Business plans. Painlessly.
Oh man, writing a business plan is hard work. It is a well-known fact that 99.9%* of people put off writing a business plan until the very last moment. You know you're going for a good, weighty piece of work but once completed, may never read it properly again.
Well, we have some good news for you.
No, we’re not going to write it for you, and no doubt there is already an AI programme out there that will. So maybe check that out.
Katherine Hepburn with good life/business advice.
But, we do have a way to approach it that we like. So, you can’t get out of writing one because they are necessary; you have to know your business inside and out, and if you’re going for investment, then you need to be able to answer every gnarly question, which you’ll be able to because you put the work into your business plan.
To help you get there, we suggest breaking it down into chunks; this is where the strategic business vision comes in. We work with many organisations with a long business plan but find that they don’t reflect on it or even refer to it, and we believe that breaking it down can often help the team approach it in a way that will make it more memorable. Sometimes, this can be used for documents outside of the mother business plan and can be helpful to test out projects.
PURPOSE - What are your vision, mission and values? These guiding principles for your purpose and help shape the decisions you will make later on.
GOALS - Usually, we work on around four of these to keep the vision on track. Any more than four can feel overwhelming, and the principle idea of an SBV is to make your outcomes manageable.
CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS - Quite simply, what does success look like? If you aim to create better business processes, your critical success factor might be some operational how-to’s.
STRATEGY FOR ACHIEVING OBJECTIVES - What will make the goals happen? More resources, or if you’re a solopreneur, is it coaching support?
SWOT - Always a good idea to look at the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats
Finally, (nearly there) - KPI and IMPLEMENTATION - What performance indicators help you know you’ve achieved your goal? And what is the timeline for implementation?
The beauty of SBVs is their ability to be versatile and nimble, which businesses need. Keeping a topline document like this means that you can review it regularly.
There are lots of examples online for SBVs, and you will find that you can create them for every department, which can also be helpful if you are building up your business with a team of people.
Good Luck!
*Not a scientifically proven fact.
