How is your business plan looking?

Having a business plan for your business cannot be overemphasized. While a business plan has many purposes, the primary importance of a business plan is that it helps the business make:

· Critical decisions,

· Iron out the kinks,

· Avoid mistakes,

· Gives a clearer picture of the viability of the business, and

· Helps set objectives and benchmarks

A good written business plan is a valuable tool because it gives the business the ability to layout their goals and hence, the ability to track the growth of their business. Business Plans gives the entrepreneur the opportunity to collate detailed information which can improve the business’s chance of success, such as analysing the various markets for their product, who are the competitors, best options for marketing their own product, look closely at the logistics and operations plan, and very importantly profitability, cash flow projections, financing and the overall path to help their business achieve long-term growth and success.

The importance of planning is probably the most important tool the business can use in marketing and briefly some reasons in justifying the importance of planning are as follows:

· Planning puts the business in a better position for the mere fact that in the ‘Business Plan’ the business is planning to succeed. Thus the goals set have a better chance of success with proper planning,

· Planning includes progress as well as the best pathway to achieve goals. The business plan includes goals it wants to achieve, hence the business owner will keep ‘tabs’ as to the progress of meeting it’s objective, again giving the business a better chance of success,

· Planning increases the business’s chance of success and stability and when a business is planning ahead, “flexibility” to adjust is an important component to have in the plan if any unseen events happen. This way the business has an answer and/or option in the pipeline should this occur and avoids unnecessary concerns and the business will not need to panic, but just to adjust to the situation,

· In the case where there are two or more people involved in the business, good planning brings the business together and helps create a ‘team’ like environment. Unity of all the stakeholders leads to success, hence an integrated approach is very important,

· Continuous evaluation and control of the plan is important and keeping ‘tabs’ of set goals helps the business to stay on track,

· All of the points mentioned above, ultimately helps the business reach desired results, the business is more likely to be economically viable and obtain the profitable objective. If the plan is implemented correctly, the results will have a desirable effect for the business.

Importantly for the business, once the implemented business plan comes to an end, it should immediately be followed by the implementation of another business plan so that the process of new goals, new objectives can immediately start again.

Planning and the continuous implementation of a business plan is very important, because it gives a steady growth and continually helps prepare the business for the future which it desires. Need help with a business plan? contact us today!