When I meet a small business owner and mention the term business plan, their eyes normally glaze over because it’s a document that isn’t an integral part of their business and is only prepared to get finance or show someone else how their business is supposed to perform.

That’s right… supposed to perform because most businesses never meet what’s in their business plan. (Just ask your bank who sees the results when businesses miss their business plan)

So what does a simple business plan look like?

It get’s to the point fast and is not full of statistics and jargon that sound good to other people but make no sense to the business owner.

A simple business plan is a plan of action with measurable goals that the small business owner can understand and know how to achieve

In fact, a business model is the simplest form of business plan. It is a model of how to achieve a sustainable business and the business owner understands both the words and numbers presented.

What’s your experience of business plan and business model?

Do you have a simple way of understanding how the words and numbers work in your business?

Have you spotted a really simple format that works for you?

Every small business plan has two parts to it:

1. Words and
2. Numbers

Most small business owners feel more comfortable in preparing the words because they can describe quite easily their business but when it comes to the numbers they feel more like a fish out of water.

I find that words are less exacting than numbers so the area where you are likely to fail in your business plan is calculating the numbers accurately.

So should you write the words first or try and calculate the numbers?

Both are important because the plan is like a good song.

The words and music must go together.

So you can start on whichever feels more comfortable but remember they must come together before the plan is finished.

In order to complete the numbers for the plan you will need to make some assumptions because a plan by its very nature is a document about the future.

This means making intelligent estimates of what you think the future will bring and converting those into a set of numbers which make sense.

Do you understand the current numbers for your business?

If not it will be very difficult to predict the future correctly.

What’s your story in preparing your business plan?

Which part did you find easier:- words or numbers?