What’s the plan?

The question is, is this going to be just another year or do you have plans to make it better than the last? Or do you even have a plan?

Just before Christmas I met a chap called John Dashfield who told me about his One Page Business Plan, which is produced by the One Page Business Plan Company.

When most people think of business plans they think of lots of sheets of paper with so much information on it that all in all some might find rather tedious or even boring.

But why do we need a plan in the first place?
Well as the old Chinese proverb says, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail”
Imagine going on holiday without a plan of where you want to go. You’d turn up at the airport with no idea of your destination and you surely wouldn’t know what to take with you or what your destination will look like or what you will need to wear. Is it hot or is the place cold?

So without a plan in business how do you know where you’re heading and what will happen when you get there? How do you even know you’re on the right path?

John showed me this great way of creating a business plan that is so simple and quick to do. He also said that every business owner should review their business plan every couple of weeks. If your business plan is comprised of lots of pages this might be a daunting task, but if it’s like John’s one page plan then the worry is blown away.

This one paged plan is split into 5 categories

VISION
MISSION
OBJECTIVES
STRATEGY
PLANS

Here is how it breaks down

VISION – What are you building?
What will the company look like in three years?
What are the products and services?
What markets will it serve?
What will the dimensions of the company be?

MISSION – Why are you/we building it?
What do you provide your customers that is unique?
What is your competitive edge in the market?
What do you want to be known for?

OBJECTIVES – What results will you measure?
What are the vital monthly, quarterly statistics that you can track this year and compare year over year?
If you were an absent owner what would you want to watch to know your investment was secure?
What are the casual factors in generating the results you are looking for?

STRATEGY – How will you build this business? What will make this business successful over time?
How will you attract / retain customers?
How will you price products & promote them?
What are the potential sources of revenue?
What will differentiate it from its competitors?
How will you use technology in this company?
What types of strategic alliances will you form? Why?
What type of culture & management style will you encourage?
What is your exit strategy?

PLANS – What is the work to be done?
What are the projects you need to work on this year?
Who is responsible to make this happen, it’s their job?
When will it be completed? (date)
What is the result you want to achieve with this project?

He also mentioned that if you think from the end and work backwards.

What he meant by this was picture the outcome and then see what you have to do now in order to achieve this.

Go through the list above and fill in the answers and make a plan for this year and remember to keep checking in with it.

If you do this you can measure your progress and see what adjustments need to be made in order to achieve the outcome.

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