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The Strategic Planning Process

Strategic planning is the process of making long-term plans for what you want your business to accomplish and taking logical, short-term actions that will help you achieve your long-term goals. Heritage Business Advisors is a team of professionals that have decades of business experience. We combine our knowledge and experience, with your company’s values to aid you in creating a strategic plan that will take your business well into the future of your industry.

Planning for the future and implementing tried and true business strategies is only a part of HBA’s strategic planning services. We provide an objective voice that has your best interests in mind. To give you a clearer view of what strategic planning services from Heritage Business Advisors looks like, we have created an outline of the process.

1. Understanding Your Values, Vision and Mission

Your business is extremely important to you. In many cases, a business owner has up to 80% of their own net worth tied to their business. As a result, we take the handling of your business very seriously. Your Heritage Business Advisory team will begin the process by listening to your vision for the next five years. We will take time to fully understand your goals and help you to fully develop them.

Understanding your vision enables both parties to move forward with confidence. Once we have established a clear and direct vision for the future of your business, your advisor will assist you in creating a written mission statement. The mission statement will reflect every facet of your business, from products and pricing to your relationships with clients. Vision and mission work very closely together. The vision expresses your aspirations, while the mission explains the inspiration for your vision. If you already have a mission statement, then your advisor will walk you through a review process to ensure that it continues to align with your business and your values.

Your advisor will help you to define your values. Contrary to popular opinion, defining your values is a little more complicated than, “I believe…” There is a difference in one’s beliefs and their values. Beliefs change with new information. Values are steadfast and can have positive and negative effects on your life, your business, and your relationships.

The next step is to put your values into writing. Heritage Business Advisors’ approach to vision statements, mission statements, and core values is one that strives for great detail. We aid our clients in creating documents that will tell anyone who sees them exactly who you are and what you are about. With that in mind, your advisor will walk you through writing out your organization’s values and checking them against your vision and your mission statement.

2. SWOT Analysis

Upon completion of the vision, mission, and values statements, your advisor will walk you through a full SWOT analysis. By the time you are finished, you will fully understand your business’ Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and its biggest Threats, as well.

Having this knowledge gives you the upper hand when you begin planning for the future of your business. Your advisor will be able to offer you valuable insights into how to best utilize your company’s strengths to avoid threats and make the most of your opportunities. In addition, they will show you the best ways to mitigate your organization’s weaknesses.

With the help of Heritage Business Advisors, you will select three objectives (based on your weaknesses, with one of them being financial in nature) to accomplish. We will then conduct a brainstorming session, producing strategies to accomplish these objectives. Using the tactics defined by the strategizing session, we will outline a schedule to achieve your objectives within a year. Based on these tactics, we help you to create action steps that can achieve quarterly goals that work toward completing the annual objectives.

3. Implementing Your Plan Through Objectives, Tactics, and Actions

Your strategic plan is vital to the direction of your business. Equally important, is the effective implementation of that plan. Through proper planning and implementation, you can drive your organization to increased value and best-in-class systems and operations. It isn’t enough to simply have a vision, nor is it sufficient to devise a plan for attaining that vision without putting it into action.

That’s where the real value of partnering with Heritage Business Advisors for your strategic planning is found. We guide you through the entire process of picking the “top 3” objectives not only to fix problem areas or grow your business, but also matches your personal values as well as your business’ vision & mission. After selecting objectives, we will work through the specific tactics needed to reach them and the actions required for each individual tactic within a given timeframe.

Though it may seem very cut and dry, this process is not as easy as it sounds. However, your advisor has been through every stage of the strategic planning process multiple times over, both in the businesses of their clients and in their own. Each time they have gained valuable insight into what works and what doesn’t. Your HBA advisory team will be coaching you throughout and assisting your organization in the implementation of your plans through a series of objectives, tactics, and actions.

Attempting to change the world in a day has never worked. It is ineffective and leaves you feeling discouraged and defeated. Instead, your HBA advisor will help you accomplish your tasks in short “sprints.” Each one is designed to achieve a specific portion of your overall plan, while building the confidence of you and your team through early success.

At the end of the entire strategic planning process, we will review the results of your plan and its implementation. From there, we can set forth new goals to continue leading you and your company toward greater growth and development.