Move Over Business Plans Your Times Up
Photo by Curtis MacNewton on Unsplash
I spent all day Friday Business Growth Workshop, Covering Topics on Technology, Marketing, Systems, Sales & Strategy
In the Strategy Session, The speaker laboured the point we needed to have a Business Plan.
He Stated only 1 in 5 business have a Business Plan
A staggering four in five businesses do not have a working business plan in place. An advisory firm has found, undermining their ability to resolve problems and maintain a steady growth trajectory.
In its SME Research Report 2017/18, HLB Mann Judd found despite the amount of planning people put into their holidays and their retirement, just 20 per cent of business owners have a formal plan, and only one in three regularly spend time on refining their strategy for growth.
4 in 5 businesses have no business plan
https://www.mybusiness.com.au/management/4001-4-in-5-businesses-have-no-business-plan
Even the State Govt says we need a Business Plan
“A business plan is a documented set of business goals, objectives, target market information and financial forecasts that you are aiming to achieve over a certain period of time. It is important to prepare a business plan when starting or growing your business and review it regularly to keep it up to date.” Writing a business plan | business.gov.au
I wrote quite a few Business plans for my Business & for clients, but not lately.
I remember spending days trying to write the perfect Business Plan.
And just like magic on Saturday, I’m hunting around on one of my Hard Drives Looking for a Folder with the notes I took at a marketing conference in San Diego. When I stumble came across one of my early Business Plans I’d written 11 years ago.
It would be a fair bet I have not looked at this document in years.
I remember when I first wrote my Business Plan, I’d be checking every month to make sure I was on track.
Then somewhere along the way, I stopped going to my Business Plan.
So I opened my old Business Plan & started reading to see how far off my assumptions were at the time of writing this Business Plan.
My Business Plan was a whopping 55 Pages Plus 20 Attachments.
Some of the numbers looked a bit silly back then. Just Guesses.
As reread my old Business Plan, I realise only about 25% was even relevant today.
My business looks completely different from how Imagined it was going to be.
So it got me wondering why I stopped referring to my Business Plan.
Did I stop believing in a Business Plan? No, they can still serve a purpose (at least the owner thinking about their business) they just weren’t right for me.
Checking Google I discovered. There was 5-6 business Advertising their Business Plan services. The rest were made of Government bodies & Banks Suggesting it would be a good idea to a Business Plan.
A couple of them suggest a business would help you get financed.
The main reason I stopped referring & using my Business because it was a pain to read & change.
It was not a living document but more carved in stone.
I sure a business Plan gives your Bank Manager a Warm Fuzzy, as looks at your rigorous planning.
If you’re writing your plan just to impress your Bank Manager. Good one, I hope you got the money.
If you’re like most business owners I’ve worked with, then the cumbersome Business Plans get stuffed in filing Cabinet. It’s a miracle if it’s even read again.
So writing a business plan is an onerous process.
Why go to all the effort to Write a Business Plan if you have no intention of applying to your business.
Are Business Plans a bad Idea?
I think Ash Maurya sums it best: “Practise Trumps Theory.”
“Practise Trumps Theory
You get a gold star not for following a process, but for achieving results.”
Ash Maurya
Running LeanI’ve been on a journey next stop, Getting to Plan B: Breaking Through to a Better Business Model
Getting to Plan B: Breaking Through to a Better Business Model
Getting to Plan B: Breaking Through to a Better Business Model by John Mullins (Author), Randy Komisar (Author)
You have a new venture in mind. And you’ve crafted a business plan so detailed it’s a work of art. Don’t get too attached to it.
As John Mullins and Randy Komisar explain in Getting to Plan B, new businesses are fraught with uncertainty. To succeed, you must change the plan in real time as the inevitable challenges arise. In fact, studies show that entrepreneurs who stick slavishly to their Plan A stand a greater chance of failing-and that many successful businesses barely resemble their founders’ original idea.
So did I ditch the Business Plan altogether? No, I just found better & simpler ways to access the business Key Criteria.
On one my Trips to Los Angles, to attend a 3-day Marketing Seminar & Workshop, I was staying with friends who Live the Simi Valley California. We made a trip shopping centre, Wow The Book Store was Hugh. I love exploring Books Shops discovering books you usually don’t see in Sydney. ( Now go to Amazon)
I found this book The Back OF The Napkin by Dan Roam.
The Back Of The Napkin
My copy of The Back Of The Napkin Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures
The Back of the Napkin was a breath of Fresh Air because I’m a visual Learner.
Check out Page 136 Visual Frameworks of the book The Back Of The Napkin.
I started seeing big possibilities in Business Planning & helped prepare me to use the Business Model Canvas.
Then I read Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers by Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur.
Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers
Business Model Generation is a handbook for visionaries, game changers, and challengers striving to defy outmoded business models and design tomorrow’s enterprises. If your organization needs to adapt to harsh new realities, but you don’t yet have a strategy that will get you out in front of your competitors, you need a Business Model Generation.
This book introduced me to the Business Model Canvas.
What’s the Business Model Canvas?
The 20 minute Business Plan Business using the Model Canvas made easy.
The Business Model Canvas (BMC) gives you the structure of a business plan without the overhead and the improvisation of a ‘back of the napkin’ sketch without the fuzziness (and coffee rings).
Alexander Cowan
THE 20 MINUTE BUSINESS PLAN: BUSINESS MODEL CANVAS MADE EASY
Business Model Canvas is a strategic management and lean startup template for developing new or documenting existing business models. It is a visual chart with elements describing a firm’s or product’s value proposition, infrastructure, customers, and finances. It assists firms in aligning their activities by illustrating potential trade-offs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Model_Canvas
Business Model Canvas
The Business Model Canvas – https://www.strategyzer.com/canvas/business-model-canvas
The Business Model Canvas reflects systematically on your business model, so you can focus on your business model segment by segment. This also means you can start with a brain dump, filling out the segments the spring to your mind first and then work on the empty segments to close the gaps. The following list with questions will help you brainstorm and compare several variations and ideas for your next business model innovation.
- 1 – Key Partnerships: What can the company not do so it can focus on its Key Activities?…
- 2 – Key Activities: What uniquely strategic things does the business do to deliver its proposition?…
- 3 – Value Propositions: What’s compelling about the proposition? Why do customers buy, use?…
- 4 – Customer Relationships: How do you interact with the customer through their ‘journey’?…
- 5 – Customer Segments: Who are the customers? What do they think? See? Feel? Do?…
- 6 – Key Resources: What unique strategic assets must the business have to compete?…
- 7 – Channels: How are these propositions promoted, sold and delivered? Why? Is it working?…
- 8 – Cost Structure: What are the business’ major cost drivers? How are they linked to revenue?…
- 9 – Revenue Streams: How does the business earn revenue from the value propositions?
After using this for a couple of years moved to others Canvases which give me even more insights
I prefer these 2 because they more focused on the Customer rather than the company.
The Lean Canvas
Lean Canvas is adapted from The Business Model Canvas and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Un-ported License.
See what’s different – The Lean Canvas – https://leanstack.com/leancanvas
Lean Canvas is a 1-page business plan template created by Ash Maurya that helps you deconstruct your idea into its key assumptions. It is adapted from Alex Osterwalder’s Business Model Canvas and optimized for Lean Startups. It replaces elaborate business plans with a single page business model.
Lean Canvas is a 1-page business plan template created by Ash Maurya that helps you deconstruct your idea into its key assumptions. It is adapted from Alex Osterwalder’s Business Model Canvas and optimized for Lean Startups. It replaces elaborate business plans with a single page business model.
Business plans take too long to write, are seldom updated, and almost never read by others but documenting your hypotheses is key.
You see the Lean Canvas is similar to Business Model Canvas but focus more on the Customer.
Problem – Solution Fit Canvas
Product – Solution Fit Canvas Created by Daria Nepriakhina / IdeaHackers.nl
Translate problems into solutions with higher chances of solution adoption probability.
Get practical insights into customer situation and decision-making process.
If you want to learn how to use the Product – Solution Fit Canvas go to http://solutioncanvas.com/