Announcer: Balance Business Coaching. More time. More control. More
growth.
Anthony: Hi, Anthony here. In this video, I want to talk to you about
business planning common mistakes. I’ve just got four things I
want to run through with you, and I think the first of those is
using the wrong plan.
So if you’re in an existing business, you really want to be
focused on the most important things for you to achieve inside
the next 12 months. You’ve already started up, you’ve chosen the
industry, the markets that you’re going to serve, and you’ve
positioned your business. You’re really sharpening it up. You
don’t need 20 pages of text plus 20 pages of financials to
present to a bank. You’re doing a business plan for yourself to
maximise your growth and your control. So make sure that you get
the right format plan.
The second most important thing I think is really biting off
more then you can chew. So, if you’ve only got a limited amount
of resources, inside the next 12 months you really need to
choose to focus on what are the priority projects and just do
those well. If you say that you’re going to work on 40 different
projects throughout the next 12 months, I think you’ve made a
mistake. I think that you’ve bitten of more then you can chew.
So try to hone it down to something that you can really focus on
and do it well. So, is it 12, is it 15 projects? I’m not sure
what your resources are. So I can’t tell you exactly what the
right number is, but try to be focused on doing a fewer number
of things and doing them really, really well so you get great
results from it.
The third most common problem is about starting a business plan
and then not finishing it, and really that’s about
accountability. I will tell you to try and do one section of
your business plan per week. Have someone holding you
accountable. It might be your partner in business, or it could
be your partner in life. But please try to be accountable for
someone and just aim for making small bites. I think that’s a
good approach to getting it done.
And then the fourth one would really be about fudging research.
I’ve seen some real doozies of business plans, and I think
what’s fundamentally lacking is proper research based on
statistical data. Lots of people make grand assumptions in their
business plans, and there are all of these sales projections
that come off that. So get the foundations right. Look at
sources like your local council data. They have census data. A&T
Bank have a great insights package. Look at Google. Google will
tell you what keywords are trending. Google Trends and Google
Insights are particularly of good use. Just get out there and
talk to prospective clients and customers and talk to them what
do they want. So try to get some real research done and don’t
make your assumptions rubbery.
So I hope that gives you some good ideas for business planning.
Please leave me a comment down below if that’s been of some help
to you, and I look forward to talking to you soon. Thanks very
much. Bye-bye.
Announcer: Thanks for watching. Why not call Anthony from Balance Business
Coaching now on 0400 639 899, or email [email protected]
Facebook Comments: