What’s Happening
We’ve been around over a dozen years now and have written over 1,250 business plans over that time and received probably well over 10,000 enquiries regarding business plans. And we’ve discovered some interesting facts.
By far and away the main reason people want a business plan is because they want money from somewhere and they realised they need a business plan as part of the process. The three most common sources of the sought after funds are banks, investors and grants.
The total breakup of purposes over the years would be something like:
The above market demand made us experts in preparing business plans for banks and investors, however didn’t fully utilise our skills as business planners armed with the strategic tools and business model analysis methods to make a real difference in businesses.
What the above chart does show is Australian business owners’ perception of business plans. Business plans are viewed as something to get when you need something from a third-party. Based on our analysis only about 4% of businesses use a business plan for developing their business.
This is frustrating for us and a massive opportunity missed by businesses. I firmly believe that a good business plan is the most valuable tool a business has. To demonstrate this I have talked to enquiries and clients on how an actual development business plan can greatly assist the business. However, this seems to have had little effect.
Our philosophy on business planning is that a business plan can be developed to achieve any business goal you want, it doesn’t have to be the traditional 50 page business plan which is very dry and lacking personality. We challenge ourselves to build processes to enable us to develop business plans for a wide variety of objectives such as:
- A business plan increase profits
- A business plan to increase revenue
- A business plan to enter a new market
- A business plan to enable me to play golf once a week
- A business plan to enable me to take 4 weeks holiday at Christmas
- A business plan to sell my business in 2 years for $XXXXXX
- A business plan to incorporate regular overseas business travel
- A business plan to get your business to do whatever you desire it to do!
When people have the idea of setting up their business they have dreams of how it will operate, how much money they will make and what a great lifestyle they will have. After a couple of years of the business growing in whichever way it feels, those early dreams are soon forgotten and the owner becomes a slave to the business.
This is not the way it is meant to be! The business does not control us! The business is our vehicle to provide us the income and lifestyle we want. We dictate to the business how it acts and the business plan is the tool in which this done.
But how do we get the word to the masses?