Why Do a Business Plan?

To Grow (Explode) Your Business That’s Why When It’s In Your Head It’s Not Going to Happen

Before becoming an executive business coach, in my previous career as an electrical engineer I discovered some key practical things about business planning that showed me how to explode the growth of a business.

When I was in college if I was asked to design something my designs always worked….on paper.

When I got out of college, my boss would frequently come to me and ask if I knew how to design this or that. I always answered confidently, “Sure, I know how. Pointing to that space between my ears.”

Then I would design it on paper. And the first aha I learned was that once written down I could see more than I could when it resided between the ears. This piece just didn’t come together with that piece….and that one….and that one….

So, I would gradually work out all of the gotcha’s until all of the pieces worked on paper.

Then I’d go build one…..

And it almost never worked. I had made an assumption about something in the real world that wasn’t quite right. I’d missed something about the real world. So, I’m working back and forth from the ideal paper design to the real world result until it started working in the real world. Then I’d go back and document that on paper.

Now the real BIG AHA!

I don’t believe there is a self-respecting engineer anywhere in the world that is ready to release his design to production when production is screaming for it. The reason??? Once the engineer has a real working example on paper things start jumping off the paper at you. You can see things you didn’t even think of before. There are new concepts there.

“Gee, I didn’t see that. If I change this…it’ll work better.” Or..”Wow, over here, if I do ____ then it’ll be cheaper to produce” Actually, once it’s on paper and working it’s almost never ending what you keep finding.

And I had said to my boss, “Sure I know how.” But it was between my ears. I learned that you have to get it on paper to start seeing the gotcha’s before you can fix them, and once you build a real one you start learning new things about how to optimize, how to make it cheaper, how to make it work better, and it never ends. There are so many opportunities to make it better. Now, let me ask you one more question:

How many people do you know that are running their business “between their ears?” How many are saying “I know how”?

I actually have had companies tell me “Get out of my way, I don’t have time to plan. I have to produce NOW” Then they call me back in a few months asking for help after they have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

That’s when the real aha hit me. After putting it on paper I’ve seen those same business jump 5 times, 10 times in revenues in just weeks.

So, how many do you know that are running their business between their ears and have never put it on paper? Or, some may have put it on paper, but it’s setting somewhere on the shelf.

The opportunity to grow your business, BIG TIME, is •having a written plan on paper, determining the KEY measurements that will be important and will deliver the results we want. Having clear targets and goals, evaluating what you see and fixing all the gaps, on the paper, BEFORE finding them in the real world. •Then implementing the plan, again finding what is different between the paper and the real world and fixing them. •Then evaluating the results from the real world, comparing against the key measurements and where we expected to be. •Optimizing the results—If we are tracking the RIGHT things, keeping good results measurements, I guarantee that you will find an AHA that will increase the output of your company, a department, a work group, by 2-10 times. And many times we find several ways to multiply a business over and over. It’s almost always been a given with the companies we’ve worked with.