Management
Business Planning Procrastination Busters
Studies show that over 60percent of small firms do little or no planning, and the smaller the business the less likely it is to have a business plan. Why is it so important for a small business to have a plan? It helps everyone know where the business is going, what needs to be done to get there, and what it will look like once they’ve arrived.
Below you will find some of the reasons why business owners procrastinate when it comes to business planning. If you want to plan but have some reservations, you need to discuss the matter with your accountant – and soon! Here are some suggestions about how to overcome any genuine concerns you have.
‘I just can’t get started’. It can be hard getting started on any task you think is difficult. Once again the solution is – go for help. Otherwise, a good starting point may be to identify a serious and recurring problem and work out how to solve it – and then how to prevent it. Build that prevention into a plan for future action. Then, do the same with another problem – and another.
‘I’m too busy working on today to be bothered about tomorrow’. According to an anonymous philosopher: ‘While it seems there’s never any time to plan, there’s always time to fix things that go wrong!’ This may be why you have done no planning in the past and therefore why you are so busy facing a never-ending barrage of tasks and problems today that you can’t find the time you need now to plan for tomorrow. You are caught in the ‘vicious cycle’ and you must break out of it. If not, you will go on and on not being able to work on your business future – and getting more and more frustrated and stressed. You will probably need to get help from your business advisor(s).
‘I need to get immediate results and feedback from whatever I do’. Although planning is done now, it relates to the future. The results of some aspects of planning may not appear for a few months or even longer, whereas a cash flow plan (i.e. a cash budget) should show results in a week. If you prefer to do only whatever brings immediate or short-term results, you need to be aware that some important actions only have longer-term outcomes.
Being impatient – being controlled by the urgency addiction - usually means that many important things don’t get done. Planning improves the probability that important things are done.
‘I don’t have the time to do any planning’. Typically, small business owner/managers are busy - very busy, and this sounds like a valid reason. But – why are you so busy? What do you spend your time doing? If you are honest about it, you spend a lot of time solving problems – putting right those things that have gone wrong and which shouldn’t have happened in the first place. Also, if you look carefully at those problems, you’ll find that many are occurring again and again. Document what they are, why they occurred and what needs to happen to prevent them. Good planning can reduce errors and therefore prevent many problems recurring.
‘I don’t have the specialised know-how to do any planning’. This is another reason why help is needed. If you use this as a reason (or excuse) for not planning, it may be that you lack basic understanding of how a well-run business operates. Rather than put planning into the ‘too-hard’ basket, you need to work at getting the specialised knowledge you need – both for planning and for the survival (and success) of the business.
‘I don’t want to have to trust others with my business ideas and secrets’. Good planning means committing things to paper and this means others will see what you write. Reputable consultants and advisers are committed to total confidentiality and can be trusted with any information you divulge.
‘I’m not into conceptual thinking’. This is one reason why you may need help from a business adviser. However, once you start thinking about your business, the facts and figures that relate to it, and what sort of business you want for the future, the quality of your thinking will improve with practice. Try it, and see.
Hopefully, after reading this, you will be motivated to create a simple business plan. If you need some expert help with those matters that really cause you difficulty, feel free to give us a call. We would be delighted to help you develop a plan for success!
