials)
Program (what are we offering)
Fundraising (grant-writing, donor cultivation)
Moonshots (policy, dream ideas, mega asks)
At the end of 2 weeks, consider assessing inputs and actions… and measure outcomes and progress. This will build in a ~10 day feedback look through which you can iterate and re-purpose your efforts. It will help guard against 10-weeks of effort leading to April learnings that could have been applied proactively.
