ALWAYS BE PLANNING FOR YOUR BUSINESS.
There are many different things we'll plan for, depending where we are on our business journey. From major developments such as planning a brick and mortar store to developing a new product line to everyday things like running a price promotion.
But if you are reading this and thinking 'I don't have time to plan,' I'd give you the corny answer that you don't have time not to plan! Yes, writing a major business plan to secure that loan you need for your brick and mortar store is going to take time and effort, however planning a price promotion should only take a couple of minutes. And planning a price promotion, like anything that affects your profit, should be planned and not left to chance.
SHOULD I REALLY PLAN SOMETHING LIKE A FLASH FRIDAY SALE?
Yes! As I mentioned above, everything that affects your profitability should be planned. How much does a price promotion cost you? It’s very easy to jump into sales and promotions without a proper plan and then wonder why your business isn’t as profitable as it should be. If you have a promotion plan in place, it will be easy to determine what types of promotion you should participate in and why.
UTILIZE BITE-SIZED PLANNING.
If all of this is sounding overwhelming, don't worry! I'm going to tell you about bite sized planning. People who know me think that I'm a naturally organized person. I plan everything (well, most) things in my life. I had a Filofax the first time round; I had a Filofax when it wasn't fashionable, and I am part of the born-again Filofaxistas this time round. However, the perception that I am naturally organized is so far from the truth it's in another time dimension. It's because I am inherently unorganized that I have to plan. When I first realized I have the attention span of a butterfly and get distracted by shiny things, I realized that if I wanted to be successful, I needed to plan. This is what I do: I plan, I make goals, and I focus.
I advocate bite-sized planning. Rather than sit down and struggle to anticipate exactly what you are going to be doing next year, just create a top level plan for the year and plan in relative detail each month. This makes sense on so many levels.
If we had an established business where we were simply maintaining the status quo and not looking to develop, making a long term plan is straightforward, because we have a baseline of experience to draw from. We'd write an annual plan which we'd revisit monthly and tweak as necessary.
But in our small, creative businesses, which we are looking to grow and develop, our situation is so dynamic that looking too far ahead is difficult and, in many situations, impossible. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't plan; we should just tailor the planning process so it better suits our needs.
I firmly believe we should make plans work for us, not the other way around.