Can you believe it? It’s almost the end of the year! 2024 has flown by and hopefully it has been a great year for your business. But if you don’t have a written plan for your business, sometimes success can almost be impossible to achieve. One CPA estimates that less than half of businesses have a written strategy that dictates how they make decisions. How can you know what to do if you can’t write down where you need to be? That’s why it’s so important to have a written strategy for your business in 2025 so you can track your progress, pivot your goals, and identify opportunities quickly so you can grow and succeed.

Why Having a Business Plan is So Important

Imagine for a second that you’re on a ship in the middle of the ocean. You’re the captain standing on deck and your crew asks where you’re heading. You just point off in one direction and tell them you’ll see what’s over there, blindly hoping that there’s a shore to be found over that way. Sounds crazy right? If you’re off by even a couple degrees you risk getting stranded at sea, and at best you’ll probably end up somewhere far from where you wanted to be in the first place.

The same is true with your business, whether you have created an LLC, S Corp, or C Corp. If you don’t know where you’re heading, you probably won’t like where you end up at the end of the year. So how do you determine where to lead your employees? How do you make decisions that will impact the direction of your business for years to come? Here are a few ideas to kickstart your 2025 business plan and what pieces you need written down and handed out to all important members of your company.

What Needs to Be in Your 2025 Business Plan

Here are the key elements you must have in your 2025 business plan to effectively make decisions that will benefit your company. Obviously you will need to consider other factors and plans that are specific to your industry or company, but this should give you the foundational building blocks to craft your plan.

1. Big Picture Goals
2. Financial Goals
3. Marketing Goals
4. Hiring Goals
5. Employee Goals

Big Picture Goals

“Begin with the end in mind.” If you don’t have an idea about your destination, you’ll be distracted by all sorts of side quests and day to day activity that will keep you in the weeds instead of looking forward to what’s ahead. Where do you want your business to be at the end of the year? What new products do you want to roll out? How will you provide more value to your customers? What new services do you want to provide? All of these are important questions you want answers to in your 2025 business plan.

Financial Goals

Not all of your decisions should be made in pursuit of money, but without money your business can’t succeed either. Your financial goals need to be long term, because if you’re only thinking about making payroll this month you’re gonna be missing out on some big opportunities.

Write down what you’d like your revenue to be to put your company into growth mode, How are your margins? What are you making in profit compared to your competitors? How many products do you want to sell? How many clients do you need to stay in business? And how many do you need to stay aggressive and have the resources you need to finance advertising, marketing, and outreach initiatives? 

Your financial plan will look different depending on the type of business you’re in, and I’m sure there are others you’ll want to add, but having these written down will help keep you on track.

Marketing Goals

When you’re busy with the day to day operations of your business, marketing often falls by the wayside. Most entrepreneurs see marketing as a “nice to have” rather than a “need to have” so it can be one of the first things to get deprioritized when business resources are tight. That’s why having a written portion of your business plan dedicated to marketing is vital, otherwise you’ll find yourself 6 months into the year without having put much effort into your marketing!

What platforms do you want to be on? What resources do you have access to (databases, email campaigns, website visitors, Google rankings, videos, creatives, etc.)? How can you use and repurpose these resources? How can you best leverage your marketing team members or agencies that you’re working with? What do you wish your marketing was doing for you right now that it’s not? How do you want your marketing to help you achieve other business goals?

Also think in terms of potential partnerships. What other businesses (referral partners, local businesses, etc.) would benefit from or would be interested in co-hosting events, webinars, or other marketing collaborations with you or your team?

Hiring & Employee Goals

And last but certainly not least, you have to make sure that your employees are well taken care of, you’re guiding them on the right track, and you’re mapping out what new employees you may need to bring in to scale your business or keep the ship running smoothly.who do you likely need to give raises to? Who are the key team members you need to reward? What employees may need a little extra assistance? Which ones do you need to create performance improvement plans for? What team members are identifying themselves as leaders that need either a promotion and/or extra staff to be as valuable as they can to your company?

Conclusion

Hopefully this has given you all the extra push you needed to write down your goals, make your 2025 business plan, and succeed in the new year! And remember, the most important part of writing your plan down is so you and your team follow it and make decisions clearly throughout the year. You got this!

For more help expanding your business in 2025 contact us here to find out out how we can help!