As the owner of a small business you rarely have enough time: the urgent often overwhelms the important and running your business can seem like snakes and ladders in a maze. Business planning, although vital for your success, seems the preserve of larger businesses, an impossible luxury for a small business. You can, however, effectively apply the fundamentals of big-business planning to your small business by translating corporate-speak into your language.
| Corporate | Small Business |
| Business Plan | What does your business need to accomplish to be successful? |
| Vision | How do you see your business in the future? |
| Values | What do you want to be known for? |
| Mission | Why does your business exist? |
| Goals | What are you trying to achieve? |
| Objectives | What measurable targets will you achieve, by when? |
| Strategies | How will you build and manage the business? |
| Action Plan | What actions will you take? |
| Milestones | What will your actions achieve, by when? |
| Forecasts | What will your sales, costs, profitability and cash-flow look like? |
| Unique Selling Proposition | How are you different, and so better, than your competitors? |
| Value Proposition | What does your customer get, of value to them, from you? |
Simple doesn’t mean simplistic. You may have to do some hard thinking and research to answers these questions. Once done you have the first stage of your business plan.
Have a look at my Accomplish Business Plan Summary Guide
What are the second, third and fourth stages of business planning? Implementing the plan, working out what you have actually done, re-planning …..