Do you want to grow your business, but are struggling to find the time to develop a structured business plan? Where do you start? And what’s the best way to develop the right plan first time around?
When you’re running a small-medium business or a start-up, you are often stretched so thinly that it can be difficult to find the time to build a structured business plan in order to secure its continuing profitability.
Research by Barclays found that less than half (47%) of SMEs have a formal business plan in place.
Without clear goals and a defined strategy for reaching them, you run the risk of stagnating your business’s growth and limiting your profits.
So what’s the best way to go about planning your growth (with limited time)?
Given the fact that time is of the essence, you need to ensure your plan a) contains the right details and b) instantly puts you on the right track to achieving sustained results once it’s implemented.
As useful as it might be, unfortunately there’s no one-size-fits-all solution guaranteed to generate year-on-year business growth for SMEs, as every business varies so widely from the next. While there might be plenty of generic, high-level guidance out there on how you should progress, it can be difficult to know if any of it will truly capture who you are and how your organisation operates.
Producing an effective business growth plan that delivers the right outcomes involves collating the right type of insight about your organisation. And in order to achieve this, you need to ask yourself the right questions about your business.
For instance, what is your offering? What kind of people do you need to recruit? Who are your customers? What drives them? It is these answers that will provide you with the right foundation for your business growth plan.
In order for you progress, your business growth plan needs to be practical, personal and informed by your personal long and short term goals.
Decide on your destination, then plan the journey
At Next Level, we start by carrying out a complete health check of your business in order to take an objective look at your strengths and weaknesses, and to pinpoint key areas for development.
From sales and marketing to leadership, systems and strategic planning, we help you to assess your operation and then work with you collaboratively to build a strategy made up of:
- Your 3 year headline objectives
- A 12 month action plan
- An initial 90 day plan
The strategy could tackle anything from increasing sales to improving internal processes or rebranding – it is completely tailored to the needs of your business.
Once you have your strategy, we provide on-going, personalised support for as long as it’s required. And it is this on-going support which makes the difference between potential and actual growth.
A clearly thought out business plan is the starting point – but it’s having the right support to put it into action that allows your business to reach its full potential.
Why not take the first step now? Simply complete our online Business Health Check – it will only take you 10-15 minutes – and you will receive your free, no obligation report via email within 48 hours.