Business Planning, The Process
Business Planning, The Process
Your Vision, Mission and Values, should be written for both you personally and for your business. You should refer to them regularly to help you focus on what you believe in, where you want to go personally and where you want your business to go. Your personal and business statements combined become your business' culture which will be significant as you go forward and build your business.
Once you have your Vision, Mission and Values statement in place and have completed your internal and external evaluation, the next step is to put together a SWOT Analysis for your business (SWOT=Strenghts, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats). You have to do some real soul searching on this and put the information on paper as honestly and in as much detail as you can.
With the SWOT analysis complete your next step is to define your goals and objectives.
Goals are the next step down from the Vision. Vision is the big picture. Goals are generally short term (1,3,6, 12 months). Goals need to be outlined for you and your business.
Objectives, sometimes confused with goals, are the specifics of how to reach each goal. Objectives are measurable. They should be established for the same time frame as your goals.
Objectives must support your goals. Both goals and objectives must be realistic and obtainable. Setting goals and objectives that are not realistic and obtainable increases the odds of failure and frustration.
Next is to define the strategies that will be used to meet your goals and objectives.
Strategies can be as simple as a one-page listing of each strategy to a multi-paged document defining each strategy and associated tactics in detail. you must review your strategies regularly.
Tactics are the specific steps you need to put in place to implement each strategy.
Tactics should be written, detailed and measurable.
Strategies and Tactics are dynamic and need to be reviewed weekly and adjusted based on results being obtained, or not being obtained, and other factors that may arise and potentially affect the end results you are seeking.
To complete your business plan you need to add your key staffs BIO's and your revenue plan which is a complete topic in itself.
In summary:
A business plan united by a clear vision, mission and values statement tends to accomplish far more in a shorter period of time than those without a clear statement.
Always hold firm on your vision, it should be the cornerstone of your operation, your guiding light.
Your Strategies and Tactics should be fluid. You always need to be forward looking. Being proactive in managing your strategies and tactics will give you the best chance of realizing your vision. If you are only reactive to changes or problems, you will not reach your objectives.
The key to a successful business plan is to jointly set the business strategy and tactics with all the key people involved, so that everyone is aligned with the Vision, Mission, Values and goals. This insures that the business goes forward with everyone working together, promoting the vision and mission internally, as well as externally. This gives the business the greatest chance of attaining it's goals.
Setting a business strategy requires an understanding of the company's history, in particular the past year, and then looking forward to the year ahead in detail and the next four years in general.
A business plan is only a plan. It is only as good as the people implementing it. ALIGNMENT IS KEY. Forces pulling together in the same direction, will accomplish much more than forces pulling in different directions. A team working together. This requires good business management.
The future will not happen if one wishes hard enough. It requires decision, it imposes risk, it requires action, it demands allocation of resources, above all human resources, it requires work. - Peter Drucker on Strategic Planning.
Business Planning The Process - To learn more about this author, visit Andrew Nester's Website.
Like this article? Share it with your friends
To start the business planning process you have to develop a Vision, Mission, and Values statement and do a complete internal and external evaluation of where your business, or planned business, stands.
Your Vision, Mission and Values, should be written for both you personally and for your business. You should refer to them regularly to help you focus on what you believe in, where you want to go personally and where you want your business to go. Your personal and business statements combined become your business' culture which will be significant as you go forward and build your business.
Once you have your Vision, Mission and Values statement in place and have completed your internal and external evaluation, the next step is to put together a SWOT Analysis for your business (SWOT=Strenghts, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats). You have to do some real soul searching on this and put the information on paper as honestly and in as much detail as you can.
With the SWOT analysis complete your next step is to define your goals and objectives.
Goals are the next step down from the Vision. Vision is the big picture. Goals are generally short term (1,3,6, 12 months). Goals need to be outlined for you and your business.
Objectives, sometimes confused with goals, are the specifics of how to reach each goal. Objectives are measurable. They should be established for the same time frame as your goals.
Objectives must support your goals. Both goals and objectives must be realistic and obtainable. Setting goals and objectives that are not realistic and obtainable increases the odds of failure and frustration.
Next is to define the strategies that will be used to meet your goals and objectives.
Strategies can be as simple as a one-page listing of each strategy to a multi-paged document defining each strategy and associated tactics in detail. you must review your strategies regularly.
Tactics are the specific steps you need to put in place to implement each strategy.
Tactics should be written, detailed and measurable.
Strategies and Tactics are dynamic and need to be reviewed weekly and adjusted based on results being obtained, or not being obtained, and other factors that may arise and potentially affect the end results you are seeking.
To complete your business plan you need to add your key staffs BIO's and your revenue plan which is a complete topic in itself.
In summary:
A business plan united by a clear vision, mission and values statement tends to accomplish far more in a shorter period of time than those without a clear statement.
Always hold firm on your vision, it should be the cornerstone of your operation, your guiding light.
Your Strategies and Tactics should be fluid. You always need to be forward looking. Being proactive in managing your strategies and tactics will give you the best chance of realizing your vision. If you are only reactive to changes or problems, you will not reach your objectives.
The key to a successful business plan is to jointly set the business strategy and tactics with all the key people involved, so that everyone is aligned with the Vision, Mission, Values and goals. This insures that the business goes forward with everyone working together, promoting the vision and mission internally, as well as externally. This gives the business the greatest chance of attaining it's goals.
Setting a business strategy requires an understanding of the company's history, in particular the past year, and then looking forward to the year ahead in detail and the next four years in general.
A business plan is only a plan. It is only as good as the people implementing it. ALIGNMENT IS KEY. Forces pulling together in the same direction, will accomplish much more than forces pulling in different directions. A team working together. This requires good business management.
The future will not happen if one wishes hard enough. It requires decision, it imposes risk, it requires action, it demands allocation of resources, above all human resources, it requires work. - Peter Drucker on Strategic Planning.
Business Planning The Process - To learn more about this author, visit Andrew Nester's Website.
Like this article? Share it with your friends
| |||
 |
No article feedback found. | ||
|
Leave Your Feedback | ||
|
|||
 Strategic Planning
| |||
| Organizations wanting to ensure long range success must have an effective Strategic Planning Process. Does Yours? |
|||
|
“Eight Key Characteristics For A Strategic Planning Facilitator, According To Your Strategic Thinking Business Coach”
| |||
| Selecting a professional strategic planning facilitator is very important. Facilitation of your strategic planning process involves working with groups of people and requires that the facilitator be tuned in at all... |
|||
|
\"A Major Communication Tip For Successful Strategic Planning – Provide Definitions of Major Strategic Planning Terms As You Begin”
| |||
| One of the key elements in any endeavor is clear communications. This is especially true when doing strategic planning. So, my major communication tip to ensure more successful strategic planning efforts is to fir... |
|||
|
Role of Leadership in Planning
| |||
| Executives love to talk about planning… most complain their processes don’t work very well. Harvard Business Review reports that only 11% of CEOs believe that strategic planning is worth the effort. Most planning pr... |
|||
|
Succession Planning - Vital For Your Business At All Levels
| |||
| There are so many issues in management today and one that so often gets missed is planning for every eventuality. If you have no idea what succession planning is then this article is worth a read - it could make all... |
|||
| |||
Kim CastleWith nearly two decades in the advertising and design business, with clients like Domino's Pizza, General Motors, Direct TV, Pedigree, Wolfgang Puck, Higher Octave Music, Hollywood Celebrity Products, Disney, and Paramount, as well as thousands of entrepreneurs around the world define, structure, communicate, and position their business for greater profits, BrandU(R) co-creators Kim Castle and W. Vito Montone discovered that entrepreneurs could experience the same power that big brands command for a fraction of the cost with the world's only process-based results-drive Integral approach to business creation. BrandU(R) is helping entrepreneurs grow with the power of extreme clarity from idea...to brand...to market(TM) and helping one million entrepreneurs become successful and whole so that they can make a difference in the world. Are you one of them? If you want to experience clarity all the way to the bank(TM), get started now at http://www.brandu.com. - Visit Kim Castle's Website |
|||
Dave KurlanDave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
|||
Dianne CramptonDianne Crampton is an executive leadership coach, team consultant, author and president of TIGERS Success Series, Inc. Dianne has been helping CEO's and Executives connect their employees to their core values and goals for over 20 years using the trademarked TIGERS team culture process, which stands for trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk and success. To download a free white paper on behaviors that build strong teams and behaviors that will predictably tear them down go here. - Visit Dianne Crampton's Website |
|||
David BarrDavid Barr is the President of Venture Opportunities, Inc. David has been a professional business broker/intermediary since 1980 focusing on General Business Brokerage and Mergers and Acquisitions representing client transaction value from $400,000 to $20,000,000. Mr. Barr has handled the sale of over four hundred and fifty companies. David earned a university degree from the State University of New York majoring in economics and business. David holds the Mergers and Acquisition Master Intermediary and the Certified Business Intermediary designations from the International Business Brokers Association. He is also a Senior Business Analyst and a Texas licensed Real Estate Agent. For more information about David and Venture Opportunities, visit www.bizdealmaker.com. - Visit David Barr's Website |
|||
Jeff FosterWebBizIdeas.com is a Minneapolis website design company founded to help people start an internet business by providing them with website, business, and internet resources that help foster the growth of successful online businesses and develop innovative Internet business ideas. - Visit Jeff Foster's Website |
|||
Anne BarrAnne Barr has over 26 years experience in sales and marketing, six years as a franchisee. She has assisted over 367 business owners and purchasers to achieve their goals in career change, transition and exit strategy. She holds the designation of Certified Franchise Executive from the International Franchise Association, Certified Business Intermediary from the International Business Brokers Association and Board Certified Broker from the Texas Association of Business Brokers. Anne is active in professional organizations, networking groups and volunteers for non-profit entities. As owner/operator of four successful businesses, Anne has proven people skills and enjoys helping clients find the right "fit" in business ownership. Visit www.FranchiseOpportunitySpecialist.com for more information about me and my company. - Visit Anne Barr's Website |
|||
Casey GollanCasey Gollan, Business Coaching & Mentoring Programs. Add $1 Million to $10 Million in the next 1 to 3 years. Since 1996 Casey has to added hundreds of millions of dollars to businesses. Watch a free video see client results Business Coaching website. - Visit Casey Gollan's Website |
|||
Bernard ReberBack in late 1992, MS Access hit the streets. About that time the company I managed needed new software to handle their growing client base and I decided to try this new product. I had little difficulty writing and adapting a database to suit us and discovered a hidden talent for programming. A business was born. With business studies and 25 years of management experience in three different countries under my belt, I could offer a unique combination of skills and my customers agreed. From these humble beginnings my software 'invoiceit' emerged in 1999 and has since been taken to 49 states (hello Wyoming, won't you join us?), all across Canada and more than 70 other countries. From the very beginning the program included cashbook accounting, the simplest form of keeping financial business records. The Dictionary.com defines 'cashbook' as "A 'book' in which to record money received and paid out". For 'book' substitute 'simple software' and that's what I'm about. Now I have published Simple Accounting, an inexpensive spreadsheet solution which even you can master. For just $14.95 it costs less than a takeout meal! More at http://www.scrambled-card.com/simple_accounting_main.htm - Visit Bernard Reber's Website |
|||
|
To learn more about the Evan Elite Author Program please contact us. | |||
 | |
 Andrew Nester (Visit Andrew's Website) Andrew Nester , President/CEO Biz Strategies, Inc. Biz Strategies Biz Strategies provides business management consulting to online businesses and vertical market ad network business solutions href="http://www.verticalmarketadnetwork.c om">VMAN Vertical Market Ad Network (VMAN) is a network solution built around a proven ad server technology that is the foundation for our turn key solutions. VMAN provides entrepreneurs, advertisers and publishers with an online business solution that is tailored to their markets’ niche. Learn more about vertical market ad networks at Vertical Market Ad Network
|  |
 |
| Business Strategies Blog - Welcome to our blog. Our goal with this blog is to provide you with business development and operating strategies that work, to provide support for specific business problems and to form a network of business folks sharing their thoughts and solutions for various situations and problems that have worked for them. |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
 |
| Modeling the Masters: Learn the true secrets behind Walt Disney's business success factors & grow your company! Video produced by Phanta Media |
|
|
 |
| Have you written articles that would be of value to entrepreneurs? Become an expert on our site by publishing them! Expose yourself to a wide audience, drive more traffic to your website and get more sales! Click Here for details. |
 |
 | ||
 |
||
 |
||
 |
||
|
| ||
|
|
|
Get advice & tips from famous business owners, new articles by entrepreneur experts, my latest website updates, & special sneak peaks at what's to come!
|
|
|
 |
 Instant Business Letter 7 Strategies to Take Action Increase Sales Instant Brochures Leadership 2.0 |
|
 | ||
 |
Top 50 Debt Blogs
Learn To Get Out Of Debt | |
 |
Top 50 Business Plans
Top Business Plan Blogs | |
| ||
 |
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
|
|
||||||||||||
