3 Reasons Why a Business Plan is Essential

Cool air rushes in, traveling down your trachea, tightening your diaphragm, expanding your lungs, filling every corner of your bronchial tubes and alveoli. Capillaries exchange oxygen for the carbon dioxide that pushes its way out of your lungs, back through your windpipe and out into the air that surrounds you.

Your heart works to deliver this oxygen to each of your fifty trillion cells as the process is repeated over, and over again. This amazingly complex combination of involuntary reflexes is what keeps us energized, focused, alive, and yet it is described with one single word- breathing.

We don’t have to think about breathing, it just happens -so why do Zen masters and medical doctors urge us to control and regulate our breathing? Because breathing is the foundation of everything else in our lives, affecting everything we do.

Ok, that makes sense. But as a business owner or entrepreneur, how could this POSSIBLY relate to my company? Because business plans are the foundation of everything else in our business, affecting everything we do.

I had a plan when I started my payroll company, and there is no way I would have found an investor without one. Fourteen years later, I still use a business plan to keep my company flourishing.

Helps You to Meet Goals

Your business needs this basic pillar of support to have a chance at a long healthy life. There are many options on how to develop this plan and they all start with an idea. Get that idea on paper. Consider your goals, both short term and long term, and what it would take to reach those goals. Create specific objectives for how to reach your goals and let them be your blueprint for success.

Improves Efficiency

I recently spoke with the co-owners of a gallery who were having difficulty stepping away from the day to day operations of their already thriving business to pursue the development of new opportunities. They didn’t have a business plan, so I simply asked them how they could expect to train someone to take over daily operational duties without a written guideline. Having a business plan, in writing, improves the efficacy of a business owner while increasing the efficiency of a business.

I suggest purchasing a good business planning software tool to help you through this process. Any well thought out software will walk you through the process of budgeting, marketing, company organization, incorporation, sales projections, and more. Using this plan as a guide will ultimately give you a launching pad and a benchmark of your performance. It is not written in stone and should be adjusted as you grow.

Relieves Stress

Set up your business so that it works symbiotically and you will feel less pressure and stress. Having order amongst the chaos of the current business environment is something no one can afford to be without. Too many people assume running their business will be automatic, just like breathing. The yogi at your local yoga studio knows how difficult proper breathing is, that’s why they spend years attempting mastery. Putting these types of systems in place and practicing them will give you a better chance at making your business work effectively. Getting in a rhythm starts with a plan.  If you don’t have one, start making one today.

Oh yeah, and breathe.