6 Ways to Turn Your Business Plan Into a Superpower

When you write a business plan, there’s always this temptation to just file it away and get going on your daily task list. Then one day you wake up and it’s five years later, you haven’t looked at your plan since the month you founded your company, and you’re wondering why growth has stagnated.

Business plans are working documents that require regular attention, updates and adjustments. You can use yours to guide daily decisions, navigate roadblocks, find new customer segments and explore new opportunities.

Instead of letting your plan gather dust in a drawer or languish in a long-lost file on your laptop, use it to:

→ Guide your daily operational decisions, and particularly when those choices may not fit with your business’ original reason for being.

→ Attract new team members and then get the whole group working from the same playbook by sharing the plan with them, and asking them for input on it.

→ Track progress toward goals. It’s that old adage, if you don’t know where you’re going, how will you know when you get there?

→ Identify and avoid potential risks. This one is HUGE in today’s business world, where new risks just seem to be lurking around every corner right now.

→ Test out some new business ideas and directions. Before you jump into something new, do a quick re-check to make sure it still syncs up with your company’s overall vision and plan.

→ Secure funding from outside investors. This one is a no-brainer. Anyone investing in your company or lending you money is going to want to see your plan of action, so make sure it’s updated.

Here’s the bottom line: business planning is about more than just setting targets and forgetting about them. This doesn’t mean you need to change your plan from week to week, but I do recommend reviewing it and freshening it up every quarter during your first couple of years in business. Those regular check-ins keep your plan relevant and help you stay focused on what’s important.

From Blueprints Beat Cocktail Napkins – How to Create a Winning Business Plan for Growth and Profit, by Bridget McCrea.