The New Approach to Business Planning

Have you wondered how to start a successful business that is difficult to compete with?

Whether you’ve started a new business or you’re still thinking of how to turn your ideas into a profitable business, your success depends on getting the foundations right.

Among all foundation elements that your startup must have in place, a solid Business Plan is of the utmost importance.

Your business plan does not necessarily have to be a lengthy document with hundreds of pages. In fact, thanks to business model canvas, the era of preparing a 3 years’ financial forecast and writing a long, useless and descriptive business plan is over.

If you want to take your business to the next level, it’s essential to pause for a moment and review your business model.

Get the Basics Right

• Invite your team into a room and share your agenda with them. Your objective should be to get everyone on the same page and make sure all team members have the same understanding about your business. At the end of the day, you want to make sure that your employees and partners know how to drive the company to achieve its vision.
• Try not to conduct the meeting in a very formal manner. Make sure everyone has the right to speak their mind as you don’t want to miss the introvert’s fresh ideas. You need to embrace collaboration to be able to convey your business model and make sure everyone’s understanding is the same.
• You can download the business model canvas template and place it on the wall. The nine building blocks of a business model helps you focus on the most important aspects of your business.
• Give everyone a sticky notepad and ask them to use it whenever they want to raise a point or highlight an idea. When facilitating the session, ask the team to stick their notes on the business model canvas placed on the wall.

Ask Questions That Demand Actionable Answers

Once the team and the tools are ready, begin with identifying the nine important building blocks.

• Define your customer: Start asking open questions from your team and ask them to write down their answers on the sticky notes.
  Who would buy from you? And why? Be as specific as possible
• How would you reach out to your customers?
  If you are in service industry, think of how should you build relationships that last.
  If you are offering a product, apart from customers you have to find partners that add value to your value chain and help you provide a better customer experience to your customers.
  Ask your team to find out what channels can differentiate your startup from others.
• How to increase marketability & gain better reputation:
  It’s simply about knowing your responsibility, and others’. Brainstorm with your team and answer the following
  – What marketing strategy and activity should you invest in?
  – How should you find talent and resources that boost your productivity?
  – Who should you partner with to improve development or branding?
• How does the cost structure works?
  Find out your best revenue streams as well as your cost structure. The less revenue stream you have the more simplified your business model is. Try to answer these questions:
  – What would be your main costs?
  – What should you invest on to get the most out of your business?
  – How do you make money? Is it subscription? Rental? Selling units? Etc.

Don’t Underestimate the Power of This New Approach

As soon as you have completed your business model, you must test your business model. Get out of the building and start talking to your prospective customers. Gather feedbacks and come back to your business model. You might need to iterate a few times to get the company in the right direction.

Visualization is the key, so it’s imperative that you ask the team to use their sticky notes. You are creating a new common language when you use the new visualized method and using the sticky notes.

Because everyone comes from a different background, people are used to their own way of explaining things and describing ideas with their jargons. Using sticky notes enables you to unite your team and create a common language that results in having the same understanding about your business model.

Author: Ehsan Jahandarpour is a globally recognized entrepreneurship coach and inventor of the “Launch your startup in a heartbeat” framework. Ehsan has helped companies like Microsoft, PETRONAS, and many startups to take their business to the next level. He shares his strategies, and proven startup frameworks in his blog https://jahandarpour.com. Follow him on Twitter @jahandarpour or linkedin.