4 Ways to Approach 2025 Strategic Planning

For many, late summer is the time for strategic planning. This year may be particularly challenging, as many companies took a 'wait and see' approach to 2024. M&A deal flow is down; sales cycles are lengthening, changing many companies' approaches to growth. It can be hard to get a grounded read on 2025 market shifts, emerging customers, and blue-sky strategies amid today's uncertainty. Let's start with you. A leader's vision, clarity, and energy set the stage for real change. Are you ready? 

Rather than changing the date on your 2024 plan to 2025, here are four ways leaders are approaching their planning and budgeting for the year:

1. Personal Retreat and Vision Exercise

           Many leaders, ourselves included, have been working in the business, not on the business, out of necessity due to turnover, workforce shortages, onboarding new key hires, and budget cuts. The good news is that you're more in tune with your customer base and ways of work. The bad news is that you need to get back to the 10,000-foot view to refresh your vision. 

Here's one agenda, if it works for you: 

• Clear your calendar--a morning, two half days with a sleep cycle, two full days--whatever you can afford
• No phone or email
• Do your prep work: decide what market research, tools, or templates you may need. (Our toolkit is below!)
• Start outside: meditate, get on the water, hike--whatever you need to clear your head.
• Set your vision for the next stage of your business. What value are you creating for yourself, your employees, and your customers? What is your legacy? 
• Write the title of your dream press release for three years in the future. What is your BHAG (big hairy audacious goal)? 
• Where is your personal highest value and greatest strength in helping the company achieve your vision? What responsibilities or time sucks do you have to give up to deliver on that? 

Bring that energy and personal clarity into company strategic planning. 

2. Assess and Grow

Start with an honest midyear assessment of your current year's strategic plan. There have undoubtedly been set-ups, pullbacks, and missed assumptions. Celebrate your ability to adapt. Identify the wins, reset, and refocus. Set your targets for next year, and identify the few most important things to achieve before the year is out to lay the groundwork for 2025's success.

Here's our approach:

1. • Review your current plan midyear as a team. Ruthlessly edit the activities to the priorities that are still both important and feasible, capping out at three. 
   • Conduct a “what's working / what's not working” exercise as a group to help prioritize near-term actions.
   • Design sprints to complete these priorities by year's end so we enter 2025 fresh.
   • Start 2025 planning on a fresh sheet. Revisit the vision, mission, goals, and positioning in light of lessons learned from this year.

3. Embrace Change

After the last few years, we are experts in adapting to change. But with the new year comes new challenges. With more businesses leveraging new technology like generative AI and the unpredictable nature of the current economic landscape, your plan needs to have room to adapt to roadblocks or challenges that come your way.

How that looks:

• How do we operate if nothing changes? How do we operate if they do? Most have seen significant changes in the companies they serve—turnover of primary contact, mergers and acquisitions that make decision-making unclear, budget cutbacks, and changing product development timelines. If you can adjust your marketing and sales to meet today's customers where they're at and reduce friction in your sales process, you’ll win.
• Invite more positivity. Seek out those who give you energy. That energy and activity will fuel your growth.
• Be curious. Learn about innovations and new challenges in your industry. See how your team can grow with them.

4. Cultivate Culture

Our forward-thinking clients spent 2024 transitioning their company to meet the needs of the changed market, and next year is the ideal time to capture and build upon that exact strength, externally and internally.

Clients will continue investing the time and the funds to identify and strengthen their brand to articulate a competitive advantage. These activities often include:

• Voice of the customer — To understand from an outside perspective their customer experience and common characteristics to inform their hiring and developing practices and their sales and marketing.
• Market and product positioning—Assess the changing competitive landscape, as many of your competitors have pivoted, left the market, or changed the delivery model. Then, collaborate with all of your stakeholders—from engineering and product development to marketing, sales, and customer service—to define your unique value proposition.
• Branding: Stand out and tell your story. Ensure you live the brand at every touchpoint with your customers and employees.
• Transparency — Be transparent with your stakeholders about executing the plan. Rather than saying you are, show you are by communicating why this plan is needed, what is required, and any challenges along the way. This strengthens your internal team with trust and loyalty.