4 Planning Pitfalls to Avoid

Many entrepreneurs operate without clear, written down plans for their businesses. And even for the ones that write down their plans, there are a few pitfalls to avoid so as to turn the planning exercise into a worthwhile effort. Below are four pitfalls to avoid when one embarks on developing business plans.

Making planning very complicated

One of the main pitfalls in planning is believing that having a lengthy document is the key. A lengthy document will often contain meaningless words and sections that do not add value to your business. The key here is to keep it simple. A good plan should be easy to read. Having a reasonably short plan that uses simple language makes it easy to understand. Even for larger businesses that require lengthy business plans to capture the many aspects of the business, there should be a way to summarize the big document into a short format for key stakeholders to read, understand the content, and know what.

Business tip: Simplify your business plan into a one-page summary that captures the key highlights. Keep this in front of you and your team at all times.

Analysis Paralysis

For the most part, entrepreneurs know what needs to be done. Whether it's to close a loss-making business line, fire an underperforming employee, or open another branch to serve a growing market. But worries about whether this is the right call, timing, or fear of hurting other people’s feelings can paralyze one into inaction. Don’t procrastinate, decide one way or the other. It is less important what you decide than it is that you decide.

Business tip: Gather the necessary information about the situation, make a plan of action, and go for it!??

Failure to break the plan down?

A good plan will have the main goal that all activities are geared towards. One such goal could be to hit a revenue goal of KES 12m over the next 12 months. That breaks down to KES 1m a month over the next 12 months. It could well be that your business runs in cycles like peak tourist seasons, or school supplies which depend on when schools are open or closed. With this information, you can then plot when you expect to hit the overall goal spread over the planning period. It is unwise to expect you to just get down to work and hopefully, at the end of 12 months you will have hit your target. Remember, what gets measured gets done.

Business tip: Break down your big goal into small doable chunks that you can track to inspire you to reach the greatness of your big goal.?

Changing goals

When we are setting goals for the future, we do not have the benefit of all the information of how the future will turn out to be. But that is no reason not to plan and set a goal. Between past performance and analysis of the current state, you should be able to make assumptions about the market environment over the course of your planning period. Armed with this information, you can set a realistic goal to aim for. As the days pass and you are well into implementing your plans, new information might come up, like travel restrictions imposed meaning you cannot travel or take your goods to the market. This will affect your how you reach your goal but not the goal itself.

Business tip: Rather than change your goal, explore ways to adapt your business to achieve your set goal.?