planning

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October 2, 2020 – Is It Time To Plan for Next Year?

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Main Idea:

Has this year hit you like a Mack truck?  Have you spent most of your time reacting to Covid, political craziness, uneasy economy, unrest, supply chain issues, unstable labor force, panicking customers, regulatory issues, or ________________________?  Are you sick of spending all of your time at home?

Expansion of the Idea:

This has been a crazy year for so many reasons.  Just when it seems like it can’t get any crazier, something happens and collectively we agree that it belongs in this year.  There has been so much outside of our control.  It is easy to get to a point where we just sit at home and wait for what is going to happen next.  There are a lot of pity parties that are being celebrated throughout the US.

The real problem with this is that we get to the point where we think everything is out of our control.  Even the businesses, that are doing okay, are out of their normal patterns because they can’t do things like they would normally do them. 

There is disruption and chaos everywhere.  What should we do?

We are just starting the fourth quarter of the year.  This is a perfect time to start planning for year end and next year.  Obviously, none of us have a clue what will happen with presidential elections, stock markets and all of the other variables that could happen.  But we can start planning.  The more planning we do, the better off we will be to face the upcoming challenges once the economy opens up and life gets back to some semblance of normal.  (I don’t know if normal is the right word here.)

A basic framework for the planning that needs to happen is as follows:

  • Evaluation of where you currently are

  • SWOT Analysis of what you are doing right and wrong and what the challenges and opportunities are out there.  (See the video on my website.)

  • Goals for the next year.  (They must be realistic.)

  • ·1-4 action plans on achieving your goals based on the different possibilities of what might happen.  This would include a main plan along with contingent or ancillary plans.

These plans need to include the personal as well as the business side.  On the business side they need to include the following:

  • Cash flow and financial planning

  • Tax planning

  • Marketing plan

  • Employee plan

  • Risk analysis

  • Operational plans

There are other areas that might need to be added to your plans based on your situation.  The point is that you need to start making those plans now.  Of course, things never turn out as you planned.  But the act of planning will improve your businesses and you will be ready for some of the challenges.

Here are some questions to consider:

  1. Am I ready for year end?

  2. Do I have a robust plan for next year?

  3. Am I the only one who knows what that plan is?

  4. Am I good at communicating my plans?

  5. Have I involved my team, including external advisors, in planning?

If you have any questions on implementing this idea, please contact Tim FitzGerald.  There are a number of videos on the website that outline how to do some of this planning.  Also, I plan on offering three specific Zoom calls over the next month.  They are:

  1. Tax Planning for Business – October 13 at 4p

  2. Tax Planning for Individuals – October 20 at 4pm

  3. Estates, Wills & Trusts – October 27 at 4pm

If you are interested in signing up for the Zoom calls, please email Tim FitzGerald and you will be added to the list.

April 22, 2009 - Do You Need a "Timeout"?

Main Idea

Have you ever seen a two year old child completely out of control?  Have you seen small business owners out of control?  Are decisions being made clearly based on the best information available.

Expansion of Idea

When life is out of control, it is hard to make good decisions.  When a toddler is out of control, the only thing that really works is for them to be by themselves in “timeout”.  They may scream and cry for a while, but they normally get themselves back under control in a fairly short period of time.  Why is that?  I am not going to pretend to be a child psychologist, but I think kids need time by themselves without external influences. 

As adults, we are not much different.  We need to have time to plan and digest information.  Steven Covey calls this time Quadrant II.  This is time spent on important but not urgent matters.  This could be strategic planning, customer analysis, or employee coaching.  The agenda for the first time should be to develop ideas to follow up on in future timeouts. We tend to avoid this type of time because we focus on urgent.  In fact, in the current economic times, the urgent hijacks our time, energy and money.  A lot of small business owners are not much different than a two year-old.  We are trying to run our businesses, but are completely out of control emotionally because we do not have a practice of “TIMEOUT”. 

Area to Start

  1. Schedule time for you and yourself to meet. Put it on the calendar.

  2. Set follow up meetings to insure that this becomes a habit.

  3. Set time to meet with key management members or advisors.