How To Plan Your Way To Success In 5 Steps

Why Plan Your Way To Success?

If you don’t have a plan, it’s like you are going to an unknown destination without a map…

We have worked with over 800 hospitality businesses in Victoria over the past 20 years and in our experience we’ve found creating a plan following these 5 steps to be the most effective way to achieve your business goals.

After working with hospitality businesses for so long and encountering the same issues we have developed a system to assist hospitality businesses – it’s called our Workforce Development Program. Today I will take you through a very simplified version of our Plan Your Way To Success workshop, which is an introduction to the Workforce Development Program. It will help you;

• Define success for you
• Complete a Business Strategy
• Identify your strengths & weaknesses
• Complete a Skills Gap Assessment
• Complete a Training Strategy
• Create a map to get you where you want to go

Past clients have experienced the following;

“We experienced an increase in sales of well over half a million dollars and I credit a lot of that to the staff. Staff are confident in their roles and are motivated by having a recognised qualification.”

Stephen De Martin, Warrnambool Bowls Club

“I’m highly appreciative of the guidance provided by AVTES in recommending appropriate training, qualifications, and even specific modules which directly related to a wide range of different roles in Front of House, Food & Beverage, porters etc.The recommended training options were very effective in up-skilling employees as well as clearly linked to financial incentives,” 

Lyn Blight, Hilton South Wharf

How To Plan Your Way To Success

There are 5 steps that will help you plan your way to success.

• Step 1 – identify your business goals
• Step 2 – outline strategies and actions to achieve those goals
• Step 3 – assess the current capacity of your business
• Step 4 – identify skills gaps
• Step 5 – identify relevant training opportunities

Section 1 – Your Business Plan

What Does Success Mean To You?

Success can mean a lot of different things to different people. It’s important to define your version of success. Both in terms of your business and your life outside business. As mostly owner operators the two are not mutually exclusive. This will help you identify relevant goals.

SMART Goals

Why do we need goals?

They are a destination for our map, if we don’t know where we are going, how do we know if we get there…

But goals need to be SMART…

• Specific (exactly what do you want to achieve?)
• Measurable (how will you know when you achieve it?
• Achievable (is it in your power to accomplish it? It should be challenging but ultimately realistic)
• Relevant (goals should be in-line with your higher level goals/values)
• Timely (set a timeframe to keep yourself accountable)

Step 1 Exercise – Define 3 SMART business goals. 

“A goal without a plan is just a wish” Antoine de Saint Exupery

Goals, Strategies & Tactics

Now we have our destination, but still no map. To reach our ultimate goal, we need to break it down into smaller steps – strategies and tactics.

If a goal is what you want to achieve, a strategy is how you will achieve it and tactics are the specific actions you will take.

Step 2 Exercise – outline strategies and tactics to meet your 3 business goals as identified in the last activity.

Section 2 – People Plan

Now we are halfway there. We’ve completed your ‘Business Plan’ – so we have our map, our destination, and our route. But what about our starting point?

Strengths & Weaknesses

You are probably familiar with a SWOT Analysis – it is a business tool used to identify your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. While the strengths and weaknesses are generally internal to the business, opportunities and threats are generally external.

It applies to any and all business resources – human, physical, financial, process, or experience.

Identifying your strengths and weaknesses can help you identify the current capacity of your business to achieve your goals.

Looking at your strengths will help to identify opportunities to exploit, and looking at your weaknesses will help to identify anything that may prevent you achieving your goals. Essentially it will show where you are currently at – or your starting point.

Step 3 Exercise – list 5 current strengths of your business and 5 current weaknesses. 

Skills Gaps

So now we have our starting point, but who is going to drive us there?

While navigating the map (in this case, your ‘Business Plan’) is the job of you – the business leader, the whole team is needed to drive the plan.

Implementing and actioning the strategies and actions you have come up with requires people! (amongst other resources).

So we need to ensure you have the right human resources. Your team (no matter how big it is) is the most important part of implementing your plan and this section will show you how you can use what you’ve already got to achieve your goals.

Step 4 Exercise – Consider each strategy and tactic on your Business Plan. For each, write down what skills are required to action it. Then consider who will be auctioning it and whether they currently have those skills. Where there is a gap, note it down, detailing what is missing. (This is essentially a ‘Strengths & Weaknesses’ assessment of your team related to your Business Plan.)

“Great companies don’t hire skilled people and motivate them, they hire already motivated people and inspire them” Simon Sinek

5 Styles of Training

1. LISTENING – lecture/seminar, masterclass, instruction, online
2. WATCHING – masterclass, demonstration, video, buddy system, online
3. PRETENDING – role play, simulation
4. DOING – on-the-job, workshop, practical session, activities/workbooks, online
5. CHECKING – supervision, secret shopper, test, online

Often a mix is required to fully learn a skill, and it can be useful to incorporate training in this order – start with explaining, then demonstrating, then get the learner to perform a task and later check they can do it by themselves.

Accredited Training

Accredited training refers to;

• Nationally accredited units and qualifications
• Certificate II – Advanced Diploma level
• Government funding opportunities
• Apprenticeships & Traineeships

Benefits of training;

• Being able to find and keep good staff
• Staff able to take on more responsibilities
• A happy and loyal customer base
• Business growth and profitability
• Consistent service standards
• Better systems and processes
• Improved staff morale

Step 5 Exercise – consider each team member. Note down their skills gaps and identify any relevant training opportunities. This is your Development Plan.

Now you have all you need to start on your journey to reaching your business goals. But remember…

“A good plan implemented today is better than a perfect plan implemented tomorrow” General George Patton

I’ve guided you through a very simplified version of our Workforce Development Program, which you can find out more about here. If you need any advice or assistance in planning team development or would like to discuss how the Workforce Development Program might suit your business, get in touch.