Power of planning; show me the money
Colin Dunn, author and business advisor, has strong opinions around the power of planning. He believes business owners fail to plan because they get too busy as they focus on the wrong things.
Colin Dunn in his book "Accountants the naturally trusted advisors" (with a title like that his book was a must read for me) he writes "we business owners fail to plan because we get too busy. We are also often focused on the wrong things such as running a tight ship, rather than investing in the appropriate resource to enable the business to grow".
"The upshot of this is, in many cases, the owners run out of hours in the day to hold regular board or management meetings and it is extremely rare to find a small business with the discipline to hold an annual planning session for the year ahead."
Colin gives an example of a client's comment that they spend more time planning their vacation than they do planning their business.
Okay Colin, you have correctly defined a common problem but where is the solution? Show me the money?
Colin's 4 step solution:
- believe in the power of planning
- be open to the fact that business owners (almost certainly) do not spend enough time working ON their business
- start a discussion NOW on where they would like the business to go
- organise an annual planning session (before preparing an annual budget)
And the payback is?
In Colin's view, and we completely agree, give a business owner the right forum, say an annual planning session, and they will discover dormant growth opportunities and understand what is possible.
See related blog "What is your 3 year plan?"
Want to know more? Give me a call. Cheers, Peter Tolan @ TvA.