The Top Three Reasons You Should Throw Out Your Business Plan
What a business plan is meant to do is to get you thinking about your business from all angles, but you can do that using much more nimble and organic tools.
The Top Three Reasons You Should Throw Out Your Business Plan
General wisdom from the business school elite is that a startup needs a business plan. You know, those long, monstrous hunks of paper that are somehow the magic pill that lies between you, floundering and you, rolling in dough?⠀
Well, take it from an ex-business school elite, that those 95,000-page treaties need to be reserved for early-stage startups that are applying for investment funding. Only because the venture firms want them, to demonstrate that the applicant has thought through their business, and how.⠀
But for the average business owner, that exercise doesn’t require mounds of paper and excruciating analysis just to find something to anchor them.⠀
While there are many reasons this format doesn’t work, here are my top three:⠀
Wrong Focus
When you write a business plan, you end up spending so much time wordsmithing and writing, when what you really need is to figure out your business model using bullet points and data.⠀
Immobility
A business plan is outdated as soon as it’s written. The great time and expense that it takes to build means you don’t ever want to have to touch it again. Unfortunately, your business evolves daily so you need a way to adjust your strategy to keep pace with what you learn and how you shift. A business plan does not allow for quick pivots or course corrections.⠀
It’s Mostly Fiction
While I’m all for planning and projections, unless you have been in business for 10 years, your initial projections will be mostly guesses and will be unlikely to resemble how things will ultimately go down.⠀
What a business plan is meant to do is to get you thinking about your business from all angles, but you can do that using much more nimble and organic tools. ⠀
I have created my Business Blueprint as a quick and effective way to start all my clients on their business design journey, and serves as a foundation for designing and planning in a quick and sustainable way.⠀
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Tell me in the comments…
Are you thinking about building a business plan? Why or why not? What would you hope a business plan would give you?⠀
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