Business Plans for Business Owners or Business Dreamers
I’m the first to admit that Business Plans can be completely useless and a waste of time. But if you do it right and leave out all the superfluous extras, it can become your best friend and the document that can help guide you into your bright business future.
If you’re operating a business and you don’t have one you, might end up at the whim of customer demand and pinballing around without any clear direction, plan on even an idea of where you want to be, nevermind where you are. I’m a great believer that people’s businesses need to work in with their lifestyle goals. And they need to be clearly embedded in reality. That means considering all your current resources, your personal and professional hopes and dreams, your family needs and your future financial aspriations. Most importantly they need to work for the business owner in a way that helps you create the life you want to live.
In addition to this flailing around that occurs without a plan in normal circumstances we are now operating in fragile post Covid crazytimes. So you need one more than ever to consider how you’re going to pivot your business and adapt to our new world.
I don’t encourage business owners to create a 50 page document they are never going to look at. I help business owners build a plan from the bottom up which becomes practical and useful. It guides financial, HR and branding decisions and helps makes day to day operations more manageable. For those of you who are the business dreamers, you can always create a “Business One Day” plan.
The greatest piece of advice I’ve ever been offered during my career was was about goal setting. Wayne Walker, my Manager at my first Marketing Coordinator gig explained that if you don’t have solid goals, you won’t really get anywhere you want to. He explained to me that in order to get where I wanted I needed to figure out what I wanted (yes, sometimes harder than it sounds) but then he explained the beauty is that once you know and the plan is solid in your mind, you’ll start both consiously and unconsciously behaving in a way that works towards that goal. It can be as small as getting up earlier in the day or as large as operating a billion dollar start up.
Finally, it’s not supposed to be a rigid document in my mind. I think to be useful a plan should be nimble and reviewed about once a year to keep in front of your own plans and keep re-adjusting your vision and goals. This way you can stabalize your business and be on the look out for risks and appropriately pivot when you need to to ensure your business survives and thrives in even the toughest of environments.
So, if you don’t have a Business Plan get in touch and we can book you in for a 2 hour Business Plan workshop for $480 (+gst). This gets you a 2 hour workshop with a Marketing, Branding and Business Strategist, guidance to help you create a killer Business Plan and a template and a kick start to creating your Business Plan Template which will have you feeling more clear and confident on your direction forward both personally and professionally.