Business planning is a beautiful thing. Wait, it really is. Imagine uniting your energized team in setting a course for action for your business that you all BELIEVE in, are COMMITTED to and once implemented you will all BENEFIT from. What can be more beautiful than that? A plan is not a shelf piece to lip service or a seat cushion for Dilbert, it is a professional document that encapsulates where you are now and where your hearts and minds desire your business to go. Most importantly, the plan details the strategy and tactics to propel you to get there.

K.I.S.S first

I’ve seen a few plans in my time. Some ‘consultants’ take an ego ride with TLA’s (Three Letter Acronyms) galore and financial analysis that would put even the slickest of accountants to bed early. No no no. Keep It Simple. A plan can be less than 10 pages. It is not the size, it is the clarity of the contents. Keep It Simple, don’t be the final S.

Make it about your Clients, they are your business

The plan structure should detail how you plan to leverage your target market through your sales and marketing strategy and tactics. You should ask the team ‘which Clients do we want to target and acquire over the next 6-12 months’? Your Clients are your business. Internal-centric plans draw your attention to your world and what you think. It does not matter what you think, it only matters what your Clients think.

Make it flexible, but only flex with good reason

Don’t make the plan a straight jacket, who wants to be in one of those? (that David Blaine fella aside). Imagine your plan as your dream jacket, you can have it tailored to move with circumstances. This is very important. The best laid battle plans adapt yet maintain the key goals and objectives in place at all times. Changing willy-nilly invariably leads to willy-nilly outcomes.

Baseline performance then measure implementation

The key business plan key focal point is targeting results. A common dysfunction of firms, large or small, is the inability – through whatever reason – to be results focused. So measure the plan implementation, hold task custodians in your team to account, measure at month end once the billing period is closed. Talk to your team. If you hit your targets great, share the joy. If not, you need to explore why and flip the stones where behaviours may be lurking, holding back the performance you desire. It could be something very simple, it could be something quite ugly. As business owner you need to address the ugly. At the end of the day performance inhibition is 95% down to people, 5% down to all else.