Business Planning: What Goes Wrong and How to Plan An Effective Business Plan

The first rule for everyone in business, or going into business, is that a business plan is essential. Essential to get started, from validating your idea through to accessing funding, the business plan is the fundamental building block of any business.     

So why do so many people struggle to write effective business plans which they should be using as the corner stone of their business? Why do so many business owners rely upon key ideas held in their head and winging it, even with some of their biggest decisions?  And why do so few business owners trust, use and live their business plans?

Now these are all fair questions which individually leave business plans and business planning not valued outside those essential, must do to get started roles. For many, that experience is exactly why business plans and business planning gets such a bad press by business owners once they get past the start line.

What Goes Wrong

Fundamentally business planning has become a tool to get funding, not as your manual to drive your business. This bad habit, of building a business plan just to get past go, has resulted in huge effort to start on the right foot, but is not valued in keeping on the right track.  

The second major factor with business planning is that business owners often plan the wrong things. Writing a business plan is seen as "filling in the template" following the process and jamming words into format. They focus on producing financial figures which add-up, not on identifying the important factors which drive business success, such as developing and validating the right business model, or identifying real future growth opportunities and how the business is going to succeed in that market.  

A third major factor is that business planning often lacks solid forward information, too often relying upon historical data, the accountants view of what has happened, rather than looking forward to where markets are going. You can see this in many businesses whose business plan over focuses on turnover and cost management, rather than describing their model, their market opportunity, how they are going to enter the market successfully and therefore who their target audience is and why.      

Successful Business Owners Use Tools To Plan Successfully

Business owners do not live their plan because they simply don't believe in them, despite the fact they wrote it, or heavily influenced its writing. Owners need to use business planning tools to develop their business model effectively, creating solid foundations. There are a host a tried and tested business planning tools to help business owners effectively research their plan. using these business planning tools provides real evidence that underpins a good business plan.

Possibly the most important difference between businesses which succeed and exceed expectations and those which do not fulfill anything like their full potential is often the lack of solid foundations within their plan. A lack of research regarding their market, its nature and future, undermines confidence and knowledge of who the customer is and why they should buy your product or service.

Business owners over focus on the product or service not on the market, the target customer or market entry. What business planners need to focus on is quantifying and qualifying their market knowledge using business planning tools, to enable them to know what to put into their business plan, that provides the right evidence adds weight to your argument and provides a rationale behind the assumptions you make.  

Successful Business Owners Benefit From Using Business Planning Tools

The right business planning tools, used in the right order will provide business owners with the tools and the processes to go through to build an effective business plan, which is both reliable and robust, a solid base for making informed decisions about your business plan.

Using the right business planning tools, to research and inform your business plan, also provides confidence to business owners and senior management to trust your business plan. If you trust your business plan you are more likely to deliver it.

Using the right evidence, the right analysis and logical conclusions then business plans built upon effective use of logical step-by-step business planning tools provide business owners with a clear and robust plan with clear focus for their efforts. Using business planning tools makes business planning a value-added process built upon solid foundations, with clear insights about what's driving the market and why your business will be successful. 

Like to know more about business planning tools to build your business plan more successfully then click this link: business planning tools         
      
Here's some other thoughts about why you should be using Business Planning Tools to build your business plan on solid foundations why to use Business Planning Tools to build your business plan.            

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Cowden is a strategic planning and implementation business which works with business owners to grow and develop their business, based in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland with the tools to successfully build business plans, contact us to learn more: click herehttp://www.cowdenconsulting.co.uk.

How To Grow Your Business Successfully

6 Great Reasons To View Richard Gourlay's Mentoring

Being focused and clear on where you are going and why with your business will put you in control and ultimately ensure you are more successful.  But how to take control is one of the biggest issues leaders face. Where to start and even how to start making changes to your business, making it become more successful is never easy. Moreover, the order you do all those elements, makes a real bottom-line difference to your business success.

Over the last 20 years I've worked with hundreds of business owners, from micro-businesses through to international PLC's and I've identified that there are some key factors that very successful owners do which ensure their success. While other business owners struggle to keep their heads above water. What I've learnt is that these simple and logical steps that successful people undertake, which make that 'something different' in what they do, delivers real results in taking the guess work out of their business success. 

I've spent years refining those key steps into a single programme of bite-size activities, my mentoring programme, of how to take the guess work out our business success. Each session supports leaders and business owners to work ON their business effectively rather than just spending more time IN their business.  

If you would like to know more then see my mentoring then get in touch to learn more about my mentoring programme click here or click this link:- www.cowdenconsulting.co.uk 

Below are some of the key things to consider in taking the guess work out of your business success:-  

6 Tips to Grow Your Business

1. Know what to Work ON

Knowing what you need to focus on makes a huge difference in where to invest your energy and resources.  I'm a huge fan of the leadership culture of working ON it not IN it. If you are not working on your business then how is it going to improve, how is it going to be ready and able to face tomorrow's challenges? But you need to know what is important to work on within your business, and why!  

2. Why you are working ON your business

Change is the only certainty in business. Today that has never been truer, the pace of change in every market has, and is, changing at an ever faster rate. The rise of the web, for example, has created rapid online trading and shopping which has rapidly accelerated change.  

How should you respond to those changes, fast enough and effectively enough to take full advantage of those changes, if you have ever wondered how, then my mentoring programme will enable you to understand why you are working on and put you in the driving seat of your business. 

3. Where to Grow

Every business owner wants to grow turnover, profitability or customer base, but how is the important question.  Where is tomorrow's growth coming from and how can you access it effectively and efficiently? This step-by-step programme will show you where growth is going to come from and how you can effectively access it.   

4. How to Make Change Happen

Doing what we've always done is the natural default behaviour that people fall back into despite best intentions.  Change is always easy to talk about, but harder to actually deliver. Change is always necessary to achieve success. This step-by-step programme enables you to create the right changes, which deliver the right results for success. Every step involves a single simple activity which is supported by a template in a workbook to create your success.      

5. Reduce the Risks

Taking your business from where it is today to where you want it to be tomorrow is essential to keep your business competitive and successful, but change involves taking risk. This proven programme reduces that risk by evaluating and balancing the risk factors effectively. Each step is focused around making sensible proactive decisions which have been tried and tested.     

6. It is simple to use

Taking the risk out of your business success is all about taking small, simple but highly effective steps which move your business where you want it to go. I have designed the programme to fit every type of business by size and sector and at every stage of its development. 

Short bite size learning, is what mentoring programmes can provide and is supported by easy to follow notes and action plans including all the templates and models you need to achieve your success. Supporting my bespoke mentoring programme are emails to help support you undertake each step. You can do the mentoring programme at your pace of learning the choice is yours.   

So if you want to take the guesswork out of your business success? Then this  effective programme is specifically designed for business owners from start-ups to established businesses owners to take the guess work out of your business success.  Contact me to learn more or see our website link www.cowdenconsulting.co.uk.