Love Your Business Plan Long Time

by Living On Dividends

It’s no wonder so many people hate business plans.

They haven’t been taught the RIGHT way to use them. Let’s fix that. Because personally, I f*%”#$ LOVE them.

1. Never Let the Ink Dry

Business plans are living documents. They aren’t a magnum opus that you write once and shelve proudly near the box of Cubans. They are a notebook of ideas and strategy that you are either actively using or will use in the future.

Napoleon didn’t file away his a plan to conquer the western world. He added to it frequently.

2. Use Bullets, Not Narratives

  • Bullets
  • Bullets
  • Bullets

Which are you more likely to keep up-to-date: bulleted lists or pages upon pages of paragraphs?

You can elaborate on the bullets with descriptions. And in fact, you should. But bulleted ideas are far easier to keep up-to-date and help you use your business plan as it is supposed to be used—for active strategic planning.

3. Keep it Crude. Refine Later.

Again, this is your notebook of ideas. Did you come up with an ingenious marketing idea? Add it to your ‘future ideas’ section of your Marketing Plan. Or how about a new product idea or product line? Add it in too.

Worry about coming up with effective ideas. Don’t waste time refining mediocre ideas with literary finesse.

4. Never Write an Executive Summary

This is your plan. The narratives and introductions are unnecessary. Skip them all and don’t bother adding them until you need to show your plan to an external party (VC or bankers). Then, when you do need to add it, it will be perfectly up-to-date and infused with new insights from your experiences up to that point.

5. Write for Your Success, NOT for Bankers.

Business plan are like resumes. They must be customized slightly for each unique audience. That means one if you’re pitching VC’s, another truncated version if reaching out to key suppliers, and of course, one for you and your internal use.

The most important version of all is your internal business plan. This is your core plan to keep up-to-date at all times. Then when you are seeking VC or bank loans, you can make appropriate refinements and write your narrative portions (e.g. executive summary and section overviews).

However, don’t set out to write for external audiences from the beginning! The head of a local bank once told me that the most convincing business plan he had ever funded was a one-page business plan, hand-written by a local farmer. The expanding farmer knew his operations and knew exactly what he needed to do to succeed. He wrote his plan for his success. He got funding that same day.

6. Love Your Business Plan Regularly

Sometimes, it’s just a quickie. Other times it’s for a more substantial working over. But I add to my businesses plans anytime a new idea pops up. This is at least once each week. But often more frequently when the ideas just keep coming. And I always use ‘save-as’ with the date in the file name so I can always reference older versions if needed.

I have two businesses now—a media business and‚ well‚ something secret coming soon. My business plans are the only reason I can keep everything straight and remain relatively sane.

Personally, I love business plans. They’re f*@!%# romantic.

And they help you win.


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