Business planning is about determining your
business future.
Where do you want your business to go?
Where should it be in three years,
and what are the steps to get there?
You might even stop this tutorial, put on
pause
and write some key points down.
This is your future,
this is your business.
What should happen?
What are you real goals?
This is also a good time to talk to your people,
get ideas, brainstorming.
Where are you going and why?
That's what your plan is going to be about.
Your business plan will be your story,
your words, your numbers.
It's about your business.
True, many people avoid doing a business plan
until they're starting a business
or raising money, need to go to a bank
need to get outside investors.
But really, every business ought to be planning.
Just like you want to determine your future,
you want to determine your business's future
too,
and that's what your business plan will help
you do.
You can do your own business plan.
Outside experts might be great if you have
the budget,
but you don't need to be a CPA or an MBA
to work out the details, priority, and strategy
of your own business.
You know your own business better than anybody
else.
You are uniquely qualified to do your business
plan.
And as you do that remember,
plans always change.
Don't think that you have to know now
exactly what's going to happen
six, nine, twelve months from now.
No, the point of getting the plan into place
is
then you'll be able to manage the change,
correct your course as needed,
know where you were supposed to be,
where you are, and why they're different.
Business plans always change.
The plan is never going to be right.
It's going to be a tool
for keeping your business development right.