Take Your Business to the Next Level with Strategic Business Planning

Nick Roell

Dec 11, 2024

Colleagues working on a desk

Strategic business planning can feel overwhelming at times. You know it’s essential, but figuring out where to start can be tricky, especially when daily responsibilities keep pulling your focus elsewhere.

But when you do it well, it can be a powerful tool for your business.  Strategic planning not only helps you prioritize and focus on what truly matters but also creates a clear roadmap for achieving sustainable growth and profitability. Managing your business based on a plan can also provide valuable insights into key factors driving your success, empowering you to make informed decisions with confidence.

If you are one of the many business owners whose accountant delivers a monthly profit and loss and balance sheet that you throw into a drawer and forget, a structured approach to strategic business planning will change the way you see your business and provide insights you can use to do more.

Here’s an overview of what we recommend to all of our clients across industries that include manufacturing, construction, professional services, family-owned businesses and nonprofits.

Monthly Momentum Meetings

A monthly momentum meeting starts with accurate and up-to-date financials you can use to step back and take a hard look at your business performance, with a specific focus on cash flow, KPIs, and short-term business goals. When reviewing your records monthly, select the five most important KPIs to your business and take a close look at how you did at meeting them. Did you do what you said you were going to do? If not, what are the actions needed for improvement?

The Benefits of Monthly Momentum Meetings

With a process in place to review the key drivers of your business every month, you’ll see immediate and ongoing benefits, including:

  • Improved financial awareness
  • Ability to set the direction of your business
  • Insight into KPI performance versus targets
  • Ability to identify important trends in your business
  • Improved decision making
  • Benchmarks you can use to compare future results
  • Understanding of the factors that impact results so you can craft better strategies
  • Ability to see the impact your actual results have on your achievement targets
  • Capability to take your team to a new level with monthly momentum meetings to discuss financial results with team leaders

Quarterly Strategic Meetings

Quarterly meetings should focus on more strategic and long-term goals. Quarterly meetings are used to compare your efforts against your business plan. These meetings can also be used for strategies to adapt to significant changes in your business circumstances or to implement a strategic plan or succession plan. Ask these questions about your business:

  • What else should you be doing to get to where you want to be in three years?
  • Are your operational decisions and processes in alignment with your business plan?

The Benefits of Quarterly Strategic Meetings

With a structured strategic planning process in place to review the key drivers of your business quarterly, you’ll see long-term benefits to your business, including:

  • Increased profitability and cash flow
  • A process for reporting actual results against your budget
  • An understanding of the key drivers of business growth
  • Ability to identify and resolve critical issues
  • Better understanding of the impact of ideas in advance of implementing them
  • Improved business performance
  • Alignment of business goals with business plan
  • Increased accountability for meeting your financial and business goals

Reliable & Strategic Accounting for Reliable & Strategic Accountability

Running a business is hard work and it’s easy to get so caught up in keeping up that you overlook financial clues pointing you to better strategies.

At Kirsch CPA Group, our approach is built on a foundation of solid, reliable financial data and a deep understanding of your business and business goals.

It’s a holistic approach that drives better decision making and alignment between your processes and your long-term plans.

With decades of experience helping businesses grow and thrive, we can assure you that a structured and dedicated approach to holding yourself accountable pays off.

You don’t have to do it alone. If you’d like to learn more about how the Kirsch team can facilitate monthly and quarterly strategic planning for your business, give us a call at 513-858-6040 or contact us through the link below.

Schedule an Appointment to Learn How We Can Support You

 

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About The Author

Nick is passionate about making an impact on small and medium-sized businesses. Focusing on increasing the performance of…

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