The Painful Reality of Not Planning in Business

The Time Squeeze

Most small business owners have lots to do and very little time to do it. The beauty of a micro or small business is that you have the ability to adapt and change much quicker than a large organisation. However, the tradeoff is often that one to two people will be often wearing the hats of many roles in the business, from customer service, marketing, sales,  financial, legal, etc. This person is often the business leader, the person operating the business.

Between managing customers, staff and the overall day to day operations of the business, there is often very little time to forward planning in business.

Lack of planning

As a result, many businesses owners often become reactive responding only to the daily or weekly demands of the business. A reactive business management style is one where there isn’t much focus placed on the business planning of the next month, quarter or even year. This will often result in a business surviving but not thriving.

When a business leader leaves very little opportunity for forwarding planning in business, they limit their ability to innovate, grow and expand the business. This will often result in any original business goals being forgotten, ignored or dismissed.

When business goals vanish so does the momentum of a business

When a business leader operates from a place of reactivity, with little time to think outside of the box and plan, business goals can often start to feel unachievable. Although some businesses can operate successfully from this space for a while, years even. There will often come a point where the business starts to experience a drop in the sales or the industry experiences a downturn. It is often at this point that it business leader will be tipped over the edge and begin to will lose their motivational drive and experience significant stress.

A Stress Cycle

When a leader has little time, lots to do and isn’t seeing a positive bigger picture, fear can take hold and create a ripple effect of stress in the leader of the business. The longer a person experiences stress, worry and concern the hards it becomes to see a way forward and the downturn will often result in business closure, sale or failure.

Forward Momentum

To beat the stress cycle business planning and the age-old physiology of working on the business and not in it offers much credibility. To do this, it could be a simple as taking two hours a week to explore other the activities of the industry, other businesses, to network with other business leaders and to open the mind up to new environments, experiences and ways of thinking.

When we step outside of the business, we enable forward thinking. Forward thinking will often bring new and improved ways of doing things an options for business innovation and growth.

To be successful in the 21st-century business, we need to be able to adapt, innovate and grow quickly.

Drive Business with a Business Strategy Cycle

When as business leaders we start to allow ourselves to forward think and engaging in active rather than reactive planning we offer our business the opportunity to explore business goals and achieve them.

Creating a strategy cycle in business is often a key to creating a positive pathway moving forward. A simple strategy for success in any facet of business is to set a realistic goal, determine a method to achieve it, action the method, track the momentum and revise, revise and renew the goal.

Not sure where to start?

In business, it’s often easy to have lots of ideas and not know what to do with them. That is where a savvy business strategist can assist you! A business strategist will be able to assist you to work through your ideas, priorities the most feasible and help you create methods that will give you and your business momentum to move forward. An effective business strategist will keep you accountable, ensuring you are tracking your businesses successes, identifying the areas you have opportunities for improvement.

Book a session with a Business Strategist today….