Get Your Business Plan Going

With the new financial year brings new goals and new challenges. But there is one often overlooked process – planning.

Setting the destination is critical – it gives focus, assesses the resources required, and helps us stay motivated over the longer term.

Think of your business as a ship. You need to make sure everything is running correctly to ensure you stay afloat – however, there's no use sailing if you have no clear idea of where you're headed, or how you're getting there.

The great thing about having a business plan is that it can provide a reference point for you to return to at any point during the business journey. And just looking at your plan and seeing how far you have come is a great motivational tool. It can help you determine whether you have drifted too far away from your original vision and allow you to get back on track once again.

Writing a business plan will also help you to think more analytically than ever before about your business and industry; and the role of your business plays within it. It will help you to see correlations between the different parts of your business e.g. how decreasing the cost of a particular process will affect your overall profit margin.

The value of a business plan simply cannot be overstated. Putting ideas and concepts down on paper is invaluable and the act of researching and compiling data about your competitors and the market will prove to be very useful in the years to come.

TIP
Don’t obsess over every detail to start with. That will make the plan really long and hard to change – plus you will lose focus and get bored. Keep it short and concise initially.

Get clear on your destination, making a plan, take action, reassess and revise – the process never fails.