Way Easier than a Traditional Full Business Plan

A lean business plan is way easier than a traditional business plan. The core plan is four steps:

Set the strategy. It’s about bringing your identity, market focus, and business offering together, for strategic alignment. This is something every business owner does all the time. Just remind yourself.
Set the tactics. Execute strategy with tactics to macth. Think of pricing, channels, messaging, features, benefits, and so forth.
Do the essential numbers. Calculate basic numbers you need to keep the business running. Sales forecasts, costs, spending. The core numbers that keep your doors open. Plan, track, review, and revise.
Set the execution. List concrete specifics you can track. Who does what, when, and what does it cost? How much money does it bring in? Milestones, performance metrics. This is management.

Or just take the next step now …

It’s about getting what you want from your business. Forget the big formal business plan document of decades ago. Forget the fact that the plan will be wrong. Keep it simple. Do only what you need. Write it down and keep track of it so you can look back in a few weeks to check what you thought would happen and compare that to what actually happened. Your business plan is wrong, but it’s vital to good business management.

Use the planning process like a GPS for your business — the plan as destination and route, and monthly plan review for constant course corrections.
Tweet