Before you can decide what to do next, you need to know where you're going. Think of your business's mission as its core purpose, its reason for being. Your vision is the future you're trying to create. But how do you get from here to there? Through objectives.

Objectives are the specific, actionable targets that bridge the gap between your grand vision and your daily tasks. For the next 90 days, you won't be achieving your entire vision. Instead, you'll focus on a few key objectives that move you in the right direction. These are the concrete signposts on your journey.

Strategic goals are long-term and broad. An objective for the next 90 days needs to be much tighter. The key is to translate your big ambitions into something you can realistically accomplish in a three-month sprint.

Let’s say a strategic goal for your online store is to “Improve customer loyalty.” That’s a great goal, but it’s not a 90-day objective. It’s too vague.

To make it an objective, ask yourself: What could we do in the next three months to make customers more loyal? You might come up with objectives like:

• Launch a customer rewards program.
• Reduce customer service response time by 50%.
• Increase repeat customer purchases by 15%.

This process forces you to think critically about what activities will actually lead to your desired strategic outcome. It moves you from wishing for loyalty to building a system that encourages it.

Once you have a list of potential objectives, you need to decide which ones to focus on. Trying to do everything at once is a recipe for doing nothing well. The best way to prioritize is by weighing each objective's potential impact against its feasibility.

• Impact: How much will achieving this objective move you toward your strategic goals?
• Feasibility: How realistic is it to achieve this objective in 90 days with your current resources (time, money, team)?

An objective might be high-impact but completely unfeasible right now. Another might be easy to do but have very little impact. The sweet spot is where high impact meets high feasibility.

Your top priorities are the objectives that land in that high-impact, high-feasibility quadrant. These are the things you should focus your energy on for the next 90 days. 'Major Projects' are important but may need to be broken down into smaller, more feasible objectives for future quarters. 'Quick Wins' are great to tackle if you have extra bandwidth, and objectives in the 'Reconsider' quadrant should probably be dropped from your list for now.

For example, launching a rewards program might be high-impact and highly feasible if you have the right software. Reducing customer service response time is also high-impact, but might be less feasible if it requires hiring new staff you haven't budgeted for. Using this framework helps you make strategic choices, not just hopeful guesses.

By the end of this process, you should have a short list of clear, high-priority objectives. These will be your guide for the next 90 days, ensuring your efforts are focused, aligned, and impactful.