Category: Business Planning

Want to start a small business, but missing some skills? Here’s one option: take some online classes, where you might learn what you need, for a fraction of the time and cost. Improve your business plan AND your business.

There are 100s of web-based business classes, many of them free (open source) or for a small fee. Many are taught through world-class universities, and offer more interactivity than you would get if you attended classes there.

Online Business Classes

Check out a few of them in “What’s Available Online?” Might just be one there for you.

Good luck!

• Copyright © 2013 Rolfe Larson Associates
• Social Impact App, find social enterprises nearby and online
• Venture Forth! endorsed by Paul Newman of Newman’s Own
• Speaker, Social Enterprise Summit, Minneapolis, May 19-22, 2013

When considering whether to invest in a company, bankers and venture capitalists look first at the entrepreneur, then at the plan. They invest in people, not plans. It’s not the content of the plan that matters, but rather what it says about the entrepreneur — how she thinks, how she collects confirming and disconfirming data, how she uses it to build a strategy for success, how she builds a team. Continue reading “Your Business Plan is About You”

As you take on strategy development, a critical step is to ensure that you and your team have a common understanding of the language of strategy and a solid process to carry you through strategy development.

It is important to put the language and process in place early to avoid the confusion, debates and the wasted time that comes from a lack of agreed upon approach and definitions.

The Drivers Model is the tool I have been using for over two decades to provide a robust yet simple method for taking an organization through strategic planning, project planning, program planning and numerous other planning activities.

The Drivers Model is fully scalable and applies to Fortune 500 companies, non-profit organizations and government agencies, as well as an entire enterprise, a business unit, a field office, an individual department, or a work team.

Let’s start with the four key strategy questions the Drivers Model answers.

Question 1: Where are we today?

The Drivers Model focuses on four core strategic questions starting with, “Where are we today?” Start by looking at the current situation’s strengths and weaknesses.

Question 2: Where do we want to be?

After understanding where you are, the next step is to understand where you want to be. In this step, you create your vision of the future.

Question 3: How do we get there?

Once you have created your vision, you are ready to turn to defining your drivers – the actions you will undertake to drive your success. Your drivers have to do two important things. First, the reason you are where you are is because there are certain barriers standing between you and your vision.

Your drivers must break through those barriers. Second, along with overcoming barriers, the drivers must also address the critical success factors (CSFs). The Drivers Model defines CSFs are those key conditions that must be created to achieve the vision.

Question 4: How will we monitor our progress?

Monitoring is critical to ensure that you stay on track. Monitoring also allows you to make adjustments along the way as you learn new information, encounter new barriers or identify other critical success factors. But perhaps most importantly, monitoring keeps you motivated.

Typically, it takes considerable effort to move from where you are today to where you want to be. The monitoring process helps keep your vision in front of you and can give you the continual motivation needed to implement the drivers.

These critical questions provide the foundation of the Drivers Model and guide a group during the strategic planning process. In my book The Executive Guide to Facilitating Strategy, I apply these questions using an example of my wife and me seeking to buy a house. How would you answer these questions if you were considering buying a house?

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Certified Master Facilitator Michael Wilkinson is the CEO and Managing Director of Leadership Strategies, Inc., The Facilitation Company and author of the new The Secrets of Facilitation 2nd Edition, The Secrets to Masterful Meetings, and The Executive Guide to Facilitating Strategy. Leadership Strategies is a global leader in facilitation services, providing companies with dynamic professional facilitators who lead executive teams and task forces in areas like strategic planning, issue resolution, process improvement and others. The company is also a leading provider of facilitation training in the United States.

With the emergence of so many “social businesses,” there’s been a widening distinction made with what many people are now calling non-social businesses. The distinction is that social businesses are built around a heroic mission to make the world a better place, while their non-social cousins exist for a crass purpose — solely to make a profit.

Continue reading “All Business (Plans) Are Social”

Two critical components of the Drivers Model are the mission and the vision. When it comes to strategy, do you know the difference between the two? (And, yes, there is a difference!)

Mission

How we at Leadership Strategies define “mission”:

	Definition	Example (Meeting Planners Association)
Mission	A statement of the overall purpose of an organization which describes what you do, for whom you do it and the benefit.	To provide a forum for furthering the growth and professionalism of the meetings industry.

A mission statement answers three simple questions:

1. What do you do?
2. For whom do you do it?
3. What is the benefit?

The mission statement above illustrates an excellent example of how a mission statement can answer the three questions in a succinct form.

1. What do they do? Provide a forum.
2. What’s the benefit? Furthering growth and professionalism.
3. Who benefits? The meetings industry.

Vision

Now, let’s contrast the difference between a mission statement and a vision statement.

	Definition	Example (Meeting Planners Association)
Vision	A picture of the “preferred future”; a statement that describes how the future will look if the organization fulfills its mission.	To be the place where meeting planners meet.

While a mission explains the overall purpose of the organization – what you do, for whom you do it and the benefit – a vision statement gives the picture of the preferred future. A vision statement answers the question, “If the organization fulfills its mission, what will the future look like?” In other words, the vision is a a statement that describes how the future will look if the organization meets its mission.

So, now that you understand the difference between the mission and the vision, you can appreciate why these two terms are not interchangeable.

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Certified Master Facilitator Michael Wilkinson is the CEO and Managing Director of Leadership Strategies, Inc., The Facilitation Company and author of the new The Secrets of Facilitation 2nd Edition, The Secrets to Masterful Meetings, and The Executive Guide to Facilitating Strategy. Leadership Strategies is a global leader in facilitation services, providing companies with dynamic professional facilitators who lead executive teams and task forces in areas like strategic planning, issue resolution, process improvement and others. The company is also a leading provider of facilitation training in the United States.

I’m generally not a great fan of business plan competitions, for two reasons. First, they can consume huge amounts of time often with little benefit to those who don’t win. And, unfortunately, lately they have become more about the “pitch” and less about quality research and business competitiveness.

Actual success in the marketplace won’t be determined by flashy slides and smooth talking, but by the depth of understanding of your target customers and your competitive environment.

That said, competitions are popular, and working on how to describe your business in a clear and compelling manner won’t be a waste of time. And, well, you might win some good advice, and even (for a tiny number of contestants) some dollars, too. Just keep your eyes open before you enter into one, so you know what they’ll be judging and how much time it will take.

Here’s a very recent (today, actually), blog entitled “40 Prestigious Business Plan Competitions Every Entrepreneur Should Know About.” It’s a great place to start if you think a business plan competition is the right thing for you.

Good luck!

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For more resources, see our Library topic Business Planning.

• Copyright © 2012 Rolfe Larson Associates – 15th Anniversary!
• Creator of Social Impact, the social enterprise “finder” app
• Author Venture Forth! Endorsed by Paul Newman of Newman’s Own

The drive to create a business plan in the least amount of time has reached a new high … or low. Last week, Inc. 5000 published an article suggesting you can and should be able to present your entire business model on paper in (gulp) just 20 minutes. The idea is from a recent book, Running Lean: Iterate from Plan A to Plan that Works, by Ash Maurya.

Continue reading “20-Minute Business Model?”

Not every would-be entrepreneur has deep pockets, or rich friends and family, to get their business started. Indeed, most small businesses are started on the cheap. Here are some tips on how to start your venture with minimal cash.

Continue reading “Low-Cost Startups and Business Plans”

Let’s face it; it’s no fun when someone complains. Some people, the saying goes, just like to complain. Best to give them what they want and send them away, right? Not really. Complaints can provide such valuable market feedback that you’ll want to include strategies in your business plan for dealing with them. Most of the time, when customers complain, there’s a germ of truth — and useful information — in what they say.

My father-in-law, a former business executive of a large communications company, says his company viewed complaints as invaluable market information that was often more useful than focus groups, and MUCH cheaper. Customer feedback is how you build your business.

Continue reading “Why Complaints Are Gifts”

There’s been a fair amount of interest lately in how to write your business plan quickly, say in a weekend. The most well-known is called Startup Weekend, which promises to turn strangers into teams with a completed business plan in an intensive 54-hour weekend marathon. Is this a good idea?

There’s also a new book, Startup Weekend: How to Take a Company From Concept to Creation in 54 Hours, that provides some useful information but is largely a sales tool to get readers to sign up for a Startup Weekend.

Continue reading “Business Plan in A Weekend?”