How to Use Business Plans

True, business planning sucks because you can't predict the future.

But, here's the gem from a business plan:

• You can use it to measure how much actual results differ from that plan.

Without it:

• You don't know if you did really well.
• You don't know if you sucked-to-the-suck.

You + Goals

For instance, take setting goals:

• You set a goal to sell 1000 widgets.
• You sell 500 widgets.

Setting that previous goal of selling 1000 widgets let you know that you underperformed by 50%.

• "To do better, we must increase our pitches by 50%."
• "Or, we must reduce our prices to sell more quantities."

Business plans -- in effect -- let you determine how well you do relative to how well you want to do.

Like an NBA team, you start measuring your wins/losses.

Set a plan. Measure goodness.

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