Creating A Good Business Plan

It may seem boring or like a waste of time, but taking the time to write a clear comprehensive business plan for your business is very important.  The reason reason is that it forces you to:

  • Create a vision

  • Define what success looks like

  • Identify what problem you’re solving

  • Know who you target audience/customer is

  • Decide how you will reach that market

We will break down each one of these areas a bit more to give you an idea of what should be included in your business plan.  The purpose of doing this exercise (even if you think you already know what your doing) is that it will help you identify areas in which maybe you need to think more, or flesh out in more detail. 

Create a vision

Your vision doesn’t have to be profound, complicated, or eloquent.  Your vision just needs to be your business summed up into one or two sentences.  This is what you are wanting to accomplish with your business.  For instance, selling a certain amount of product isn’t a vision, that’s more of a goal.  An example of a vision for an electronics company could be “Revolutionizing the way that people interact with computers.” or, “Simplifying customer acquisition in the digital age.”

Define what success looks like

Success is going to be different for every person depending on their goals, what stage of life they are in, what they want to get out of life, ect.  The process of identifying what success looks like with any individual or business is through a process of co-creation in order to help the client work through their own goals and priorities in order to gain clarity on their own personal definition of success.  Let’s be honest, what I think the definition of success should be for someone could be completely different from what they think success is.  This can be manifested in some of the following ways:

  • Money - This could mean getting out of debt, becoming financially independent, building wealth, or simply making enough to purchase a new car the family needs

  • Time - Some people want to be able to spend as little time as possible on work, while others want to throw themselves into what they do and work/live/eat/breath work

  • Health - Staying healthy or being able to maintain a lifestyle that promotes health and that invigorates them can be a goal.  On the other hand, many people have no interest in an active lifestyle

  • Legacy - I believe everyone has an innate desire to leave a lasting legacy -- something beyond simply their career. For some this could be a legacy of faith, for others it might be involvement in humanitarian work, and for many it’s a desire to leave a legacy of faithfulness or tenacity for their own children or family.

Define how you’re going to achieve that success

The actions would be different for every client and every situation, but typically the framework I base goals off of is the GROW Model.

Using the GROW model means that we identify their ultimate Goal or objective.  We then discuss their current Reality and what’s actually happening.  After discussing the current reality we can work on figuring out what Options they might have to achieve the stated goal.  Finally, we need to decide what we Will actually do in order to achieve the said goal.

What we have decided to do needs to be measurable in order to ensure that we are tracking in the right direction, and so this is where we ensure all of our goals and tasks are SMART.  This means that they must be:

  • Specific 

    • What do they want to do? Why is it important? Who is involved? What resources are needed?

  • Measurable

    • How much? How many? What are the KPIs? How long?

  • Achievable

    • Goals should push us out of our comfort zone, but they should also be “realistic.”

  • Relevant

    • This means whatever we are doing needs to be relevant to the goal we are trying to accomplish.  For instance, being very active on Linkedin is good, but if our goal is to improve customer retention we should probably be focusing on how we are engaging our customers and improving the customer experience.

  • Time bound

    • Having many short-term goals that help achieve a long-term goal is going to help us make constant progress towards that goal.  

    • What can be done today? This month? The next 90-days?

Identifying your target market

After you’ve decided what you want from your business/life, it’s time to start getting down to the nitty gritty.  The first thing you’re going to need to be able to identify (and have some basic data or market research on) is identifying what problem you are trying to solve.  The reason you need to know this is because the next step involved is identifying who your target audience/customer is.  If you can’t articulate what problem you are solving and who would be buying your product/service then you probably need to take a step back and take some time to really identify this things, because it’s going to be crucial to your business strategy moving forward. 

If all of the above seems overwhelming, or you simply don’t have the time to put together a business/marketing plan, feel free to reach out to me for a free 30-minute consultation to see how I might be able to help you get your business of the ground!

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Getting Started, Tips and TricksJordan Kennedyentrepreneurship, startup tips, business development, business planComment