Quarterly Planning: The #1 Strategy for Founders Who Want to Scale with Focus
If you’re a founder or CEO trying to grow, expand, or just get your team pulling in the same direction—quarterly planning is the essential weapon! It's how you create clarity, build traction, and make actual real progress toward big goals.
In my (very passionate) opinion, there is nothing more powerful for a business than getting hyper-clear on what it’s working towards in the next 90 days.
Let me show you how.
Why Quarterly Planning Works
Trying to execute on a massive goal like "launch a new product" or "scale the business" without structure will stall. It’s too big, too vague, and too overwhelming. Your team won’t know what they should actually be doing, and real-talk: neither will you!
Quarterly planning solves this by breaking the big vision into focused, manageable, measurable goals your team can actually execute.
How to Break Down a Big Vision
(Using Chocolate 🍫)
Let’s imagine your business goal is:
“Open a chocolate factory.”
Exciting? Yes.
Achievable as a single action? Absolutely not.
Here’s how instead you might break that down using quarterly objectives and milestones.
Objective 1: Source Your Factory Location
Milestone 1: Define your non-negotiable location features
Milestone 2: Engage a commercial property agent
Milestone 3: Visit and shortlist three potential sites
Objective 2: Create a Financial Plan for Operations
Milestone 1: Research setup and equipment costs
Milestone 2: Review your current cashflow and reserves
Milestone 3: Meet with a financial advisor to map your plan
Objective 3: Validate Market Demand
Milestone 1: Define your initial product line
Milestone 2: Run focus groups with target customers
Milestone 3: Research the market size and identify your ideal customer
Do you see how much more doable this feels?
Each piece has a clear owner, deadline, and output.
This is how traction is created.
The 90-Day Planning Checklist
Ready to apply this to your business? Here’s what to do:
Book 2 hours in your calendar this week
Whether solo or with your leadership team, carve out the time to really consider these. As the old saying goes, “fail to prepare, prepare to fail”.Clarify your big-picture goal
Make sure you and your team are clear on what success look like exactly in 1, 3 or evern 10 years? You don’t need to have an answer for all three. Pick one that feels definable and communicate that. This is about having a clear ‘big goal’ all objectives move towards.Set 3 Quarterly Objectives
What 3 things will move the needle most over the next 90 days? You might be tempted here to do more than 3 but I strongly recommend you don’t. Focus on what’s achievable and aim for 80-100% completion, rather than starting 7 and only getting 30% through each of them.Break each objective into 3–5 milestones
These are the specific tasks or checkpoints that show progress and hold you accountable.Make it visible
I recommend using Trello to map objectives → milestones → weekly tasks. Every client I work with has this visibility baked into their systems.
Want Help Mapping It All Out?
I’ve created a free guide to help you run your quarterly planning session with your team. It details the structure in an easy to digest format that you can share with your entire team.
👉 [Click here to grab the free guide]
TL;DR: Stop Guessing. Start Planning.
Big goals fail without clear direction
Quarterly planning breaks vision into action
You need 3 objectives, each with milestones
Use Trello (or similar) to track progress weekly
Get the free guide to run your own session today