I find business planning particularly important but often doesn’t feature heavily enough for me in the list of priorities of business owners.

Business owners spend more time planning their holidays than their businesses – when planning a holiday you establish what destination you want to go to, then you start booking the hotel and flights, then you think about insurance and currency. All of these are steps that you put in place to make sure that your holiday is a success.

That discipline should feature when it comes to your business. But often, a business grows forward without a plan. That can be a dangerous situation! “Fail to plan, plan to fail” is a fantastic saying – six words that really underpin the risks you take if you fail to plan in your business.

I like to use the example of a sat-nav when talking about planning. Would you set off on a complex journey without putting the destination into your sat-nav? Probably not. The benefit of having that benefit in the sat-nav is if you face problems along your journey such as road traffic or an incident, the sat-nav will encourage you to take a diversion but will also make sure you get back on track, always being focussed on that end destination.

The same should apply to business. If you have a clear plan and a set of goals, things that take you off the path will bring you back if you have a plan in place.

A plan for me is a series of steps, taking you from where you are now (Point A) to where you want to be (Point B). It can often be hard to find where you want to be, but it’s important to get a clear definition of what B looks like. A plan is quite simply a series of steps that take you from A to B, ideally with dates and ideally with specific actions to get you there.

That’s all a plan is! It doesn’t need to be a 30 page document (you may need that if you require funding or capital support) but this is a straightforward action plan.

As an experienced business coach, I can help you put together any time of business plan – big or small – to achieve those goals and get to that desired destination. For more information on how I can help your business, contact me.