Every business has a plan, even if it isn’t a formal written document. But sometimes that plan can become complicated or a bit unfocussed, and even when it’s good plan, often it’s not being used on a day-to-day basis to help drive growth and performance by everyone else in the business.
Putting together a comprehensive business plan can be a great starting point to outline the journey to growing your business.
Why create a business plan?
- It defines your goals and objectives: By setting measurable goals and strategic objectives it will allow you to track your progress and make informed decisions based on relevant data
- To analyse your market: By undergoing detailed analysis of your market you can identify trends, your main competitors and understand your customers needs. By understanding your market you will be able to create a successful sales & marketing strategy to differentiate your business from the competition and grow the top line
- Secure finance: A detailed business plan can help you to secure finance from either the bank, alternative lenders or private equity. Your business plan demonstrates having a clear vision, realistic financial projections and potential for growth.
By putting the above down on paper and setting specific goals related to these areas you will define any potential challenges or risks, provide yourself with a roadmap for growth and improve your decision making within the organisation.
How can you use your business plan to deliver high growth?
Once you have your business plan you should have some key areas of focus to deliver growth. By focusing on these areas, you can set specific goals and measure performance and adjust as needed to meet your targets.
We’ve worked with lots of High Growth and High Performance businesses, of all shapes and sizes, and what they all have in common is absolute clarity and a laser focus on two critical questions.
- How much of your growth will come from existing clients and how much from new clients?
- Which types of clients and which products/services have the most growth potential
These are two simple, but powerful insights to drive their growth as:
- They ensure the sales team are focused and don’t waste time chasing the wrong prospects or missing opportunities that are under their noses.
- The marketing function has a clear brief and can spend the marketing budget more effectively and with better Return On Investment.
- The business plan is directly linked into sales, marketing and operations, and is used every day to help drive the business forward.
Once you think of your growth plan through this simple approach, it can remove the noise and add clarity throughout the business.
Written by Guy Harris and Adrian Gill, Mazars, part of the Partners& ecosystem