How to find a balance between short-term and long-term planning

There is a constant struggle for businesses between short-term and long-term growth. It is impossible to know what the future holds, so sometimes it’s easier to hold on to what is right in front of us. That can sometimes mean disappointment if we don’t see the kind of growth we had hoped for. So we slip into that hustle mode where it’s a daily grind. And it feels like you’re doing so much, but unless you have a long-term strategy, that hustle and daily grind will often not mean much.

Daily grind without a strategy often leads to burnout because you’re often sacrificing your own well-being for the business or the success of the strategy. And then you feel stuck, and you’ll be lucky to string together enough of an effort to put SOMETHING together.

OK. So how do you fix that. How do you live in the moment with your business and your marketing yet still plan for the future?

How to have both in the best possible way

Set both short-term and long-term goals

Obvious one, right? What’s not so obvious is that these goals need to be linked in some way. Your short-term goals should get you to the long-term goals. You can’t just set revenue targets for 5 or 10 years from now without thinking of what happens along the way. I often talk about milestones for your timeline so you can celebrate the small wins along the way, but when you look at the big picture, there are actually 3 levels to your timeline planning; Long-term goals, short-term goals, and mini-milestones.

Write everything down and keep yourself accountable by checking in regularly. If you’re not meeting your mini-milestones or your short-term goals, you have to figure out why and adjust your strategy accordingly.

Keep up with industry trends

Keeping up with trends doesn’t mean changing everything any time something changes in your industry. However, you do need to know what’s going on if things are changing around you. This means reading industry publications, networking with peers, following competitors on social media, etc. The key is taking the knowledge you have and applying it to your current situation. You need to figure out whether making a change will make sense for your customers and the future growth of the business. If it doesn’t you need to put aside the inevitable FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) because your competitors may make changes. Once you make a strategic decision stick with it.

Give your strategy time to breathe

Whether it’s your overall business strategy, a sales strategy, a marketing strategy, and advertising strategy – ANY strategy, it can be tempting to make changes if nothing happens right away. However, it’s important to set your goals and stick to them. Let your strategy breathe. Give it time to work. If you reach your first milestone or you are approaching and you aren’t seeing results, then it’s time to make changes. But you don’t want to make changes as a knee jerk reaction. You want to be strategic and base them on your overall goals.

Schedule time off

This is one of the hardest things for most people. SO much vacation time goes unused because we feel like things will fall apart if we shut down for a break. Whether you are a business owner, you run a marketing team, or you execute the day-to-day tasks that get you from point A to point B in your strategy, everyone needs a break. If you know it’s going to be hard for you to take a break, then make sure you schedule it. That gives you the opportunity to prepare and set things up for when you are gone so you can jump back in when you are back. Not only that, taking a break allows you to approach things with a fresh perspective.

Still not sure how to find the right balance? Or maybe you’re having trouble trusting your strategy enough to let it be successful? Book a free consultation with me and we can chat!