Taking Action

At Paul Terry & Associates we help small business owners build successful and sustainable enterprises. Our consulting process is focused on clear assessments, careful advice and taking action. Central to our approach is business action planning.

Your passion and a strong vision for your enterprise launched you into small business ownership but a great idea alone won’t make you a successful business owner. You must turn your initial ideas into realistic goals with a specific plan for action.

Whether you are an emerging entrepreneur or an experienced business owner entrenched in the complexities of running a business, business action planning can help you identify measurable goals and create specific steps to reach your desired outcomes.

Every area of your business – customer/client relations, marketing and sales, business operations, ownership expansion, and your eventual exit from the business – can benefit from action planning. So how do you begin?

DEFINE YOUR GOAL

Put it in writing. Writing down exactly where you are today and where you want to be in the future will force you to think concretely. Taking the time to write down your goals may spark some new ideas, too.

Be S.M.A.R.T. – that is, specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely/time-bound. You need to be able to clearly state what you want to achieve and your goal needs to be concrete and doable. Initially, steer clear of goals that might take you three to five years to achieve. Once you get comfortable with the action planning process, you can use it to tackle bigger, longer-term goals. For now, stay focused on something you can attain within a year’s time, or even less.

SET YOUR ACTION STEPS

Take it one step at a time. You are much more likely to attain your goal when you identify specific steps to reach it. Each step needs a realistic deadline and an estimate of how much it will cost you—not just in dollars but in your time and other resources.

GET SUPPORT

Everyone needs someone to lean on. Trusted advisors and people in your business support network are essential during this process. They can be a sounding board while you create your plan and they can keep you accountable once you have a plan… every step of the way.

USE YOUR PLAN

Long and pretty it ain’t. A business action plan isn’t a fancy document—it’s a usable one. It needs to be accessible and referred to frequently. It might help to set reminders on your calendar to review it so that you can stay on track and make adjustments if necessary.

Still feeling daunted by action planning? We support clients through the action planning process every day –helping them create goals relevant to their current stage of business, identify specific action steps, and stay on track. How can we help you?

Planning for Business Success

Many people start small businesses and many seem to fail. Risks always exist in business.

You can reduce those risks if you set aside time to plan in advance. This means defining your business offerings, doing specific market research, recognizing the essential management skills you need, and projecting realistic financial expectations… in short, you can reduce risks when you write and use a business plan.

Small business owners often say they don’t have time to write a business plan. There is too much to do and they want to get on with running the business. (Or, they may be intimidated by the planning process or simply be procrastinating.)

It’s true that some small businesses start without planning and do very well. However, once a business is launched and things get complicated, it can be confusing to figure out next steps. A good business plan helps sort out your options and can help you focus.

Business experts disagree about the importance of writing a business plan. Though some research has found that writing a plan greatly increases the chances that a person actually goes into business, there are business school professors out there, like Steve Blank, who say that real entrepreneurs don’t write business plans.

Although it may not sound like it, I actually agree with Blank’s approach. In his Lean LaunchPad classes, he’s pushing students to constantly talk to people and test their theories as they plan. A hands-on, real world approach is central to how I teach entrepreneurship, too. You cannot write a business plan in a vacuum and expect it to serve you well. You must get out there, connect with people, and constantly test your assumptions.

Writing, implementing and maintaining a business plan is hard work. Planning means learning to take the pulse of your business — over and over again. You have to be open to new ideas and be willing to learn from your mistakes. There is a reward for all that hard work, though. You end up with an operational management tool, a marketing plan, financial projections, and a means of communicating your business to others.

The primary purpose for writing a plan, though, is for the process itself. It forces you to be objective and critical, identifying weaknesses, challenges and opportunities and setting benchmarks to track progress. Doing research, talking to people, and analyzing your operation will give you confidence to continue with the business.

It’s really important that the plan reflects your unique owner perspective. The plan is a foundation from which each owner’s business judgment, personal feelings and intuition are measured. You should write it in such a way that you can use it, in a format that is easy to update. To be truly useful, a business plan should be a dynamic document — current, accessible and appropriate for the business. Don’t spend a lot of time making a pretty document unless a formal plan is needed to present to a bank or other investor. It doesn’t have to be perfect looking; the key is that it is useful for you and your business.

A business plan doesn’t guarantee success but it can help prevent serious mistakes. It is a great way to stay attentive to the important details of your business, to industry trends and competitors, and to new directions and business growth. A good business plan will help you maintain profitability, acknowledge and minimize potential risks, and develop confidence for future opportunities.

So how do you find the time to write a business plan? As Tim Berry says, “You don’t. You are always planning. Your plan is never done but your planning process is your key to good management.”

So, write that plan (or revisit your old one). It will be well worth your effort!

Resolve Conflict

Being in business is challenging. You can’t be in business without running into conflict at some point… your landlord raises the rent, your largest client reduces your hours, your reliable vendor is three weeks late with inventory, your wait staff calls in sick at 5:00pm and/or your key employee gives notice. Wow! What to do?

Winged Wisdom, part of Presidio Habitats, a site-based exhibition created for the Presidio of San Francisco

Perhaps the answer is to quit…start a new business or…as we all say to ourselves at one time or another, “I need to get a job!” Most of us don’t go and get a job. Sometimes we try and go through the motions of an interview and think this will resolve all the conflicts…but then realize that’s really not what we want. Working for someone else does not resolve or eliminate conflict. It is still there and now we don’t have the “power” to implement a change!

The idea is not to instigate conflict or prolong it, or try to win the argument. The process of running a business is to minimize conflicts and if a conflict arises, to face it and try to resolve it. The owner has to build the business, take care of the employees, satisfy the clients or customers, and create a balanced life for themselves.

There are solutions to the conflicts. Sometimes it is a genuine transparent management style; at other times, it is direct conversations with key employees; or it could be recognizing the error before the client or vendor sees it and suggesting a solution before there even is a conflict. (When I ran a gourmet food business, I noted right after the holidays that we did not sell all the extra inventory that we had bought. I called the vendors immediately and negotiated a 6 month payout plan…before they noticed we were late with payment and got upset with us.)

To find the right solutions we can look to supportive mentors or professionals who can listen and advise, talk things through with key employees, meditate on the right action, and then forge ahead and explore new approaches. If you run your business with integrity, honesty and transparency and confront your stumbling blocks head on, you can make it through. But if you don’t resolve a conflict…guess what comes back for you another day? So, resolve conflict!

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Taking Action

Planning for Business Success

Resolve Conflict

185 Arkansas Street, San Francisco, CA 94107

415-255-0131

pta@staging.paulterry.com

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