One Sherpa

There is a very famous quote from Kelloggs that says:
‘The simple things in life are always the best.’

In a previous post I talked about using a business plan template which is often the simplest way to go.

However, even if you are using a template you need to think about your plan in two parts and make sure that they both are compatible with each other.

Your business plan will contain WORDS and NUMBERS and they both need to tell the same story otherwise your business plan will be flawed.

So when you do a business plan, who prepares the words and who prepares the numbers?

Often the words are prepared by the business owner and the numbers are prepared by their accountant to make things look good!

As the business owner you must understand the overall numbers in the business plan because it is you who will have to achieve the plan.

Make sure that you understand the overall numbers, not just the sales figures, but the key expense items such as product costs, people costs, marketing, distribution and administration costs.

You should also clearly understand important figures like how much inventory you are holding and how much your customers are likely to have outstanding with you.

So when you stand back from your business plan do the numbers really demonstrate what the words are saying?

The simplest and best business plans make sure they do.

What’s your experience of trying to get the words and numbers to work together?

As a small business owner you will likely find that there are too few hours in the day and too many things to complete in them.

That’s right… we’re all short of time and need to be efficient in what we do.

That’s where an executive summary works really well.

An executive summary is a shortened version of the whole business plan

It contains the essence of the plan ‘in a nutshell’ which makes it easier to get the big picture before going into detail.

I like them best when they’re on One Page with One Page of summary numbers.

Too many times a business plan is a lengthy document which no one reads but people feel justified that it demonstrates that a lot of work has gone into the business plan.

Remember that if you can’t catch the reader in the executive summary then it’s likely they won’t read any further.

What’s your experience with an executive summary?

Have you used them before?

Do you find them useful?