| Welcome to Next
Step Solutions E-Newsletter
Dear
Margaret, Welcome to our
first issue in 2006! We are looking forward to an exciting year at
Next Step Solutions. Our plans include articles, seminars and
speeches all geared to offer useful information to our clients,
colleagues and fellow business professionals. Our primary topic for
this newsletter is planning. We hope you will find our subject
article thought provoking and useful.
Don't miss
the chance to attend our first Lunch & Learn seminar of
2006! Seats are still available, but they won't last long.
Details are below.
Happy
2006! by Margaret
Purvine
 We have reached
that annual time of year when we put away the various trappings of
the holiday season, catch our collective breaths, and look forward.
A regular exercise for many of us in the business world is taking a
moment away from the daily grind to do some planning for the year
ahead. I am talking about strategic planning. It’s a topic that
generates a variety of responses, from groans to trepidation to
excitement, depending on your experience. Performed effectively, a
strategic planning session doesn’t have to be an interminable waste
of time. Implemented as a living document, a good strategic plan can
propel a business to new heights.
So how do you
make your annual planning session a good one? Here are some tips
drawn from my experience.
- Top management must communicate and demonstrate their
commitment to the process.
- Have the session off site, away from the phones, computers,
and the daily fires that always fragment our days.
- Consider having a skilled outside facilitator run the session.
In my experience, this is worth the investment.
- Plan the meeting ahead of time with the facilitator. Establish
purpose and direction.
- Invite the right people to the meeting, including appropriate
outside advisors.
- After the meeting, don’t just file the document on the shelf.
Revisit it regularly, modify it as necessary. In short, use it to
keep everyone on track to reach your goals.
With proper
preparation and good communication and follow-up, your strategic
plan will help take you and your business to the next level. Have a
happy and very prosperous 2006!
Upcoming
Events! A Lunch &
Learn Seminar
 Ever dream of
owning your own business? Know someone else who does? Prefer to buy
rather than found a business? Learn how to turn your dream into a
reality. Join Dennis Purvine of Next Step Solutions and Skye Belline
of Banner Bank to learn the 7 steps for achieving the goal of
purchasing your own business and running it successfully.
Here are the
details.
- Topic - Buying a Business in 7 Steps
- Date - Wednesday, January 25, 2006
- Time - 11:00 - 1:00 (Registration open at 10:45)
- Place - Banner Bank Alderwood
- Address - 3405 - 199th St SW, Lynnwood
- Cost - $25 (Waived for readers of this newsletter!)
Lunch will be
provided. To enroll, call us at 425.918.1910 or email us at
info@nextstepsolutions.com. Seating is limited, so don't delay!
Reserve your seat today!
Planning
Services at Next Step
Interested in
learning more about planning services available through Next Step
Solutions? Check out one of the links below.
Words of
Wisdom Quotes from
business movers and shakers
“Solve it. Solve it quickly, solve it right or wrong. If you
solve it wrong, it will come back and slap you in the face, and then
you can solve it right. Lying dead in the water and doing nothing is
a comfortable alternative because it is without risk, but it is an
absolutely fatal way to manage a business.”
Thomas J. Watson (1874 – 1956), American Industrialist and
Philanthropist, President of IBM from 1914 – 1956.
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