12 Ways to Guarantee Your Strategic Plan Won’t Work

Having a strategic plan in place for your business is the best way to ensure you achieve your goals. After all, if you’re failing to plan, you’re planning to fail. That said, it’s not enough to create a strategic plan. You need to be sure that your strategic plan is not created in a way that will pretty much guarantee it won’t work.

Here are 12 things to watch out for:

1. Having unobtainable goals based on pie-in-the-sky projections. 

2. Setting unrealistic budgets that don’t cover actual costs and needs.

3. Failing to create action plans for implementing the strategies and tactics described in the strategic plan.

4. Not getting buy-in from the people who will do or oversee the work.

5. Failing to communicate the vision and strategic objectives to the “rank and file” within the company, or to communicate progress over time.

6. Not assigning responsibilities for each step, and not assigning due dates and timelines.

7. Not planning for the infrastructure needed to accomplish the goals laid out in the plan, such as:

a. People
b. Funds
c. Machinery
d. Physical space
e. Ability to obtain materials, parts or products
f. Production capacity
g. And more


8. Not budgeting for mandated wage increases caused by contractual obligations or increases in the minimum wage.

9. Not doing your homework, such as to determine the actual viability of entering new markets.

10. Not planning for proper marketing and sales support for a new product launch.

11. Not taking steps to avoid scaring customers away with poor customer service, negative press, etc.

12. Taking a “set it and forget it” approach to the strategic plan, rather than following up at regular intervals to ensure it’s being implemented as anticipated.

Want to bring in an outside expert to help you create a strategic plan that makes sense? Give me a call. As a part-time CFO, this is one of the many services that I provide.

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