If you don’t know where you are going (i.e. have a roadmap), then how do you expect to get there? Running, expanding or starting a business without a business plan is like trying to drive from New York to Chicago for the first time without a roadmap or MapQuest! Planning gives you a path to follow, otherwise, you are just guessing. In running or starting a business, the learning curve is short before you run out of resources and are forced to close. Therefore, a business plan helps you set up a sound framework, model and system ahead of time, as well as, address potential problems and threats, so that you can capably run a business. If you don’t have a system in place to deal with problems and you don’t have a sound strategic plan in place, you will find yourself needlessly sidetracked by working “in” the business instead of “on” the business.

A Business Plan will save you a lot of time and money. Careful planning ahead of time will help you wisely budget your resources and significantly minimize the time you spend assessing threats, problems, obstacles and opportunities.

A business plan actually creates the future you want it to be. It gives you the process to develop the future business you want, whether it is to successfully start, expand, acquire or build. Granted, a business planning process can’t predict everything and markets change very quickly; yet, a business plan puts a solid process model in place to deal with such unpredictability. Otherwise, you will become even more lost in the unpredictable nature of future market changes without a system in place to deal with and predict these changes.

A business plan is an actual guide to starting, acquiring, expanding, building and managing a business. It is a step by step process that will guide you through the complexities and intricacies of building a successful company. Business school will teach you something about business planning, an MBA will teach you a little more, but most good business planning experience comes from doing and learning from others who have gone before you. Find a good business plan mentor!

If you need to raise funds for your business venture or project, a well thought out business plan is the very best tool available to achieve the mix and amount of funds your business requires. A good business planning process will actually determine and design financial structures which specifically address your funding requirements. Utilize a planning process to develop and design a financial structure customized to your particular company’s requirements. When times are tough in your business, industry or lending market, a good funding plan will give you a fighting chance of obtaining the badly needed funding.

A business plan is a fantastic communication tool. It establishes a system so that you can effectively communicate with your executives, managers, employees, shareholders, investors, lenders, customers, potential customers, markets, suppliers, on down the line. So many companies fail because effective communication was significantly hampered by assets and people doing contrary things. Effective strategic planning within the business planning process establishes strong communication ties, links and systems so that all the fore mentioned human variables can come together in a directional, well coordinated strategy for success.

Nothing stays the same from one day to the next in this global, fast tracked business world. Because of this constant change, your business will quickly fall behind and suffer without having a good business plan in place. A plan puts a system in place to identify and address changes in the market place so you can proactively seize and turn them into opportunities. Without a forward thinking system in place, changes in your market place can quickly become insurmountable problems and obstacles. A business plan empowers you to convert these changes into opportunities and increased profitability.

Operating a company without a well developed business plan is just like operating a car blindfolded, driving down an expressway in LA. You wouldn’t blindfold yourself and drive down a busy expressway would you? Why would you do that with your business, future and money?

Small business owners mistakenly believe that the size of their business negates the need for strategic planning but the opposite is actually true. Its inherent size is actually what makes strategic planning more important because it can be means for a small business to gradually evolve into a huge and thriving multinational corporation.

What Small Business Owners Need to Know about Strategic Planning

Planning is one of the five important functions of management, but it’s arguably the most important of all because it’s the first function that any manager or business owners should focus on. Planning sets the goals, mission-vision, and direction for the company. Without it, the other functions may be impossible to achieve.

A business can’t, however, benefit from just any kind of planning. It must be strategic in essence to be effective. Strategic planning is a methodical process of deciding where you want your company to be in a given time frame and what you propose to do to get there.

There are different ways to let your company benefit from strategic planning so don’t worry about following the so-called rules. Whatever works for your company is good enough.

Elements of Strategic Planning

Internal and External Assessment of Strategic Planning – A coach of a basketball team won’t be able to map out an effective play if it doesn’t know its players well, which team it will be playing against, and other related factors. The same can be said for any business manager. Before you can start working on the details of your strategic plan, you must first focus on compiling data about the external and internal environment of your company.

Outside your business, politico-legal, economic, and socio-cultural factors can affect how your business will fare in the next few years. Inside, factors such as management style and the type of workforce you have can also help or hinder your company from attaining your goal.

Setting Your Company’s Goals – Small or big, the important thing is for your business to have goals. If you’ can be satisfied with small and short-term goals then that’s good; if you secretly desire for bigger goals then that’s even better. To know if the goals you plan to work on are indeed workable, determine if they adhere to the SMART rule – specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound.

Rule of Majority – Of course, as owner or manager of a business, you reserve your right to approve or naysay any suggestion but as much as possible, allow the rule of majority to stick. Plans can only come to fruition if everyone in the company works together and you can assure yourself of their cooperation by showing them that you care about what they think.

Devising an Action Plan – Finally, it’s time to concentrate on the nitty-gritty of your strategic plan. List down possible and specific courses of action then choose what all of you deem as most suitable. Make sure that you set a definite schedule or timetable for everything but give allowances for unexpected delays and concerns. Set a budget as well.

The Ever-So-Popular Plan B – Last but not the least, devise a Plan B in the event that your first plan doesn’t work and list down indications to know when’s the right time to put Plan B to action.

Good luck on strategic planning for your business!

So, you have a great strategic plan. You’ve carefully crafted mission and vision statements, set forth the organization’s values, identified things that can get in your way, and developed a dynamite set of goals. Trouble is though; your strategic plan isn’t getting a lot of traction within the organization. Why? You told everyone about the plan and showed them slides of the mission, and goals and you’ve posted the mission statement.

In the next two articles, I’ll discuss two essential parts of the strategic planning process; communication and follow-up. No matter how great your plan is, without these two steps, it will most likely fail.

First, let’s discuss communication. A plan is worthless if those who are to implement it don’t know what the plan is. I am constantly amazed at the fact that more companies don’t use the internet to tell the world about their mission, vision, and goals. As a final step in strategic planning, you must develop a communication plan. Lay out how you are going to inform people, in and out of the organization, of the plan. This is essential!

So, who is responsible for implementing the plan and making it a success? Everyone! I’m sure you don’t keep people around who don’t have some responsibility for success, and this is a key point, if they are in the organization they have a part in its success or failure. Too often leaders think that only the leadership tier needs to have any more than a cursory knowledge of the plan. Subordinates just need to do what they’re told. Without going in to a long discussion about worker psychology, your subordinates will be more productive and effective if they understand the plan and what part they play in its success.

So don’t just tell them you have a plan and post the mission statement on the wall. Tell them about it. The most effective way to do this is in two steps. First, the senior leader should present the plan, in moderate detail, to the entire organization. This is essential as it’s your opportunity to demonstrate you belief in and commitment to the plan. Then your subordinate leaders, the members of your leadership team, can educate their particular areas in more detail. They can concentrate on their particular part of the plan, but don’t let them exclude the rest.

Next, live the plan! This is vital to success. It doesn’t do any good for a leader to espouse the benefits of a strategic plan, then set it aside because something else comes up that is more urgent. Leaders must constantly show they take the plan seriously. One of the best ways to do this is to hold those responsible for goals accountable for their goals and publicly recognize them for success. I required all my subordinate leaders to always be prepared to discuss their progress and each month they had to present a status report to the leadership team. When you visit the various areas of your organization, ask questions about the plan and what part a particular individual plays in its success. This not only shows your interest but gives you an opportunity to evaluate how well your communication plan is working.

Just like you need to keep your subordinates informed, don’t keep the plan secret from your customers and suppliers. I know that’s a controversial statement and I’m not suggesting posting proprietary information on the internet, but I do believe it’s important to make your plan as public as possible. For instance, your suppliers and customers should know the key points of your plan. Tell them to hold you accountable; tell you if you aren’t living up to your values, or meeting your goals and objectives. Especially in larger organizations, they may be the first to know. Besides, when your plan is well known, you’re less likely to ignore it.

Have you developed a communication plan for your strategic plan?

An often offered comment to me when I speak about strategic planning to small business owners and managers is that their company or organization is too small for strategic planning. Or they will offer any number of other excuses why they do not use strategic planning for their business. In my opinion, this is a sad commentary on the thinking of these small business people. They do not realize or comprehend that their business or organization is on their way to the business graveyard without a strategic plan.

Well, I really believe if the truth were told, the real reason they do not do strategic planning is related more to fear than anything else. And so I ask this question: “why are so many of these businesses strategically challenged, strategically averse and/or just plain scared or fearful of strategic planning?” Your Strategic Thinking Business Coach reviewed and reflected upon experiences with this type of small business thinking and offers the following list of ten major fears that drive small businesses away from strategic planning.

Fear #1: Fear of being intimidated and overwhelmed by the strategic planning process.

Many small business owners and leaders have pre-conceived an idea of what strategic planning is and fear that the process of strategic planning will be too overwhelming for them. Therefore, they feel intimidated by the process and do not want to even start the process.

Fear #2: Fear of repeated past bad experiences with strategic planning.

Small business leaders may have had some extremely negative and possibly harmful experiences with strategic planning in the past. They may have had a very poor consultant that was brought in and nearly ruined the business. Maybe they spent weeks in meetings without accomplishing one thing because they did not use a professional facilitator. Or maybe they launched a plan without any means of accountability.

Fear #3: Fear of the amount of anticipated time and commitment to develop a strategic plan.

Small businesses do not have a large corporate staff and are so busy putting out fires and managing day-to-day activities that they believe they will not have time to focus on long-term and strategic thinking. They want to keep working “in the business” but avoid working “on he business.” And this translates to a basic fear that if they divert time to strategic planning, the business will fall apart in the meantime.

Fear #4: Fear of academic or the ivory tower thinking.

Many small business owners are distrustful of theories, systems, generalizations and formulas. There is the fear of “this is fine in theory but I does not work in the real world.”

Fear #5: Fear of the facilitation process.

The most effective strategic planning meetings use the skills of a professional facilitator. Small business owners and mangers may fear that the meetings, no matter how well intended, will end up as gripe sessions or hours of aimless wandering without a clear agenda or purpose.

Fear #6: Fear of commitment.

A benefit of strategic planning is that it leads to decisive action. So, in companies where the owner and management likes to “hold back” or “hedge bets,” work on many things at the same time and “keep all options open,” this can be a real problem. This stems from a fear of making a decision and following through with commitment to carry out that decision.

Fear #7: Fear of accountability.

Most small business owners are only accountable to themselves and many times that really means they are “not accountable to anyone” and are not really held accountable. With strategic planning, there is a system of accountability built into the plan and this causes some real fear and distress to some small business people.

Fear #8: Fear of failure.

In small businesses the cost of failure is high and the personal risks are great. In large companies, the management is really dealing with someone else’s money. In small business and especially with entrepreneurs, one’s livelihood is at stake. A winning strategic plan could help the entrepreneur realize his dream, but a losing plan could result in a nightmare.

Fear #9: Fear of the cost of strategic planning.

This fear arises when there is no strategic thinking used to look at the value of strategic planning to the business compared to the cost. Fear also arises when strategic planning is viewed as an expense rather than as an investment.

Fear #10: Fear of discomfort and confrontation during the strategic planning process.

Many small business owners and managers are very fearful and uncomfortable with “confrontations” and they go to great lengths to avoid them. They are very uncomfortable in any confrontation and are fearful that they will be confronted with some issue or problem during the strategic planning process that they would rather avoid. Therefore, they decide to not engage in the strategic planning process.

Your strategic thinking business coach strongly encourages you to fully realize the benefits of strategically thinking and planning to manage and grow your business. If you would like to learn more about how a strategic thinking business coach can facilitate and guide you in that endeavor, please contact Glenn Ebersole today through his website at http://www.businesscoach4u.com or by email at jgecoach@aol.com

For businesses strategic planning is a concept, a mind set and a process. It is looking down the road at what’s around the bend. When everyone around your place is focusing on what’s coming you will all recognize it in time to take advantage of it.

As things appear on the horizon each of you will be asking the question, what’s important about that from your various perspectives. You will be able to articulate the important elements of foreseeable future possibilities so you can all focus on the possibilities each offer. The goal of the business is, after all, to help each of you make your dreams come true.

Strategic planning keeps you focused on the options you now see more clearly, so you can collectively make choices that benefit the company and all of the people involved.

In this brief article I will describe the five key elements of a business strategic plan. It has been my experience that when these three elements are combined into a simple straightforward do it yourself process your company will achieve its goals. This is not rocket science, unless you are building rockets, and will work for companies of as few people as one and as many people as you have on board your company.

Your Strategic Planning Team:

The strategic planning workbooks, textbooks, and how-to books all discuss the importance of the strategic planning team – the implication being that the company must be big enough that there are leaders at every level who can become part of the strategic planning team. Unfortunately that eliminates about 75% of all the companies in existence.

If that includes you do not fear as I am about to show you how you can reach out to the best people possible, individuals with various perspectives whose input will help you create a balanced strategy. In addition these successful people will help you develop and maintain this workable strategy over the long haul. And since they are not going to be charging for their input you will be able to afford an active strategic planning team forever.

I recommend that you connect with members of your industry’s trade association, business owners whose results have been demonstrated over time and whose opinions you trust. The well known power of group dynamics suggests that you limit the size of your strategic planning group to 6-8 people including yourself.

Each of you should also be located outside each other’s traditional marketing areas. If some of you are nearing retirement with vast experience, others in the midst of their careers growing their companies and some who are successors in successful businesses in your industry you will have an important range of diversity. Those who have been around a while can see things coming that are invisible to those just starting out and vice versa.

The Strategic Planning Process:

The strategic planning process should be simple, just three questions to focus on, so you will keep them at the top of your mind. Naturally there are multiple components of these three questions that will become second nature as the process of discussion moves along.

What are you going to sell in the future and how? Each member of your strategic planning team will offer different ideas based on what’s working for them now, what they have already considered for the future and their perspective (such as their Internet savvy or lack of same). ,p>

Who are your target customers and why? Every successful business owner focuses on their market share inside their traditional market. With different perspectives you will be able to expand that traditional marketing area AND focus on increasing your share of each customer. Members of your strategic planning team will open your mind to tactics they are using to sell more products of one kind or another to your existing core customers.

How can you differentiate your company vs your competitors? This often means discontinuing lines no longer profitable that you’re still carrying because you’ve always carried them. It may mean focusing on fewer products and services where your specific capabilities excel. And it most assuredly will mean introducing new products and services recommended by your strategic planning team based on their experiences and perspectives.

Once you and your team have these three questions at the forefront – the qualifiers become automatic. What’s important? What is it now? What exactly do you want it to be? And what’s possible to achieve at the intersection of your goals and your resources?

A Commitment To Action:

With the continual input from your strategic planning peer group you will be able to more easily target strategic opportunities all around you. Opportunities that would have continued to be invisible to you without their well considered input. These actions will, in and of themselves help you choose those capabilities important for your future growth and enhance your capacities for making the most of them.

As you and the other members of your strategic planning peer group put your plans on paper and keep them in front of each other you will develop an environment for continually review and modify your evolving mission statements.

Continually articulating your goals for the future as they are continually refined by your strategic planning peer group will keep the important next steps always in view. Taking action yourself or delegating it to the individuals or teams within your organization who have the power, authority, and accountability for their completion is all that now stands between where things are today and where you want them to be in the future.

If you are seriously interested in your organization’s future you’ll find that there’s really no better way to create and manage your strategic planning process.