Planning allows you to bring together your natural skillsets and your select opportunities and organize them into a structure that will help you meet your potential for growth and profit. It gives you something to aim toward. Or said another way, if you aim at nothing, you’ll hit it every time.

So, planning’s starting to sound better, right? But wait, there’s more! Creating a marketing plan for your year helps you…

Define your goals. Some may instinctively say, “My goal is to make more money.” That’s definitely a welcome outcome, yet it’s more of a wish than a goal. “SMART” goals, for example, are specific – such as “increase customer retention by launching a maintenance agreement program during the first quarter.” The goal identifies what you want to do and why. Tasks can be outlined to get there based on when you want this goal enacted.

Map out your methods. Goal-setting takes you to the specificity of actions, programs, tasks and timeframes to accomplish your objectives within a certain budget. It helps you see the vision for where you want to be, and you can fill it in with the nuts and bolts for how you want to get there.

You make selections that will spread your investments across online and offline media to keep your name in your market all year long. In doing so, the hard part is upfront as you set your direction and narrow your focus. Then, once you’ve created your plan, decisions become easier. You can move through your marketing seasons with confidence, yet at the same time, keep track of results and…

Measure your progress. If you’re operating without a plan, it’s hard to know if you’re where you need to be. Yet with a plan in place, you know what to measure. Also, just as importantly, if your plan isn’t working out as you’d hoped, you can adjust as needed. It’s much better to adjust a plan in the second quarter and have a better third quarter than proceed blindly to the end of the year and say, “Well, that didn’t work.”

Remember, a plan is just that – a plan. It’s not a carved stone monument to your ideas. It’s a tool for learning what’s working and what isn’t. If needed, take a detour or change your route as road bumps appear.

So, how do you get to your big-picture thinking? Before you set out on your planning adventure…

Team up with an expert guide. Don’t try to go at it alone. When you’re so involved in the day-to-day that you can’t see the forest for the trees, you’ll be well served to enlist a well-trained coach to guide you through your marketing decisions.

Another set of eyes can help you detect your blind spots. We all have them (and we can’t see them). Yet a seasoned coach can point out the opportunities you have overlooked, the problems you can avoid as well as the missed steps you’re about to repeat.

A second brain can help you prioritize your efforts. By asking the right questions, your coach can help you sort through a laundry list of possibilities and bring your goals into focus.

A coaching process provides the built-in accountability that keeps you on track toward the goals you are pursuing.