3 'MUST DO' Inclusions In Your Business Plan

As I outlined in last week's blog, I want to share ideas in January of ways to help you reset and refocus your RTO so you have an even better 2020.

For most of you, it will be three weeks into a new work year and if you're like me, you've probably been playing catch up for most of that. But if you're not careful, you can remain in that firefighting/bandaiding mode for the whole year unless you make a conscious change to stop, reflect and truly plan.

In last week's blog, I gave you 3 simple strategies to reset you and your RTO.

In this week's blog I want to share with you my tips to developing your 2020 Annual Business Plan, or what I call my 1 Page Annual Business Intent.

Hopefully, you've already done this so you may want to include these considerations, if you haven't already. If you haven't written your 2020 Business Intent, I hope this will give you the ideas and the focus to block out time to GET IT DONE because it's a critical document within your RTO business.

When you write your Annual Business Plan (aka Intent), I'm sure you'll be focused on the numbers for example:

• Turnover
• Profit
• Percentage increase in sales
• Increase in staff
• Number of enrolments
• Number of completions
• Number of new clients
• Number of returning clients.

And that's great because firstly setting targets, and then tracking your progress against these numbers is important and critical to your RTO's success.

But in order to achieve these targets, we must also look at our behaviours, attitudes, tasks we're focused on this year to see if they need tweaking. Without this honest reflection, we cannot be assured of giving ourselves the best chance of achieving this year's annual business plan.

When I help clients develop their 1 Page Annual Business Intent, my template includes three headings: Keep Doing, Start Doing and Stop Doing. So let me share with you why these three words must be included when writing your annual business plan.

Three MUST DO Inclusions In Your Annual Business Plan

1. What Do I Need to KEEP DOING?

What worked for you, your team, your students, your clients and your RTO last year?

Maybe it was having weekly staff meetings to keep everyone connected and focused.

Once you know what worked, it's important to ensure you keep these practices going when you get busy rather than letting things slide or getting complacent.

So what are the three things you need to KEEP DOING to grow your RTO?

2. What Do I Need to STOP DOING?

What didn't work for you, your team, your students, your clients and your RTO last year?

Maybe you needed to stop saying Yes to everything and everyone instead of actually determining your ideal student (which isn't everyone) so you start talking directly to them.

There will always be distractions (internal and external) stopping us from achieving our success, and it's these distractions we need to recognise and stop so we can take our RTO business to the next level.

So what are the three things you need to STOP DOING to grow your RTO?

3. What Do I Need to START DOING?

What held you back last year... Why didn't you achieved what you wanted?

Often, it's needing to start embracing all aspects of running an RTO (sales, finance, marketing, systems etc); rather than being what I call 'The Reluctant RTO Owner/CEO/Manager' and just doing the fun or easy work.

Without committing to doing things differently this year, we can only expect similar results because as you know, if nothing changes, nothing changes.

So what are the three things you need to START DOING to grow your RTO?

By asking yourself these three questions and answering honestly (which I understand may be a bit confronting), you can leave behind the distractions, doubt and fear which may have held you back last year.

Therefore, I hope you'll spend time in January developing (or tweaking) your Annual Business Plan; but also including in the document the three things you'll keep doing, stop doing and start doing to demonstrate your commitment to success.

And here's my final thought

As they say in sport, how you train is how you play so will you put in the work NOW to give your RTO the best chance of success THIS YEAR?

Dedicated to making your life easier

Tamara

PS: If you'd like some help to write your 2020 Business Intent on 1 Page, then check out my 'How to write your RTO's 2020 Business Plan.. on 1 Page' webinar which I ran on 4 December 2019.

If you'd like to get the recording, template and Statement of Attendance, please click on the link to get more information and register.

https://businesssceneinvestigation.webinarninja.com/live-webinars/147141/register?in_tok=73ef5389-c48b-4666-86cc-05d55d58b862