590 – Annual Strategic Planning
The How of Business - How to start, run, grow and exit a small business.
Henry Lopez, Levante Business Group
4.7 • 522 Ratings
🗓️ 8 December 2025
⏱️ 20 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A practical 10-step guide to creating your small business strategic plan for the year ahead.
Show Notes Page: https://www.thehowofbusiness.com/590-annual-strategic-planning/
In this episode, Henry Lopez breaks down how to create a clear and practical strategic plan for the year ahead, without overcomplicating the process.
Strategic planning gives small business owners a roadmap for growth, helping them stop reacting and start leading with intention.
Henry walks through a 10-step framework that includes reviewing the previous year, refining your vision, conducting a SWOT analysis, defining strategy, setting goals and KPIs, breaking plans into quarterly actions, budgeting, and executing with discipline.
He also explains why strategic planning matters even when circumstances change: "If we don't plan, then you really have no path to follow… things will happen to you instead of you making things happen."
This episode is designed to help you clarify where you're going, stay aligned with your long-term vision, make smarter decisions about limited resources, and create a focused plan you can adjust throughout the year.
You'll also learn Henry's five best-practice tips for more effective planning, starting with basing everything on reality, limiting priorities, tracking KPIs consistently, assigning ownership, and ensuring everything leads to real action.
If you want to enter the next year with clarity, confidence, and intention, this episode provides the structure you need.
This episode is hosted by Henry Lopez. The How of Business podcast focuses on helping you start, run, grow and exit your small business. The How of Business is a top-rated podcast for small business owners and entrepreneurs. Find the best podcast, small business coaching, resources and trusted service partners for small business owners and entrepreneurs at our website https://TheHowOfBusiness.com
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the How of Business with your host, Henry Lopez, the podcast that helps you start, |
| 0:05.9 | run, and grow your small business. And now, here is your host. |
| 0:11.6 | Welcome to the How a Business podcast. This is Henry Lopez. And on this episode, I'm sharing an overview |
| 0:16.9 | of how to create a clear strategic plan for the year ahead, something every small |
| 0:21.6 | business owner should create annually. If you want a simple structure to guide your priorities, |
| 0:26.4 | your budgets, and your focus for next year, then this episode should help you get your plan in |
| 0:31.0 | place without over-complicating the process. There's a short and simple quote from Peter Drucker, |
| 0:36.3 | the late management consultant and author |
| 0:38.6 | on this topic of planning, quote, the best way to predict the future is to create it, end quote. |
| 0:44.5 | Planning is how small business owners create their future. You can find all of the Howa Business |
| 0:49.8 | resources, including the show no space for this episode, and learn more about my one-on-one |
| 0:54.2 | and group coaching programs at the howabusiness.com. I also invite you to consider joining |
| 0:58.8 | the how a business community on Patreon, and please subscribe wherever you might be listening, |
| 1:03.2 | so you don't miss any new episodes. Why does strategic planning matter? And often I hear people |
| 1:08.5 | say, why should I plan when things are going to change anyway? And |
| 1:12.0 | certainly there's some truth to that. But if we don't plan, then you really have no path to follow, |
| 1:17.5 | no blueprint, no guide. And then certainly things will happen to you instead of you making things |
| 1:23.0 | happen. So while we must adjust a plan because of the realities of what happens that is out of our control, |
| 1:29.4 | we need to have something to shoot for. A strategic plan, especially on an annual level, |
| 1:33.7 | helps us stop reacting and start leading our business intentionally. It gives us and our team's |
| 1:39.8 | clarity on the priorities for next year and where to focus our limited resources. As small business |
| 1:46.0 | owners, really any level of business, we have limited resources, limited time, limited money. So we have to |
... |
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