Success Without A Plan

I SURRENDER!

By now, you must know what a stickler I am for having a plan when you start your business. To me it simply makes sense to think through as much as you possibly can before you invest your precious time, money and life into a new venture. If nothing else, it helps save your heart from breaking on the days when you feel like a fool for trying and gives you the strength to carry on because you have a very clear vision and path.

I can no longer deny that a very successful business can be built without a plan. These days I think they call it an “organic” business. I’ll admit you may be able to build your business organically but I also know that you are less likely to sustain it without a plan. You will hit a wall. Without forethought, you can tap out your customer base, fall behind trends or just not know what to do next. Without projecting and planning you will find yourself working too hard to sustain what you have to the point where you have no capacity to grow. I have been witness to this situation 3 times this week alone. So, how do you avoid falling into this trap?

* Here’s a secret – even organic farmers plan their crops for optimum growth. That’s right, in fact they have to plan even more carefully to reduce risk of pests and disease destroying their efforts! *  Could you be leaving yourself open to competition, risk and internal conflict that could ruin your successful business? 

Wouldn’t you like to have at least a little control over your destiny? If you answered yes, then I have a simple answer for you: plan for it. You likely don’t need a full blown encyclopeadia sized business plan; even a simple plan can be an excellent guide. And having a plan doesn’t mean you can’t respond to new opportunities that come up, in fact it helps you select the best opportunities. Naturally, I won’t just tell you what you need, let me show you how to build a super simple plan.

Start with the end in mind. What would you like to acheive? Get as clear a picture as possible of what you want. If you can’t quite imagine the long term view, focus on the next few months.

Plan by working backwards. Ask yourself “what do I have to do for this to happen”? Keep asking this question over and over until you’ve reached comfortable clarity about the scope of your plan. Remember to figure out who will do each piece. Hint – it doesn’t have to be you!

Show me the money. What’s this goal or project going to cost? Gather your estimates and known costs to get an idea of what you need to achieve your goal.

What could possibly go wrong? Unleash your inner pessimest but don’t just think of what can go wrong, consider how you’ll know it’s going wrong and what you’ll do to stop it.

Planning doesn’t have to take hours or days and it doesn’t have to be complicated (Please don’t let my project management colleagues read this!). You can still grow and flow organically while you control your business; all it takes is a little planning.