“…Plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.”
That is a quote form Dwight D. Eisenhower, 34th President of the USA. I love this quote because it sums up why the seemingly pointless task of generating Business Plans is worth while.
Business Plans are bullshit.
- As soon as they are printed, they are out of date.
- They are founded on endless assumptions.
Those two unavoidable facts render them pointless.
But the exercise of writing a business plan means that
- You have thoroughly assessed your business, your market, your service/product.
- When reality does kick in, veering off from your planned trajectory, you will have put in enough dedicated brain hours to be able to adapt to the changing circumstances. (You may even be able to bring things back on to your track by being knowledgeable enough and fast enough).
So when it comes to actually writing a business plan. Don’t treat it like a sculpture that will stand for eternity. The goal of the exercise is not to produce a book, the goal is to produce a strategy.
Don’t ever print off a copy for yourself. This may indicate that you think you have finished strategising for your business. By all means, print copies for investors, banks and so on. But keep your Business Plan alive as long as your business is alive, revisit it every chance you get, honing and improving.
One last tip – Don’t get bogged down in the perfect format/template for a business plan – There’s no such thing. The best template for your business plan will be written by you.
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