It's almost Thanksgiving! It's also a great time of year to understand what quarterly and annual planning should look like because, as an entrepreneur, you want to schedule your success and not lose traction.
Now, the bigger the goal is, the more you can lose focus. If the goal feels too big, it can get overwhelming to the point that your productivity suffers. EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System) teaches you how to compartmentalize and break down your goals into 90-day steps so they become more achievable.
Why Plan the EOS Style?
EOS stands for Entrepreneurial Operating System. It's a framework that came out of the book Traction by Gino Wickman as well as the book What the Heck is EOS?
EOS is designed for teams of 10 to 250 making $2 million or more in revenue. However, it could also be for the solopreneur making their first dollar because it can be scaled back enough to just get the foundations in place.
In EOS, you establish your core focus, vision, 10-year plan, three-year plan, and even one-year plan, which can be obtained by chunking your goals down into 90-day segments.
The 3 Main Objectives for a Quarterly Planning Session
- Keep a clear vision
- Make sure everyone's on the same page (within the leadership team or whoever else is in the planning session)
- Create a clear plan for the next 90 days and address any issues that have been brought up from the past quarter as well as potential issues for the quarter going forward.
The Goal of Quarterly Pulsing
Quarterly pulsing refers to a quarterly meeting where you reassess the initial goals you set 90 days ago.
The goal is to make sure that you're still on track and that everyone's still on the same page. It can be surprising how people can be so fired up about something in one meeting and then come back 90 days later as completely different people. They're not on fire about the same things anymore. They don't even remember what they were talking about and why everyone is doing what they’re doing.
This is why quarterly pulsing is so critical. It prevents you and your team from losing traction. When you're not on the same page and there's confusion, lack of clarity, and no action, no movement happens either.
The Annual Meeting
The fourth quarterly meeting is essentially an annual meeting. In it, you go over the same items that you'd be going over in the quarterly meeting in addition to some other items.
If you want to learn more about how to do your quarterly and annual planning the EOS way, check out Episode 067: Quarterly & Annual Planning EOS Style.
