***Plan Your Business As You Go

As we roll into 2008, it’s time to get your business plan written. As I discussed recently on the Trump Blog, I am the developer of a new approach to the process that I call "plan-as-you-go" business planning. Today, I’d like to explain it in a little more detail. For convenience, let's call it PAYG.nnHow is PAYG different? Good question. Let's get into some specifics:nn1. Start anywhere and just get going. The plan is a matter of interlocking blocks, so some people start with a numbers task, like a sales forecast, and others start conceptually, with a vision or a strategy or focus. Just get started. Don’t wait until your plan is finished, get going. Start today and start using it tomorrow. nn2. Remember that your business plan will be wrong - but that you need it anyway. Because you are predicting the future you’re bound to be wrong. But you have to do it anyway. You still need to set down tracks so you can follow up, revise and keep moving ahead without losing sight of your long-term goals and directions. nn3. Never forget that good business plans are never done. My company’s business plan started in the late 1980’ and it’s still a work-in-progress. If your plan is finished, your company is finished. Instead, you revise as needed, as in steering, navigation, and walking. The core of the plan is the collection of heart and flesh and bones - its content, thinking, and specifics. From that, you can spin out a document or presentation or elevator speech as needed, and when needed. nn4. Form follows function. Do only as much as you need to run your company, to manage, to build strategy and follow-up and long-term goals and directions. If you don’t need to create a formal plan, don’t! nn5. Don’t ever let your plan go static. Keep it on top of of your pile of work-in-progress. It needs to be active, alive - and not forgotten in a drawer. nn6. You will measure your plan by the decisions it guides. The paper, the font, the page layout, the cover - all secondary! Any plan is only as good as the results it achieves.nnn

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nTim Berry is president of Palo Alto Software and principal author of its Business Plan Pro® software for developing business plans - a program selected by Trump University for inclusion The Entrepreneurship Mastery Plan. Tim's blogs are: Planning Startups Stories and Up and Running.