We want to think about the future and forget the past. And that’s ok, because the vision is important for achieving strategic success. However, we live in the present, and today will be something very influential in creating our future. Think about the question in the title of this post. Do you really know where you are now?

I don’t know where I am at this moment, but I know where I want to be. Is it possible?

How can I go somewhere if I don’t know where I am now and what I will need to do in order to arrive where I want to be in the future?

As human beings, we have a different purpose for our future. But all of us are now in different positions. Let’s think again about different current positions and different purposes for our future. Because of different purposes, we can’t expect that there are some templates that will show us the right path for our journey.

The responsibility to find the path and walk on that path is in ourselves. We need to think, plan, and create our own journey to success.

Let’s look at some important reasons why you must know where you are now:

1. What direction must you choose?

You want to create a growth strategy for your business. And as you probably know, you must start with the vision. It means you must ask the following question:

Where do you want you or your business to be in the future?

But the next important question is:

Where are you right now?

Why is this important? Because you must know your starting position in order to create goals that will be SMART and to develop action plans that will help you reach your goals.

Let’s say you are in position A and you want to be in position D. When you look at a map, you can easily find the right direction.

But let’s say if you are in position B and want to be in position D, you will have a completely different direction in which you will need to walk.

As with everything else in our lives, we will have many alternative directions, but one or a few are the right ones that will bring us to the position where we want to be.

If you don’t know where you are now, you can’t be in a position to choose the right direction for your goals.

2. What action steps must you take?

Because we know where we want to be, and we know the right direction, we can easily choose the right action steps.

The right action steps are important for us because they will bring us where we want to be. Action steps will be different for different positions where we are now.

Let’s say you want to increase your sales by 20%. If you don’t know where you are now with the sales, you can’t choose the right action steps to achieve your goal. Probably, you will bring much more chaos to your sales department.

In this example, you will analyse your sales results, compare year over year, search for trends and patterns, and ask strategic questions, including critical thinking, to find out why you have such results. Simply, find the reasons for your current situation and whether something is limiting you.

In such a way, you will have a starting point for more specific goals and action steps. In this case, if you’ve found limiting factors, your action plan will be to start with minimizing or eliminating those sources that are limiting you from higher sales.

Otherwise, or without knowing and analysing your ur current situation, you will start with increasing marketing budget, improving advertising campaigns, etc. But, without addressing the root cause of current numbers and eliminating them, you will only spend money and effort on the wrong things.

3. How much time will you need to arrive where you want to be?

Before you start doing something to achieve your strategic goals, you must know how much time your journey will take. Knowing this, you can better prepare yourself to be more persistent. It is more important to be consistent and persistent instead of perfect. Here is how you can become more consistent and less perfect.

Let’s continue with our case and increasing sales.

The analysis of your current situation, or where you are now with the sales, reveals two limiting problems:

1. Your sales process is too long and not effective and efficient enough.
2. Two of the eight sales teams are bringing below-average results.

Now, you can easily plan two action steps and how much time you will initially need to implement them.

I’ve got such a case, and we put steps such as:

1. Sales process improvement:
   • Model the sales process and conduct simulations to see the performance results (2 weeks).
   • Discuss modeling results at brainstorming sessions to find the best solution (1 week)
   • Develop an operational plan to implement the best solution (1 week).
   • Implement the plan (1 week).
   • Reflection after 3 months to check if the plan is working.
2. Poor performance sales team improvement:
   • Find the reasons why those sales teams are underperformers (1 week).
   • Conduct several training sessions for sales teams (2 weeks).

As you can see now, we already know what we must do and how much time we will need to do it.

4. What and how many resources will you need to go where we want to be?

Before you start doing something about your goals, you want to know what type and how many resources you will need to invest in that journey.

Every possible achievement will require some resources, such as time, effort, money, people, tools, etc. However, it is much easier to plan and allocate your resources when you already know where you are and what you must do to get where you want to be.

If we continue with our example, for the first key initiative (like I call them into a business strategy canvas), sales process improvements, we can easily say we need:

• Team member with strong analytical skills and process improvement skills
• CRM data and sales records
• Involvement of all salespeople in the company

Why is this important? Because knowing what we will need (resources), we will dig much deeper, especially if there is a scarcity for something.

Let’s say you dont have inside your small business a team member with strong process improvement skills. In such a case, you can ask for external services, or make a short-term hire or a consultant to help you achieve your goals.

5. What’s the strategic plan for our journey?

If you want to succeed and get where you want to be with your company, you must create a strategic plan that will bring you to the right destination based on your own vision.

How can we make such a plan if we don’t know where we are now?

This is the main reason regarding the strategic plan; knowing where you want to be has the same importance as knowing where you are now.

As I have mentioned in our business strategy canvas article, it is really important to always conduct an internal and external analysis of your business regarding the vision. However, I’ve seen many people skip this step, so they are blind to their current position and want to go somewhere, but they never get there.

Why do they never get there? Simply because their action plan is not according to their current reality. In such a way, many good strategies never see the light of day.

If you want to be more productive, you will need to know where you are now, where you want to be in the future, and an excellent plan that will bring you to the desired future.