Business planning constantly gets bumped to the bottom of the to-do list. It never feels urgent, especially when sales are strong and you’re dealing with challenges like finding new staff or product shortages.
However, business plans are an important decision-making tool to help you get your priorities in order. What do you really want from your business in the short to long term and how can you achieve that?
Setting goals takes a lot of thinking
Pared back to its essentials a business plan identifies:
- Your goals – what you want and when you want it by
- How you plan to achieve those goals
Don’t be fooled by how simple this looks.
It can be pretty soul-searching to work out what your goals are as a business owner, because they’re not simply related to growth and market share. They’re also about your personal goals; do you want more money or more time? Do you want to step up or step back? From a business perspective you need to think about whether to expand your products or services, or become more profitable within your existing specialty area.
If you don’t manage to do any other business planning, simply thinking about your goals and jotting down a few on paper can crystallise your ideas, giving you valuable insights into which direction to take next.
A plan for achievement
Once you have goals in place, figuring out how to achieve these usually requires a multi-faceted approach. It will include some or all of the following:
- Reviewing current and potential products and services
- Pricing, target market and competitor comparisons
- Sales and marketing
- Assets and equipment
- Systems, automation and outsourcing
- Financial forecasts
- Cash flow forecasts
- Possible funding for investment
- Your team
Give us a call
We love talking to business owners about how to achieve their goals – seeing our clients succeed is one of the most rewarding parts of this job. We can run the numbers on various scenarios, do cost-benefit analysis, cashflow forecasts and ideas for growth.
Give us a call, we can help.
