Let’s face it as an entrepreneur, nothing seems to come easily! In fact, in one of my favorite books “The One Thing” by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan, they preach embracing the chaos. This is not something that has come naturally to me in my entrepreneurial journey. However, it is clear that it is a critical skill to master for success.
Sometimes it is hard enough to put out enough fires to make the switch from working for the business to working on the business. One thing that I have found really effective at keeping focused is by leveraging a One Page Strategic Plan (OPSP). I am not the first person to use it, in fact I heard about it from an inspiring tech company SalesLoft.
An OPSP can mean a lot of things to different companies and how it is used can vary as well. I think even the better. Included here is a PDF of the blank format of what I use. Feel free to download it and make it your own. I will walk you through the sections that we include in ours and then how we use ours in our business.
Here are the sections of our OPSP that we find helpful to include:
- Core Values – Building a company culture and implementing is something that needs constant reinforcement. Having a reminder of the values that we strive for and look for in the people that we work with is critical.
- Mission Statement – I love seeing this all the time. Its great to see what I am working so hard to accomplish. It is important to share that story with your team and customers as well.
- SWOT Analysis – I like to be honest here. Where are we doing a good job, where do we need to focus, and what is holding us back. This is helpful later on when ascertaining the best quarterly projects to focus on.
- Quarterly and Annual Goals – This is where the rubber hits the road. Get specific, make a plan and get there.
- Quarterly Priority Projects – These are the critical milestones that you have to get in place and master in order to reach those quarterly and annual goals listed in the previous section.
How I implement the OPSP in our company
I revisit our OPSP every month-end and share it with our team every quarter-end.
I like to start off with reviewing our values of our company and make sure that those values still resonate with my experience and that they will take us where we want to go. Of course that leads directly into our mission statement. I love looking at our mission statement that helps remind me where we are going and what I am working towards.
PMI Made Simple – “A boutique investment shop and a dependable investment partner”
What can be painful at times is working on the SWOT analysis. Going through the SWOT analysis I like to reflect on the prior quarter to keep it simple. What strengths contributed to growth last quarter? What issues held us back and caused us to slow down? What areas are there that we need to focus on to capture value or pivot to? In property management, a lot of these areas typically deal with maintenance for our properties in Utah and Salt Lake County. Or, what value or services can we improve to attract more real estate investors? At times this can be location specific because issues in real estate in Provo can vary widely from Salt Lake City.
Quarterly and annual goals are things that I typically share with our team. It is great to celebrate your accomplishments and see where you are as compared to where you need to be. As you use the OPSP quarter after quarter you can chain those together to see longer periods of progress and goal attainment.
My favorite part is the quarterly projects. For me, it seems like we are always working so hard, but when you revisit the OPSP it is nice to see the big projects that we were able to knock off the list.
Overall, I have found the OPSP practice to bring a lot of focus for our business and I hope that it can do the same for you!
Links:
- The one thing – https://www.the1thing.com/blog/the-one-thing/how-to-embrace-chaos-to-increase-productivity/
- SalesLoft – https://salesloft.com/
- SLC development – https://cdcutah.org/
- Provo City Community Development Office – https://www.provo.org/departments/community-development
