The Business Plan Summary is the basis for inspiring both you and your employees while getting everyone heading in the same direction. When your employees know where the company is going, they will get you there.

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Let’s Get Clear about Purpose. Why does your company exist?

 

Why does your company exist? (from your customer’s perspective)

We are seeing a lot of attention being paid in recent years to this idea of knowing your “Why” or Purpose of your business, for good reason.

Discovering the answer to this question can have a profound effect on the success of your business. It provides context for so many other strategic decisions as grow your business, a foundation piece for your business plan.

On the surface, “why” seems like a simple question, yet many business leaders struggle to find a strong, compelling, and succinct answer to this question.

The key to getting to a clear Purpose statement is to focus on your customer’s perspective.

Start with this question:

What fundamental value or benefit do our customers receive from us?

Brainstorm a list of answers with your team. Mix and combine ideas until you have a good starting point. Review and tweak over time

Here’s an illustration. Imagine you are the owner of a company that sells lighthouses. What might be the Purpose of your business?

Something like: Our company purpose is to protect the lives and property of our customers at sea.

With this purpose in mind, the company has the foundation to build out and improve it’s products and services over time. Eg. Life boats, life jackets. GPS systems, charts, etc all flow from this strong purpose statement.

Pontish Yeramyan, CEO of Gap International, wrote in a recent article about being purposeful:

“The 21st Century Organization can also differentiate itself by operating within a bigger context than a vision or mission, something more expansive. It’s not enough anymore to simply have a clear direction – people must be able to throw their entire selves into the game to be successful, with full engagement of heart and mind.

We have found that when leaders leverage Purpose, it creates a competitive advantage that’s difficult or even impossible to replicate. Purpose creates the ability for people to care about something much bigger than their personal concerns and fully apply their talent to meaningful endeavours.

 If you think about it, Being Purposeful creates the platform for organization success, because it taps into a reservoir of potential energy latent within the organization. When peoples’ orientation to their job transforms from performing work to that of making a difference, they become exponentially more effective at coming together to produce extraordinary results.

 It becomes possible to consistently produce results beyond what is predictable in the normal flow of business. Powerful strategies can be created and re-created when purpose is present. Purpose gives people a far more expansive space to create and grow, where creative, purpose-based thinking replaces crisis-based, firefighting thinking.

 An organization of people who have connected themselves to something bigger can thrive rather than simply survive –they can move fast together and nimbly adjust strategies and tactics to succeed.”

 When your business plan starts with “Why” the other pieces will follow more easily”

For more tips on planning please visit plangenie.com

Clarity Creates Confidence

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What Makes you So Special?

No seriously.

Has a prospective client ever asked you this question? Even if they haven’t, at some level, this question is on their mind as they consider their buying decision. What is your answer?

Do you have a clear, succinct response that gets to the core of what is special, unique, or different about your company?

If you ask this question to your leadership team, how consistent is the answer? What answer would you get from your marketing and sales team, your operations team, your finance team, your front-line staff, your forklift driver, your business partners?

Most importantly, what do your customers say about your company?

In documenting your working plan, this is one of the first questions to address. What is your Unique Business Proposition?

Much like we are all different as individuals, every business is different, and unique. Discovering what makes your company unique will clarify your market focus and propel you down the path to attracting, recruiting, and retaining your best customers (and releasing, either through attrition or bold decisions, your worst customers)

Once you have your first draft you can review and revise it at each planning review.  It’s a dynamic exercise. How you described your UBP five years ago will be different today and will be different 5 years from now.

Here’s a few tips to help your search for your UBP:

 

Answer these questions is a sentence or two; What, How, Who, Where:

 

  • What does your company do? Is there something special, unique, or different about what your company does?
  • How you do it? Is there something special, unique, or different about how you do what you do?
  • Who are you?. Is there something special, unique, or different about you and your team or your culture? (Tab over to the Values section to look for clues here.)
  • Where do you operate, your geographic reach?

 

Somewhere in this mix you will find a starting point in your search for your unique identity.

Next, talk to your best customers. Ask, why did they become customers and why do they stay? Then, listen very, very carefully.

Another great source of insight are your business partners – your suppliers, and/or your distributors.

Finally, get your whole team involved, from the executive level to the front line.  Harness the power of collaboration within your company.

For more information on Unique Business Proposition and how it is used on a working business plan, please visit planegenie.com

 

Please pass along your questions or comments.

 

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Start with the foundation

The Foundation

We all know that building any structure starts with a solid foundation. The same is true of your business plan. The foundation for your business plan is your BUSINESS PLAN SUMMARY.

Your plan summary contains five important pieces of information. The rest of your plan extends from this foundation and is easier to assemble when you have this document clearly written.

The five pieces of your summary are:

  • Your Unique Business Proposition – what makes your company special, unique and different?
  • The Purpose of your business – Why does your company exist, as seen from the customer’s perspective? At a fundamental level, what value or benefit does your company create for your customers?
  • Your Destination – Your longer term goals, your picture of success 3 years from now.
  • Your One Year Goals – Desired outcomes in the next 12 months?
  • Your Strategy – In broad terms, how you will achieve these results?

Let’s look at the first two points on this list.

Unique business proposition: In a couple of sentences, describe what makes your business unique, special and different. This can usually be found in:

What you do.

How you do it.

Where you do it.

Who you are.

When you write this information down and begin discussing it with your leadership team, it will lead to crystallizing these ideas. (Tip: Always good to check with your customers for their perspective on this).

Becoming clearer about what makes your business unique will guide the future direction of your business and provide a reference for key strategic decisions as you grow into the future

 

 

 

Your Purpose:

Why does your company exist, as seen from the customer’s perspective?

Every business has a purpose. What is yours?

If your business is building lighthouses, what might your Purpose be?

Something like: “we protect our customers from foundering on hidden perils at sea”

 

 

 

 

Pontish Yeramyan, CEO of Gap International, wrote about being purposeful:

“The 21st Century Organization can also differentiate itself by operating within a bigger context than a vision or mission, something more expansive. It’s not enough anymore to simply have a clear direction – people must be able to throw their entire selves into the game to be successful, with full engagement of heart and mind. We have found that when leaders leverage Purpose, it creates a competitive advantage that’s difficult or even impossible to replicate. Purpose creates the ability for people to care about something much bigger than their personal concerns and fully apply their talent to meaningful endeavours.

 If you think about it, Being Purposeful creates the platform for organization success, because it taps into a reservoir of potential energy latent within the organization. When peoples’ orientation to their job transforms from performing work to that of making a difference, they become exponentially more effective at coming together to produce extraordinary results. It becomes possible to consistently produce results beyond what is predictable in the normal flow of business. Powerful strategies can be created and re-created when purpose is present.

Purpose gives people a far more expansive space to create and grow, where creative, purpose-based thinking replaces crisis-based, fire fighting thinking. An organization of people who have connected themselves to something bigger can thrive rather than simply survive –they can move fast together and nimbly adjust strategies and tactics to succeed.”

Once you have draft versions of your Unique Business Proposition and Purpose statement, it’s time to do some goal setting. Move on to sections 3,4,5 of your plan summary.

Here’s the good news, unlike a physical foundation, you can come back and revise these sections of your plan if you aren’t completely satisfied with your initial efforts.

 

 

 

 

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Understanding the Relationship between Goals and Strategies

Getting clear on goals and strategies.

Let’s review what a typical goal setting list might look like and where strategies may be hiding in the list.

Most initial goal setting lists will contain a mixture of measurable outcomes along with future action items, our “to do” list, which we call strategies. We tend to think first about the things we need to get done. That’s natural and a good place to start your list. Once you have a list, ask “Is this something we need to get done, or is it a measurable outcome?

An initial goal list might look something like this:
1) Revenue growth of 30% per year. Target revenue three years = $X
2) Improved profit margins (gross profit) from x to y
3) Net profits (EBTDA) established and sustained at 10% +
4) Fully re-designed web site, with effective social media components
5) Core products available for on-line purchase
6) 3 new product lines launched
7) Full time sales manager
8) H R manual, updated on a scheduled basis
9) New branch opened in (location)
10) Succession plan in place for all senior positions in the company

Let’s refine this list with this perspective:
“Is this something we need to get done, or is it a measurable outcome?”
1) Revenue growth of 30% per year. Target revenue three years = $X. This is clearly a
measurable outcome. It stays as a goal
2) Improved profit margins (gross profit) from x to y. This seems to be related to goals #3.
let’s combine the two, see below.
3) Another goal, part of our improved revenue/profit picture
4) This is an action step. It looks like a marketing strategy we need to pursue in order to
achieve our revenue goal
5) Another action step, move to the Strategy section of our plan
6) Another strategy
7) Strategy
8) Strategy
9) Could be labelled either a goal or strategy
10) This looks like a big job with significant impact. Let’s leave in the Destination/Goals area of our plan

Here’s the revised version for your 3 Year Goals (Destination)

1. Revenue
We expect to achieve a 30% per year revenue growth over the next 3 years. This will
put our revenue at the end of 20__ at $XXX
(suggest you insert a chart to show prior two years revenue and next 3-year
projections)

2. Profit
We need to improve our net profit from the current 6.3% to a sustainable level at
10% or greater. This will be achieved in part by improved profit margins (gross
profit) from x% to y%.
(show prior two years and next three years projections in a chart)

3. We see a clear opportunity for growth in (new territory). This could be either a
company office, or an acquisition.

4.  In order to ensure the long term sustainability of our company, we need to instill a
process of succession planning, particularly at the senior level. It is important that
we have this in place within the next three years.

We now have four major goals to keep our focus for the next three years. It will be
easy to refine and update these at your regularly scheduled planning meetings in the
future.

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What does Success Look like one year from now? How to Create One Year Goals

With an emerging picture of our Destination, we can focus on our more immediate
future – what does success look like one year from now?

What are the milestones we need to reach for this coming year?

These one-year goals will often be a subset of our 3-year goals, along with some other items we want to accomplish in the shorter term.

Examples:

1. Revenue goal: Our aspiration this year is for a moderate increase in revenue of
10%, with greater emphasis on improved profit margin and overall net profit.
Insert chart showing prior two years and future three-year revenue.

2. Profit: Our goal for this year is a net profit of 8% or greater. To get there we will look at
changes, improvements to our pricing model, cost of goods, and find efficiencies
throughout all areas of our business.

3.  Service: Our customer satisfaction ratings from our three major customers have room for improvement. KPI’s for service rating to be added at a later date.

4. Complete a thorough business analysis for expansion of a branch office in (new
region)

5) People: HR manual completed, with all company policies and a section for current job
descriptions and our organization chart. Clarify and define a set of company values to help mold a stronger company culture.

Note: We use this structure of Destination, One Year Goals and Strategies to help clarify
your thinking. Each time you review and revise your Business Plan Summary, these ideas
will become clearer. In the short term, don’t be too concerned about the semantics, just
make your lists then get on with getting the work done.

The Action Steps, Part IV of your plan, will help expand detail for all the items in this
section. These 90-day action steps are the key to sustained execution over time.

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Use the Power of Positive Thinking in Your Business Plan

Business Plan Summary: Today’s tip is on Goal Setting

Once you’ve drafted your company Purpose and Unique Business Proposition, it’s time to turn our attention to goal setting.

There is something magical about goal setting. Most of us have experienced this at various times in our lives. We’ve set a personal or business goal, shared it with people around us, and we find that most, or all, of the things we wanted to achieve have actually shown up in our lives six months or a year later.

A resource speaker in my CEO peer group, Mary Lore, taught us about the power of our thoughts. In summary, her message was this:

  • When you change your thought, it leads you to:
  1. Change your behaviour, which creates
  2. Different results

Expressed another way, it’s about the power of positive thinking (vs. negative thinking = self limiting goals).

How to Get Started?

Thinking about goals is the starting point, but it is when we write our goals down that things start to happen. When we write our goals down, we are required to convert a vague notion bouncing around in our brain to a more tangible, concrete and specific result we aspire to achieve.

In this action, we make a conscious thought change that starts to automatically change our behaviour.

As the leader of your enterprise, goal setting starts with you. Once you get clear about your 3 year (we call your Destination) and one year goals. It’s important to get these same thoughts firmly imbedded in the minds of the leadership team, and in due course, throughout the company. This leads to changing behaviours throughout the company, and, before long, better results.

Goal setting sounds like an easy task and in many ways it is. In it’s simplest form, it is a list of outcomes, or results for our business at a future date. In business, we have so many ideas and options to consider, it can be a challenge to create a short list that is clear, concise, specific (quantifiable) and realistic.

One of the nice things about plans is that we are free to make changes as we move along into the future. So, go ahead and make a list.

Try this approach: Write a date down a point three* years in the future, then describe 5 to 10 results that would make you happy, your definition of success at that time in the future. Be liberal in your thinking. At this stage quantity is more important than quality. Please include your financial goals, both income and balance sheet outcomes.

Our next step is to cull the list down to a more manageable 3-5 solid outcomes and start to distinguish between a goal vs an action step, which we label Strategies in our Business Plan Summary.

  • Why three years?

For most companies, three years is about as far into the future for our goals to remain somewhat tangible. Beyond that horizon, our vision tends to become a little too blurry to be useful. It is also enough time to do the work, execute on the major strategies to achieve significant change. Every business is different and you may prefer a longer or shorter time horizon.

Additional Resources:

Mary Lore has excellent resources to further pursue this work of changing your thoughts. Link to her website: https://managingthought.com/

Chuck Reaves, TEC Speaker, shared a great message and reminder of an old message that still has impact. Have a listen to interview from the past which highlights where we find ourselves at the moment, approx 6 minute recording.
Link here on power of viral communication: What we think Impacts What we Experience: https://www.chuckreaves.info/ed%20foreman.m4a

 

 

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Planning Never Stops

Are you feeling like you’ve been hit by a COVID 19 hurricane? Your business ship took a blow and you’ve been scrambling to get things back under control. Immediate, urgent, short term plans have been devised and executed. Time lines are hourly, daily, weekly. There has been no time to think beyond the current week.

Planning never stops, it just speeds up and slows down.

As you start getting things back under control, your crew will be more anxious than ever to know where the company is heading, and how they can help.

How do you communicate the new direction and focus when you’re not clear yourself. The business leader’s primary function is to set the next destination and chart the course. Wandering aimlessly in a turbulent sea is not an option.

How can I make a plan when the future is so unclear and changing so quickly?

Yes, the landscape has changed dramatically in the last few weeks and continues to change quickly. But planning is always done in a fluid business landscape. Each time we refresh our business plan, we do so in the context of an ever changing world. We set our goals and determine our best course of action, taking into account the impediments we are facing and the resources we have available.

Most plans are stale after 90 days, and need to be rewritten. When the pace of change speeds up, this review cycle needs to be adjusted accordingly.

If our normal practice is to set goals for 1-3 years into the future, we may need to be focused on 3 to 12 months in the current situation.

 Where do I start?

Start with the big picture, your business plan summary. The structure in the Plan Genie business planning workbook contains five core pieces of information:

  1. Your unique business proposition – a succinct description about what makes your business special and unique.
  2. Your purpose – why your business is needed, as seen from the customer’s point of view.
  3. Your long term goals. Your destination 3 years from now (or 1 year).
  4. Short term goals, one year out (3 months).
  5. Strategy/Action steps – A list of the major steps we need to take to reach our goals.

Write it down!

Write your plan down in a structured, easy to understand format. Your business plan summary is the foundation for communicating the future direction for your business – where you intend to take business and how you will get there.

As you go through the process of writing your plan, you will gain clarity and confidence to tackle the challenges ahead. others are looking for this – your leadership team, your bank, your suppliers and distribution partners, and your customers.

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We’re Planning Machines

 It’s in our DNA. The human brain is a planning machine. We create hundreds of plans each day, some large, some small. We plan our route to work or school, what to make for dinner, a week-end fishing trip, our next hair appointment. We are always planning.

We contemplate a desired outcome (goal), determine how to achieve it (strategy) and take action (execute). We rarely, if ever write these plans down, totally unnecessary for the multiple small, simple, plans we action every day.

As our plans become larger, more complex we occasionally write them down.

Here’s an example we can all relate to: our weekly trip to the supermarket.

It starts with a goal:  we need food, replenish the pantry, to feed our family.

A senior executive (Mom, Dad) jumps in the car and heads to the supermarket with a vague plan bouncing around in his brain. He grabs a shopping cart and starts to execute on his plan.

Up and down the aisles he goes, somewhat randomly tossing items in the cart, making moment by moment decisions. (he’s an entrepreneur and takes pride in his ability to make decisions on the fly)  – a little of this, some of that, maybe one of these. Look, on sale, I’ll buy three!

Oh, that’s new!  I’ll give it a try.

Whoops, forgot the butter, back to the dairy section.

Now he rolls into the check out and begins to stress over the unrelenting rising price of groceries.

Back home, as the goods are unpacked, the accusing voice “where’s the coffee!”, followed by hasty return to the store.

Let’s compare this plan, to a similar one, only this time we write our plan down.

We start with a review of our current situation, then make a list. Check the pantry, the fridge, contemplate the meal requirements for the next week. Next, we organize the list by category, meat and poultry in one column, then fruit/vegetables, dairy, other. This will save time in execution at the supermarket.

Now, let’s ramp this planning process up a bit. Put the list on the fridge door so the whole team can get involved. The plan is updated and refreshed on a regular basis throughout the week.

After s few months of experience with this, we decide to make a further refinement, what if we had an overarching purpose (our why) to guide our decisions.  Something like, “ maximum nutrition that will promote, strong, healthy energetic lifestyle for our family”. Over time, chips and cheesies disappear from the list, replaced by fresh fruit and healthy nuts.

Now, we’re ready to execute. With list in hand, off we go to the supermarket. We save time, money, and get better quality results.

Better still, the family executive, Mom and Dad, can delegate the execution of the plan to their senior team members, son or daughter, and spend the day in the garden, go for a walk on the beach.

If this shopping project works better when we invest a few minutes to document our plan, and implement an ongoing planning process,  imagine the impact on your business if we develop the skills and habit of “running our business from a written plan”.

Research shows the probability of success goes up by 30-50%.

Your written plan is the foundation that builds team alignment, accountability, and clarity of direction.

It’s time to get started. Improved results will soon follow.

 

 

 

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Understanding the relationship between goals and strategies

Now, let’s  prioritize and scrub our list.

Most initial goal setting lists will contain a mixture of measurable outcomes along with future executed action items, our “to do” list, which we call strategies. Most of us tend to think first about the things we need to get done. That’s natural and a good place to start your list. Once you have a list, ask “is this something we need to get done, or is it a measurable outcome?

An initial goal list might look something like this:

  1. Revenue growth of 30% per year. Target revenue three years = $X
  2. Improved profit margins (gross profit) from x to y
  3. Net profits (EBTDA) established and sustained at 10% +
  4. Fully re-designed web site, with effective social media components
  5. Core products available for on-line purchase
  6. 3 new product lines launched
  7. Full time sales manager
  8. Current H R manual, updated on a scheduled basis
  9. New branch opened in (location)
  10. Succession plan in place for all senior positions in the company

Now, let’s refine this list with this perspective

“is this something we need to get done, or is it a measurable outcome?”

  1. Revenue growth of 30% per year. Target revenue three years = $X (This is clearly a measurable outcome. It stays as a goal)
  2. Improved profit margins (gross profit) from x to y. This seems to be related to goals #3.
    let’s combine the two
  3. Another goal, part of our improved revenue/profit picture
  4. This is an action step. It looks like a strategy we need to pursue in order to achieve our revenue goal
  5. Another action step, move to the Strategy section of our plan
  6. Another strategy
  7. Strategy
  8. Strategy
  9. Could be labelled either a goal or strategy
  10. This looks like a big job with significant impact. Let’s leave in the Destination/Goals area of our plan

Here’s the revised version

3 Year Goals (Destination)

  • Revenue/Profit

We expect to achieve a 30% per year revenue growth over the next 3 years. This will put our revenue at the end if 20__ at $XXX

(show prior two years revenue and next 3 year projections in a chart)

  • We need to improve our net profit from the current 6.3% to a sustainable level at 10% or greater

(show prior two years and next three years projections in a chart)

  • We see a clear opportunity for growth in (new territory). This could be either a company office, or an acquisition
  • In order to ensure the long term sustainability of our company, we need to instill a process of succession planning , particularly at the senior level. It is important that we have this in place within the next three years.
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Before you start to complete the business plan summary workbook

We suggest you gather up all your existing material so you can cut- and-paste some of it into your business plan.

A word about how the workbook is designed. The “working” section is where you jot down thoughts, using the prompting questions to guide you. This page is followed by a formatted page for you to transfer your ideas into a finished product. If you work better online, then use the workbook to jot down your thoughts and enter your data directly in Plan Genie. The Genie will produce your Business Plan when you have completed all 4 steps.

You will find your Plan Summary to be the most useful communication tool available to you in running your business. It captures the essence of the business, and sets the foundation for planning the details, and it will give you a deeper understanding of your business. Don’t worry about getting it perfect on the first try. It may require several versions over time.

To put this in perspective, I like the quote from a letter Mark Twain wrote to a friend. He starts the letter with: “Please accept my apologies for the length of this letter. I would have written a shorter one, but I didn’t have time … ”

Your narrative business plan will get clearer, and shorter, as your return to this document each quarter.

Note: if you are running an existing business, that is, not a start-up, most of the information you need to write your business plan is likely already contained in various documents in your company. Plan Genie will help you organize this information into a practical tool that you can systematically update over time.

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