subject: The Forgotten Power Of A Small Business Plan No One Ever Reveals [print this page] It's easy to get excited by an idea for your small business and then immediately dive straight in doing things which actually turn out to be wrong.
Then of course, the typical solution is to grab a book on business planning. Read it and feel incredibly discouraged because nothing in the book relates to anything in your world.
Apart from using up printer ink, you're left with a mind numbing report filled with random predictions and fairy tale cash flow projections.
And the reason is books on business planning arefocused on creating a marketing document for raising startup captial. Even though your reality is you want to turn your idea into a real, live, customer collecting, revenue growing, profit machine which makes you feel cool and way more attractive.
Then you start believing planning is just for fortune 500 enterprises who need to find something to keep their employees off the streets. And anti-suits like you can do without plans.
Which means you have no plan, which means no achievement, which means anger, frustration, confusion. So you revise your goals, get excited, and dive straight in. Again!
You must have a route map. To turn your idea into a profitable small business a business plan is critical.
A small business plan should give you direction. It should highlight the steps you need to take right now.
And more significantly it'as purpose is to identify the biggest obstacle you need to deal with standing between you and your outcome.
And your plan should then provide the solution to overcome this obstacle, so you can move you bsuiness forward profitably.
Typically for most small businesses your plan will uncover a serious hole in your marketing skills initially. So you then amend your small business plan to include the steps to fill that hole.
So can you see your business plan isn't a one off exercise?
It's a real, valuable, guiding document. It changes with every step you take because it responds to the results you actually witness. That's where its value lies. The feedback tells you whether you're on track or off track.
So I'm hoping you've recognized by now that more critically than the small business plan is understanding how to make one.
Understanding and using a planning process. A process which tells you what's stopping you getting to your goal and then helps you find the solution.
Your planning then turns that solution into a specific set of steps.
With each action executed, you gather more results. This is valuable feedback
Planning is ongoing. Any small business plan may only have a lifespan of a few days or weeks.
The skill of planning is missing in the majority of entrepreneurs and small business owners.
So a plan is non existant. And consequently they live a business life of frustration and wheel spinning.
Know how to put together a small business plan. Ensure planning is your number one priority.
