Thinking Through Your Business Plan

Courtesy of the Kauffman Foundation, written by George Stiles

Entrepreneurs are natural “do-ers” rather than thinkers, but perhaps we were different. In 1996, nearly a year before we launched Executive Options, our two-year-old career-consulting company, George Stiles put together a business plan, describing how our firm would differ from others in the field and why that difference represented a business opportunity.

Stiles’ focus on planning proved to be good strategy. At that time, Rink DeWitt, a former bank CEO, wasn’t at all convinced. So on a drafty spring day, at Rink’s farmhouse in New Hampshire, we co-founders sat down and read the plan aloud to each other, line by line. It was the part about us doing the consulting--two businessmen rather than the usual cadre of junior employees with counseling degrees--that finally sold Rink on abandoning the farmhouse for our office in Wellesley, Massachusetts.

Planning is powerful. This is a message we now give to the aspiring entrepreneurs who comprise an increasing chunk of our clientele of executives-in-transition. When asked about the “plan” for their businesses-to-be, these fledglings, like so many of their successful self-made counterparts, are apt to say, “What plan?” It is up to us to be fanatical about sitting them down and saying, “Let’s think things through…”.

A Trio of Advantages


In short, for even the most relentless entrepreneurial “do-er,” formal business planning is neither an oxymoron nor an option. Rather, it is an essential entrepreneurial tool that enables a trio of powerful advantages:

  • careful thought
  • clarity of purpose
  • and a benchmark to measure progress

To wit:


Careful Thought


While undergoing the weeks or months of agonizing research and reflection involved in drafting a business plan, an entrepreneur is forced to confront and answer questions that he or she might not have even raised if fully engaged in “doing.” In its ability to force careful thought--indeed, to discipline the entrepreneur to test the reality of enthusiastic optimism--a plan leads to a wealth of specific knowledge, which in turn boosts self-confidence. All of this goes a long way toward assuring the success of the venture.

A word of caution: There are no short cuts here. Gathering the data, doing the analysis, and writing the plan are the entrepreneur’s responsibilities. It couldn’t be any other way, for in this endeavor, process trumps product.

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