You cannot succeed at what you do not plan.
You have goals for your water damage restoration business in 2018. How will you reach those goals without a strong business plan for the year? The answer is pretty simple — you won’t.
A business plan is the guiding framework for the day-to-day steps you will take towards your business goals. No matter what changes in your business, you can return to you plan as you make decisions about next steps, new marketing campaigns, or how to spend your money on new hires or supplies Good planning takes our the second guess. Let’s get that business plan in order.
Make Time for Planning
The distractions of daily business often get in the way of long term planning. If you are going to craft an excellent business plan for your water damage restoration company, you have to intentionally schedule a time for planning. Plan to spend an entire day creating your business plan. Block this time off, have lunch delivered, and commit yourself to knocking out a solid plan before the day ends.
Planning should involve the key people involved in your business, including managers and co-owners. This may also be a good time to involve crew members who have expressed a desire to learn more and grow in their position.
Evaluate Your 2017 Performance
By now, you should already know how you did in 2017. If you’ve been following our advice, you should have reports on hand to outline where your business excelled and where it struggled over the course of the last year.
Now’s the time to really evaluate those numbers. How do they match up with the goals you set for your company over a year ago? Where did you surpass the revenue targets you set for the business quarter? Did you struggle to meet those targets?
It’s also important to ask “why” you failed or succeeded in the previous year. We know that a profitable year in water damage restoration is dependent on different factors. In some cases, you may have had an amazing quarter because of a major weather event. Other times, you may be able to point to a specific marketing campaign that increased your revenue for the year. Knowing this will help you to plan for next year because you understand when performance can or can’t be repeated in the future.
A profitable business isn’t just about the money you bring in, what you spend matters, too. Before you start mapping out the plan for the New Year, take a look at how your expenses lined up with your budget. This will help you get an idea of where you might need to increase the budget for 2018 or where you will need to cut back.
Using What You Know to Plan for 2018
To be perfectly honest, clearly understanding the previous year will lay the groundwork for 2018. With an understanding of the revenue from each quarter, as well as your overall business growth compared to the previous year, you can make accurate projections for the upcoming quarters.
The previous year’s budget can also be used to outline the budget for 2018, adjusting different categories of expenses based on over and under-spending from 2017 and based on the goals you have set for the upcoming year.
Once you clearly outlined, month-by-month, the plan for your revenue and expenses in 2018, you can begin to create systems to make that happen. This is good time evaluate the day-to-day operations of your business. How can you help your entire team to increase the efficiency and avoid waste in the upcoming year? Is your team staffed adequately to take on the business growth you are expecting?
When you understand your company’s past performance, plan for the upcoming year, and make smart changes to business operations to promote growth, you set yourself up for a strong New Year. Your business plan is the foundation for running an efficient and organized business, which is the key to reaching the goals business goals you have set for the next twelve months and the long term vision you have for the future.
At More Floods, we like to believe we’re experts at writing business plans. Members of our network get to tap into our expertise, using the proven operational and marketing systems we’ve perfected through years of trial and error. To learn more about joining our network, click here or call 1-866-667-3356.