Business Planning

Here is an interesting blog article from Guy Kawasaki: Is a Business Plan Necessary?  It discusses a Jan 9, 2007 Wall Street Journal article.  The conclusion is that business plans are generally not necessary.  I have raised substantial amounts of money and tend to agree that a 30 page business plan is not necessary, but I don't believe that you can operate your business without a plan.  I am a strong believer in the adage, "Those who fail to plan, plan to fail".  At PLP we use a methodology from Verne Harnish where the result of our planning session is a One Page Strategic plan.  It focuses on alignment and simplicity.  It keeps blends the 10+ year vision with short term actions.  I'd highly recommend it to anyone.  Verne also has a great book called Mastering the Rockefeller Habits which outlines a very practical, action oriented business planning and execution methodology.  I highly recommend it to any business owner.

Comments

[Lena West]

John:

Kudos to you for mentioning Verne. He's a walking business knowledge bank AND knows a ton about how to keep in top shape to run a growing company.

I can tell you that the 30-page business plan is so dead. No one cares about all that who-hah. We use the One Page Strategic Plan and boy does it WORK!

Our theme this year is Solidifying the Foundation. We grew so fast, we noticed some uncrossed t's and undotted i's at the end of last year and we want to get those tackled once and for all.

What's your theme over at PLP?

-Lena
CEO, http://www.xynoMedia.com

[Michael A. Duff]

Customer service is our number one marketing activity “When customers have an experience with us that exceed their expectations, we let them know we want them coming back, and in our business that is critical to success.
Customer service as a marketing strategy is critical to the success of any business, especially in retail, both business to business and business to consumer. Great marketing strategies, branding, and campaigns go nowhere if the customers they acquire have bad experiences and choose not to come back for repeat sales. You can pretty much bet on the fact that they will choose to tell there associates about their bad experiences
Duff