Business Planning: Planning is Modular

Think of your business plan as a matter of blocks, like interrelated pieces. You don’t have to have the whole block structure done before you take any next steps. Start your blocks where you like. Some common blocks are the mantra, the sales forecast, the mission statement , the keys to success, maybe a break-even analysis, or a SWOT, or how about the heart of your plan, as in the whole discussion of who needs your product or service and why and what it is? A sales forecast is a block, and so is an employee or personnel plan, as in laying out month by month how many people will be working in your company, and how much each of them will be paid.

The key here is that you don’t get bogged down on having a finished business plan before you do anything else. You’re planning as you go. You’ve heard the stories of people who spent months developing their plan, but never get started. So instead of that, think of the blocks. Choose where you want to start. Get going.

About the Author

Founder and Chairman of Palo Alto Software and bplans.com, on twitter as Timberry, doing social media business planning at smbplans.com, and blogging at timberry.bplans.com. Stanford MBA. Married 42 years, father of 5. Author of business plan software Business Plan Pro and www.liveplan.com and books including The Plan As You Go Business Plan, published by Entrepreneur Press, 2008.