A Pathway to Success

It’s that time of year again—the time that strikes fear or outright revulsion in the hearts of lots of business owners. No, I’m not talking about paying taxes, which is unpleasant enough. I’m talking about writing your business plan for 2025. Ugh. This means hour upon hour of tedium, writing what amounts to a guess or taking a stab in the dark trying to predict what’s going to happen to create something you’ll never look at again until this time next year. Right?

If you’re a business owner and that’s the way you see business planning, then you probably shouldn’t write a plan this year. Just do me a favor: next year, when you’re lamenting your business being no further down the road than it is today, remember that you read this article and decided that planning was a waste of time. Maybe then you’ll decide that picking a path for your business to follow just might make some sense.

For those business owners who see the value in mapping out the future of your business, let me point out the main components of a business plan and why they’re so valuable.

Vision

This is the part of the business plan that people struggle with more than any other. The vision is simply a statement of what your business should look like in it’s perfect state five or ten years down the road. It’s what you want the company to be. I believe one reason people struggle with establishing a vision is that it makes them commit to something, which translates into forcing them to actually DO something, and then hold themselves accountable to actually achieving the vision they set.

In short, the vision is the “what” of the business plan. It’s the destination. Does determining the vision make a difference? According to author Mark Lipton of the Ivey Business Journal, “Publicly owned firms that use a vision to guide their growth have significantly higher market-cap growth, top-line and bottom-line growth in comparison to their competitors who aren’t driven by the vision process.” If publicly traded companies operate this way, why wouldn’t you?

Mission

The mission isn’t something you actually need to create. It’s in you already. Why are you in this business? Why do you do what you’re doing instead of trading stocks or selling shoes? There is a reason. Trust me; it’s in there. You just have to find it.

As an example, most of those I’ve worked with in service businesses have an overwhelming need to help others. Just as the vision is the “what,” the mission is the “why.” If you dig deep enough, you’ll find that the mission statement is actually inspiring for you and for your entire team.

This is now starting to get fun, right?

Core Values

We’ve determined that the vision is the “what” and that the mission is the “why.” Now, doing some real soul searching and identifying what your core values are gives you the “Rules that Guide Us.” In other words, your core values are essentially your beliefs.

Our actions are hugely impacted by what we believe. We simply cannot change our actions long term without changing our beliefs. And changing our beliefs is hard, so be honest and define what your beliefs truly are, not what you’d like them to be or what you think sounds good to others. Then hire people with similar core values. How do you do this?

Let’s say one of your core values is “integrity.” When interviewing, you would ask questions like, “What can you tell me about what integrity means to you?” By doing this with each of your core values, it’ll go a long way toward determining if the candidate’s core values are aligned with yours. I promise, working on a team where everyone has similar core values is awesome!

Another way core values can serve you is in training your team to filter their decisions through the company’s core values. If the ultimate decision the team is trying to make is aligned with the company’s core values, there’s a pretty good chance the decision won’t be a bad one. It may not be the decision you would have made, but it will be framed in what is important to the company, and you will now have developed people capable of making decisions without coming to you each time a question needs to be answered.

Major Business Objectives

So far, we’ve talked about the “why” (the mission), the “what” (the vision), and the “Rules We Play By” (the core values) and how they affect your business plan. Now, let’s talk about the “How”—the Major Business Objectives or MBOs. The MBOs take the vision and break it down into smaller, doable, measurable chunks.

This is where the rubber meets the road, where we define the steps necessary to move closer to achieving the vision. We do this by prioritizing the most important steps we need to take and breaking those down into even smaller, more achievable, measurable action items. These action items are then assigned an owner (the person responsible for ensuring the action item is completed), a due date, and a budget. While you can add a few more steps to this process, you don’t need to. You can keep it just this simple.

As you can see, business planning really isn’t the arduous task that most people make it out to be. A diligently created business plan, followed by the discipline to put the plan into motion with frequent monitoring of your progress will ultimately result in the company getting closer and closer to achieving your vision each year. Or you could skip all of this and just stay where you are. Again.