Power Up Your Business Plan

A business plan is to a business what a game plan is to an athlete, or a map is to a bushwalker - It’s essential to get you where you want to be - It reflects a structured approach to thinking strategically about the future of the business, while considering the present situation, writes Charisse Gray.

A clearly articulated business plan documents the vision of where you would like your business to be in five to 10 years. It shows how you plan to get from where you are today to where you want to be, and how you will know when you actually get there. It enables you to document each stage of growth, make periodic assessments of each area of your business, and make a smooth transition at each stage of growth.

A business plan is never static. The market is constantly changing and the only way you can remain in control of your business' future is by regularly reviewing your business plan. A regularly reviewed plan will more than pay for itself in strategic and tactical clarity as your company grows. This is true for any business, no matter what industry, size, or stage in the business cycle.

It could be argued that the plan itself is not as important as the processes involved in putting the plan on paper. The plan itself is testament to the fact that you have done the hard yards–thought through all aspects of the business and identified your strengths and weakness, opportunities and threats.

Bill Hovey, CEO of the Linchpin Group, explains that a comprehensive business plan should have a clear statement of the strategic intent, supported by the mission, values, and vision of the business. It involves having a strategy and a tactical plan.

Many small and medium businesses fail to appreciate the difference between strategy and tactics. Worse, strategy will often exist only in the mind of the owner and is rarely articulated and shared with others in the business.

Hovey warns that if you have no defined strategy, no matter what tactics you employ you probably won't meet your goals. Strategies are forward-looking. They provide the guidelines for growth, how you are looking at future performance gaps and how you are going to overcome them. Tactics are more or less present or ‘now’ oriented. So when speaking of tactical plans, you are basically speaking of present performance gaps and how you are addressing them.