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Why Is It OK To Plan A Vacation But Not Your Business?

Written by: Adam Sonnhalter

Article Overview: I had two people tell me this week that they were taking a day to pack for a vacation. I mean, they were only going away for a long weekend, or maybe even a week. And they spent the entire day packing. They probably spent some time prior to this planning the trip as well. Why is it that we'll easily spend several hours (and sometimes even days or weeks) planning for a vacation or for a wedding, yet when the word planning is mentioned in business, business owners usually have an extremely adverse reaction?

Why Is It OK To Plan A Vacation But Not Your Business?

I had two people tell me this week that they were taking a day to pack for a vacation. I mean, they were only going away for a long weekend, or maybe even a week. And they spent the entire day packing. They probably spent some time prior to this planning the trip as well. Why is it that we'll easily spend several hours (and sometimes even days or weeks) planning for a vacation or for a wedding, yet when the word planning is mentioned in business, business owners usually have an extremely adverse reaction? "I don't have time to plan," they often say. We ask, "How can you not take the time to plan?"

Why is planning such a bad word in business? Why don't business owners spend more time, and in some cases any time, planning to make a profit in their business?

Instead of sitting back and mapping out a plan of attack, many business owners just run around and shoot from the hip when it comes to making decisions in their business. Constantly creating and putting out fires.

The #1 problem we see with small business is the lack of creating and then executing a plan. More specifically, a Profit Plan (you may have heard it called a Budget or a Forecast).

If we use a conversion ratio of say 1 day of planning for each 1 week of vacation, then each business owner should spend the equivalent of a day a week planning. How many business owners do you know who spend less than a day all year planning their business, let alone a day a week?

We're trying our best to help with this through our business coaching where we spend 1-2 hours each week with most of our clients and then they work for another couple of hours each week on things in their business. These "things" they're working on tend to be more strategic in nature instead of tactical.

Do you know any generals who would agree to go to battle without having adequate time to prepare a plan of attack as well as some back up plans for when things go wrong (because they always do)? How about football coaches? Why do think they work 100+ hour weeks during the season?

So don't let planning be a dirty little word in your business. There is nothing more important to your company's survival than the creation and execution of a Profit Plan.

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Article Tags: business owners, planning



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