- Do you like planning a vacation? Do you book the flights, reserve the hotels, and look at the restaurants?
Does having that plan lock you in, or cut into your flexibility? - Do you like planning a party? Do you plan the meals, drinks, entertainment, and who’s coming? Does having that plan lock you in, or cut into your flexibility?
- In your business, do you plan events? Marketing? Product launches? Meetings? Does planning these things improve them? Does it improve the results?
- Are you in business for yourself because you like what you do? Is your business supposed to make you happier? Do you like working in your business?
If you answered yes to some, most, or all of those questions, then let me ask you these two related questions:
- Do you think about your business a lot? Do you care about doing it better, improving it, making it better?
- Do you plan your business?
The disconnect here is that too many people think of “the business plan” as a daunting unpleasant task, and its results as a document. I say planning your business is something you should like to do, but it shouldn’t be as hard as the big document. It should be about strategy, milestones, activities, responsibilities, and projected sales, profits, and cash flow. It’s not a document, it’s what’s going to happen.
If you don’t like planning your business, keep your day job.
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
The interesting part of your blog today is that most small business owners do not write a business plan or a marketing analysis. I find this extremely risky on the owners part.
But, what really amazes me is that a good portion of the small businesses that have business plans…the owner of the business paid someone else to research and write their plan for them.
If the business owner and management do not do the basic homework…their business will more likely fail for improper planning on THEIR part…and that doesn’t even address they would know what the written for hire business plans really states.
This is a business owner’s Bible for Business if properly written and researched. It is a must unless you like throwing away alot of monet and time!
Not writing a business plan is like a football coach not developing his playbook before the season. Just jumping in is a “rookie” mistake and is just setting these new guys up for failure.
Preparing a Business Plan helps you take a breather and forces them to critically evaluate your business idea. Proper planning allows issues and problems to arise when putting plans on paper. Then new owners can address them in the plan, instead of addressing them in the midst of starting the business.
I hope that you continue to advocate the writing of a proper Business Plan, as there are so many new start ups out there encouraging entrepreneurs to just “scribble down a couple notes”. That is just ridiculous!