Put a Great Plan Behind Your Great Business!

As we finish up 2007 and roll into 2008, it is time to adapt a new kind of business planning, which I call "plan-as-you-go" business planning. I laid out some of the essentials in an earlier post on the Trump Blog. But since a new year is the time to put the power of good planning behind your enterprise, I’d like to revisit the basics of PAYG planning from a slightly different angle.

As you plan your business . . .

• Start anywhere. The plan is a matter of interlocking blocks, so some people start with a numbers task, like a sales forecast, and others start conceptually, with a vision or a strategy or focus. Don’t wait until your plan is finished, get going. Start today and start using it tomorrow. 

• Remember that all business plans are wrong - but they’re still vital. You are predicting the future. You’ll be wrong, but you set down tracks so you can follow up and revise without losing sight of the long-term goals and directions. 

• Don’t expect to finish. Good business plans are never done. My company’s business plan started in the late 1980s and it’s still a work in progress. If your plan is finished, your company is finished. Instead, you revise as needed, as in steering, navigation, and walking. The core of the plan is the collection of heart and flesh and bones, its content, thinking, and specifics; from that you spin out a document or presentation or elevator speech as needed, and when needed. 

• There is no correct format, because form follows function. Do only as much as you need to run your company, to manage, to build strategy and follow-up and long-term goals and directions. If you don’t need to create a formal plan, don’t. 

• Keep it alive, always, and spin the output as needed. Don’t ever let your plan go static. Keep it on top of things, active, and alive, not forgotten in a drawer. 

  And remember, you can only measure a plan by results. A plan is only as good as the decisions it guides - no more, no less.