Business Planning Made Easy Part VI: Just 90-Minutes

In Business Planning Made Easy Part I and Part II; Vision Statement and Mission Statement, we provided the definitive answer as to how they differ.  In Business Planning Made Easy Part III we introduced the 3rd element in effective business planning, Objectives or Targets.  In that article we called upon business owners to stop being hypocritical.  If you aren’t going to measure your business’ performance and respond actively to the feedback, then stop coaching your children to their education or athletic performances.  In Part IV we introduced how to craft effective Strategies using less than 100-characters to describe each Strategy.  Do this beginning with a BHAG and then 3 – 4 ways you can move the company towards achieving the BHAGs.  Finally, in the last post we identified a set of rules for crafting brilliant Action Plans that will ensure the Business Plan is in fact

If you missed them catch them here:

1. The Business Plan Vision Statement
2. The Business Plan Mission Statement Also EASY & FAST
3. Business Planning Still EASY & FAST with Objectives
4. Business Planning Made Easy Part IV:  Strategies – The Foundation
5. Business Planning Made Easy Part V:  Action Plans – The Work

Now we move on to the BONUS Secret #6 of the 5-Secrets to Business Planning that makes Business Planning EASY, FAST, and entirely PRACTICAL. That is how to sustain your business planning activities as a business culture with as little as 10-minutes per week such that your annual business plan reset should never require more than 90-minutes ever again.

Throughout our articles on Effective Business Planning we said it is easy and fast because we work from the basis of “Get It Down, Then Get It Right“

Now that you have all the secrets to creating a business plan and you’ve got it “down”, it’s time to grow your skills over the course of time so you “get it right!”

While it is important to complete the initiate business plan in a timely manner so you can begin to engage in it’s implementation, it is equally important to intend to sustain the business plan as a Business Management System or even as an organizational culture.  To do otherwise will mean that by tomorrow your business plan is potentially out of date if some major business event occurs.

We position in our STOP The CHAOS seminars that when you are effectively sustaining the business, the business plan is always relevant and current.   Sometimes you will be leading the plan (when a new idea crops up and needs to be considered and the business plan amended).  Otherwise the business plan leads you (when no new ideas are on the horizon stick with implementing the business plan as it stands).

Very simply sustaining the business plan is a cycle of TAKE ACTION, MONITOR, AMEND (See image)

In this manner you begin to build a business, department or other organization based on continuous improvement.

The following are our 8-Steps for sustaining the business plan indefinitely reducing the annual business plan reset to less than 90-minutes:

1. 1.  Spend 8-10 Hours to create the initial business plan on the basis of Get It Down Then Get It Right.
      
   2.  Spend 10-Minutes/Week to identify and commit to the WORK to be done in that week to implement any of the Action Plans.
   3. Spend 30-Minutes/Month by the 5th of the month to review, and reconnect to the business plan and complete a reset of Action Plans if need be.
   4. Spend 45-Minutes/Quarter by the 15th of the of the final month in the Quarter to review Quarterly success to the Objectives and to reset the Action Plans in light of Action Plans that were completed during the Quarter adding in new Action Plans to implement Strategies or to leverage or correct the observed financial performance towards the Objectives.
   5. Spend 90-Minutes Annually by the 15th of the final month of the fiscal year to reset the new year’s Business Plan.
   6. Measure against business critical Objectives and review minimum Quarterly (as in Step 4) or better yet Monthly.  
   7. Celebrate Successes.  Celebrate small wins to begin with so they grow into big successes.  Make the degree of celebration commensurate with the power of the wins on overall business success.
   8. Retain a Business Plan Adviser to hold you accountable to creating the culture within your business or organization who will be responsible for ensuring each of the prior 7-Steps are rigorously held to.  Left to your own accord if you miss just one Weekly 10-Minute meeting with yourself to reset the Action Planning for the week (see Step-2 above) the probability is you will never again return to the planning process and the time and energy spent building the initial plan, while FAST & EASY, will be lost.  The stipend you will pay to retain a Business Plan Adviser will be well worth it in the return you receive for creating a culture of sustainable business planning

All mankind  is divided into 3-classes; those that are immovable, those that are movable and those that MOVE (Benjamin Franklin).

BE A MOVER following our 6-Secrets to Effective Business Planning.  Start NOW with our NEXT STEPS option #2 below and download our FREE FOCUS Yourself; A 7-Module Business Plan Program.

1.You can find out more about what a business plan is and its importance with the international best-selling book CHAOS; How Business Leaders Can Master the Power of Focus. Get your FREE copy HERE

2. Use our FREE business planning program FOCUS Yourself; A 7 Module Business Plan Program. This is not a business plan template, it is a full business plan that is EASY and FAST, making your plan SUSTAINABLE and entirely PRACTICAL. Start your business plan NOW

3. Not sure why you need a small business plan? REGISTER for a FREE FOCUS Discovery Consultation where you will talk business, your business, with international best-selling author James Burgess

4. Challenge yourself to FOCUS Your Business In Just 30-Days and learn how to build a business that will THRIVE not just survive with our FREE webinar HERE.