Romeo Palanca, Negosentro | Entrepreneurship is a career that looks more promising than ever. This year saw the rise of influential figures like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Gary Vaynerchuk, just a few Silicon Valley alumni who kept having continued success long after the tech bubble has burst. These figures keep on inspiring a new generation of entrepreneurs by proving that one can achieve success even after experiencing failure.
Elon Musk, for instance, have had a “resume of failures” before he became known as “the real-life Tony Stark.” One of his worst failures is being kicked out of his own company, which taught him a valuable lesson that he would carry on to his future endeavors. Now, he’s a successful CEO of not one, but three companies — SpaceX, Tesla, and SolarCity — all of which are pushing the boundaries of the aerospace, automotive, and renewable energy industries.
While many young players are eager to jump on the startup scene, the truth is that running a business is difficult. It’s an endeavor that takes up a huge chunk of your time, energy, and resources — and even then, it doesn’t guarantee a profitable outcome.
But just because it’s hard, doesn’t mean it’s impossible. If there’s one thing, the fact that running a business is hard means that it’s something worth pursuing. Besides, if it’s easy, then everyone would be doing it, right?
Like many of the most prominent entrepreneurs today, you need to have a healthy dose of perseverance — and a really good plan for your business. Having a great idea won’t change the world – you need to come up with a plan of action that you and other passionate individuals can execute together.
This is where business plans come in. Business plans help you create the structure of your business and identify the basics: the purpose of the business, the vision you have for its future, and the goals you need to accomplish to achieve that vision.
Business plans also accomplish a lot more aside from giving you a roadmap for your organization’s progress for the future. For one, it helps potential investors and venture capitalists discover your company so that you can secure more funding if you want to speed up growth or scale to a wider market.
Further, business plans offer you a buffer for when a sudden change hits the market — when a crisis hits, you can immediately see if your current business plan leads you to a dead end so that you can modify it accordingly.
That’s why creating a business plan is one of the most important things you should do if you want to build a successful business. Whether you’re a one-man team or a visionary leader who manages a group of talented people working on a huge project, business plans keep you on track so that your business is focused on reaching your goals whether it’s growth, more profits, beating your competitors, or becoming a more consumer-focused brand for the next year.
It also allows your employees to be aligned so that they know where they stand in your organization, and gives them more purpose and motivation to perform better at work.
Starting a business is akin to going to battle, and like the war commanders of ancient times, you need to have a battle plan to lead your team to victory. In the infographic below, Guthrie-Jensen lists five major aspects of a business plan that your team needs to be successful in 2018 and beyond.
Starting with strategic planning, operational planning, financial and sales planning, all the way to team performance assessment, studying your organization for strengths and points of improvement can help your organization survive and thrive in the digital age and beyond.
