After 20 years of successfully running a business I should know a bit about business planning….
What I do know is that it isn’t an exact science, it gets easier the longer you have been in busine...ss, a crystal ball would be incredibly useful at the beginning (!) (how on earth do you predict and forecast your sales when you are just starting??!!) and you need to be able to find a balance between:
1/ defining the business and planning it -after all the Sistine chapel was designed before it was started
and
2/ being prepared to accept and step into the unknown- after all the Wright brothers didn’t know how they were going to invent flying!
Confused??!!
I did say it wasn’t an exact science. In fact we can draw comfort from this. There is no right or wrong way to plan your business, it is fine to do it your way. The important thing is to do it whether you are just starting out or already established.
Let’s go back to the flying analogy. If you were learning to fly a plane- you wouldn’t be an instant success!!! Oh no, it would take many training and practice hours with your flying instructor to get you off the ground and even once you had earned your “wings” you would still need to keep your flying hours up to be able to keep your pilots license.
And so it is with planning and running a successful business. A continuous learning curve that gets more fascinating, exciting and satisfying the more you learn and put into action.
The plane gets bigger, the altitude higher, distance and speed increase.
Whilst some will view a business plan as boring! (and it can be if you look at some of the very dry ones that banks will give you to fill out) it can be a creative and dynamic process.
A business plan gives you the opportunity to develop a sense of purpose and direction. A business plan for most people when they finally get round to doing it is done quickly to get it out of the way and then filed away to collect dust. It has very little to do with reality and has no steps to get you from where you are now to the supposed end of the plan where you collect the gold at the end of the rainbow.
A far better plan is something that is totally imperfect, flexible and achievable that helps you:
Analyse your current position
Realise how much money you’ll need to get started
Establish priorities
Creates unity of purpose if there is more than 1 person in the business
Makes the case for a loan if required
Let’s get started! Each step in this plan is meant to be an organic process a bit like gardening. It means you are continually revisiting it, to water it, feed it, weed it, prune it, dig up bits, compost bits, treat the greenfly and disease, sow new seeds and replant new shrubs.
The map-Write your Vision
Vision will be the life blood of your business giving it purpose and direction.
Sit down with a cup of coffee/tea/glass of wine, put on some music and just let any thoughts about how you’d like your life to be and what you’d like your business to include to just flow onto a notepad or laptop. There doesn’t have to be any order or logic. It doesn’t need to make sense and you don’t need to know how you are going to achieve it. Just make sure it’s a compelling vision, giving details on what will you contribute, how will you be remembered and what will your legacy will be.
Once you have your vision in place (allow it time to gel, this may involve several cups of coffee or glasses of wine- over several sessions of course!) then think about what you want to achieve.
How to plan!
A business plan will be anything from 1 year to 5 years in length (or more). I would suggest if you struggle to think too far into the future, you start with the next 12 months.
Know your outcome and work backwards
For example; By the end of this year, I want a full clinic of 20 hourly clients per week, paying £50.00 an hour and working 46 weeks per year.
I want to work a maximum of 2 evenings a week and 1 Saturday per month.
Having done my market research, I know that I will get approximately 30% of my clients coming weekly, 30% coming fortnightly, 30% coming monthly and 10% coming as one off’s or on an occasional basis. *** Details of how to discover you clients buying patterns will be covered in my next article.
Now think about what you want to achieve in the next 12 months by dividing the year into quarters.
A three month chunk is so much more manageable than a year and suddenly planning gets a bit easier.
