Small Business: 2 key ways to build success in 2012

The New Year offers entrepreneurs a clean slate to start fresh.

Perhaps there were successes from this past year you'd like to repeat or failures you'd like to avoid going forward.

Either way, having a strategic plan going into the New Year can help set you on the right path and help you avert some of those more costly mistakes, say experts.

"A strategic plan holds you accountable to your goals," says Sarbjit Singh, an assistant professor in the school of business at Farmingdale State College.

It helps you assess what worked and what didn't in the previous year, he notes.

If there were key successes, applaud those successes and identify what factors led to them (i.e. a certain team, a specific project plan, etc.), says Singh. Try replicating that in other parts of your business, he suggests.

Set specific goals with an action plan on how you'll achieve those goals and the time frame under which you hope to accomplish them.

The goals should be realistic, but "with a little bit of a reach element" to them, says Singh. For example, if you know you could sell 1,000 iPods weekly, perhaps make your goal 1,200.

"Push yourself a little bit," he suggests.

Goal-setting. Don't be too overambitious with creating a laundry list of goals, says Mark Damico, president of The Workplace Group in Hauppauge, which specializes in the business-to-business sale of office furniture and office equipment and move management.

"I keep it to two goals every three months," says Damico, noting one of his goals for 2012 is to build up the document solution/copier side of the business.

About a year and a half ago he launched Workplace Document Solutions, which sells copiers and printers. It's now about 15 percent of his business, but he'd like to grow it to a third. To do that he's created a list of action items, including possibly holding a quarterly tech expo in his corporate showroom.

"If you set a goal, you need to break it down into actionable items because otherwise it's just a wish list," says Damico.

Break your strategic planning goals down into key areas such as revenues, net profits and business assets, says David Lavinsky, president of Growthink, a business planning consulting firm in Mount Kisco.

Business assets can include growing your client list, creating new systems in your business and hiring and training new employees, he says, noting too many companies only focus on financials.

Testing. You should also look at your marketing strategies within your strategic plan, says Lavinsky, who suggests companies test one new form of marketing monthly for a total of 12 new forms of marketing by the end of next year.

"If you get three to four new marketing methods that work, you'll have a major competitive edge," he notes.

You don't want to waste money on efforts not producing results, notes Evan Bloom, co-owner of Sir Speedy stores in Westbury, Hauppauge and Melville, who does strategic planning at least twice a year, including at year-end.

"If you're doing all this marketing and still losing money, then there's a problem," he notes.

Part of it's a learning curve, says Bloom, who notes any strategic plan is going to have some fluidity. For instance, when he did his strategic planning at the end of last year, he never anticipated the printing firm would enter the text-message marketing business, but that's exactly what happened this past November when an opportunity arose.

"We're constantly changing and adapting to opportunities and the marketplace," says Bloom.

The 80:20 rule. When doing strategic planning, you can apply the 80/20 rule to most aspects of your business to assess what's producing the best results and where to focus your resources. For example, ask what 20 percent of your customers yield 80 percent of profits, or what 20 percent of your efforts yield 80 percent of the results.

Source: David Lavinsky of Growthink