Painting Contractors Planning for 2020

Have you created your plan for 2020? 

Running a business without a plan is like rafting in the rapids without a paddle.

You will go somewhere and fast, but you might not end up where you wanted and you might even end up on the rocks! 

Now is the perfect time to begin planning for next year.

Start with re-visiting your vision for your business or possibly creating one for the first time. 

I recommend you start with 1,3, and 5 year visions. 

While you might find it difficult to be clear about what you might want your company to look like in 5 or even 10 years, it will help plan the short term with the long term in mind.

After you create your vision, I would next go through a SWOT process. 

SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. 

This exercise will identify what you need to keep going and where you need to improve in order to achieve your vision. 

It can also be helpful in identifying areas you need to exit as well as identify areas where you might be well-positioned to grow. 

An example might be that the erratic scheduling of General Contractors makes it hard for you to have a predictable scheduling process and profit. 

So this is a threat. 

From here you can identify that you would like to reduce your GC revenue by 50% next year and another 25% the following year and only work for the few GC’s that align with your company.

Of course, this action will require you to increase revenue in other areas to account for this revenue reduction with GC’s. 

Where and how will you do this? 

You might also identify some complimenting areas you might want to offer services. 

Maybe some carpentry or drywall services. 

These would be opportunities.

So take some time and create your vision and do a SWOT analysis with this template. 

Next week we will talk about the next steps in the planning process.