Richard Sweum : Five essentials to a functional business plan.
In a previous post, I covered the relationship between business planning and failure and success. I’m sure that anyone could come up with any number of essential elements of a business plan but I would like to focus on five elements that are important to me:
1) Simple. Anything that is more than 1 page is useless, but it has to be specific and detailed enough so that there are specific activities and actions that are identified in relationship to specific objectives. If there are more 6 objectives, you are likely not going to be able to get it all on 1 page, and in reality, having more than 6 objectives means that some objectives will not receive any attention.
2) Specific. If the objective or the supporting activities aren’t measurable/quantifiable, there can be no accountability (next point). There must be daily, weekly, and monthly activities related to each target and those activities must have calendar deadlines.
3) Accountable. Stick to objectives and actions that another person could verify or evaluate the successful completion of. If you can partner with a peer who is like minded, this is very helpful. No one likes to be micro-managed by a manager, but being held accountable to your plan by a peer who you are holding accountable in return can be very motivating. Interestingly, the reason why sales people do not like being micro-managed is that often times because they don’t like accountability. Ultimately, for professionals in 100% commission sales, the greatest element of accountability is the pay-check.
4) Realistic. Shooting for the stars is useless if you can’t even get off the ground. Set realistic and attainable goals that can provide the confidence necessary to make a move towards a higher level of production. Confidence and momentum are both critical to the overall functionality and success of any business plan.
5) Visible. This relates to accountability, but goes beyond that. Your business plan needs to be visible to you daily, weekly and monthly. Allow yourself to modify your business plan once a month to further hone targets and the activities that relate to them. Your business plan should be direct your daily activities, and guide your weekly and monthly scheduling and planning.
Like I mentioned earlier, there probably are many more essential elements to a functional business plan, but these are the ones that are “musts.” I’ll be digging through my previous years business plans over the next few days and I might make some additions or deletions to the ones I have mentioned here.
Richard Sweum : Five essentials to a functional business plan.
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