Keep Your Business Plan on Track - Episode 12

Transcript:

Lou Quinto:
Hi, welcome to Q and A on Breakthrough Leadership. I'm Lou Quinto.

Craig P. Anderson:
I'm Craig Anderson.

Lou Quinto:
Today's topic that we're going to talk about is going to be a topic that for many of us, whether you're a small business owner or if you're in a major company or small medium-sized company, is your business plan and how to keep that business plan on track.

Lou Quinto:
And what we're going to do is we're going to cover three areas today. Number one is going to be the area that many of us when it comes to business plans have a problem with, and that is we don't want the plan to be a monster.

Lou Quinto:
The second thing is how do we track our progress on that plan? And then lastly, how do we keep that plan flexible? So the very first topic we're going to talk about is to keep our plan from becoming a monster. Craig, I think you know as well as I do, even for a small business owner, a lot of times the traditional business plan is 2 to 300 pages long and has that changed?

Craig P. Anderson:
I think it's changing and it needs to change. When I talk to some of my peers who are working for corporations, I find out that no work happens for six to eight weeks while people are spending all their time building the business plan. And if your business is shutting down to create a plan, the plan is probably a little too unwieldy. And once it is that big, what are you going to do with it? When are you ever going to pull it out again?

Craig P. Anderson:
So yeah, I think it's still a problem out there, but I think there's a few new solutions out there that are really helping people kind of trim those down to where they need to be.

Lou Quinto:
What kind of solutions?

Craig P. Anderson:
I've seen a lot of people who are trying to skinny those pennants down to something that's more of a functional document.

Craig P. Anderson:
It has the detail, but not such an exhaustive detail and all the background. So it's something they can pull out and use. I mean, ideally your business plan is right there on your desk every day on a single page. So you say, "Okay, these are the things I'm working on. This is where my focus is." And that's what helps people keep on track.

Lou Quinto:
So I guess what you're saying is we've gone from 300 pages down to a page?

Craig P. Anderson:
Down to a page. If you can get it down to a page, it gets you very laser-focused on what you're trying to do, helps you understand what it is you're trying to build, why you're doing it, and really the key objectives and plans you've got to put in place to succeed for your business.

Lou Quinto:
So we're talking about business plans and soundbites, it sounds like.

Craig P. Anderson:
Yeah, I think that's a great way to put it. Yeah.

Lou Quinto:
Okay. All right. Second topic we're going to cover is now that we've got this plan, whether it be 300 or down to 1 page, how do we track the plan's progress? What are you recommending when you're in there coaching executives?

Craig P. Anderson:
Well, I think you really have to, number one is you've got to track progress, right?

Lou Quinto:
Right.

Craig P. Anderson:
You don't just create this plan, set a bunch of objectives aside, and then not check in every month. You have to have the discipline as a business to say, "All right, what are the key metrics that I'm focusing on as the leader of the whole organization and my direct reports? What are they focused on?"

Craig P. Anderson:
So you need to actually be intentional about sitting in a meeting every month to say, "All right, here's the stats. We're going to look at the same stats every month, so we can see from month to month how we're progressing against our plan."

Lou Quinto:
Okay. And as far as metrics go, I know in many instances a business plan is revenue and expenses and maybe customer satisfaction. Are there any other metrics that come out?

Craig P. Anderson:
Sure. I think if you go back to what is it we're building and you know if we're working on a two year, three year, five year plan, what is it we're trying to build? Revenue is certainly in there. Operational expectations are certainly in there but what are you trying to do as far as you have do you have any [inaudible 00:03:32] experience. We talk a lot these days about employee engagement and culture. What are you doing to measure that? If you're saying that's important, you should have some metrics in there that are measuring that every month.

Craig P. Anderson:
You may want to track, you know, it's great to say total revenue and expense, but what's the relation between those numbers? How deep in are you getting to the statistics that are meaningful to your business?

Lou Quinto:
Okay. All right. And the third area that we're going to cover on the business plan is simply how do we keep our plan flexible? In many instances, particularly in a traditional business plan, it's multiple pages. Those business plans tend to be something that it's like someone carved in stone and carried it down a mountain and presented it to the rest of the group and here's our plan, here's where we need to go. And plan in stone is not flexible, but obviously in today's day and age with technology happening so quickly and changing and demographics changing, research and development on a high speed business plan that you create in January. By the time you get to June, you may realize that some of that business plan needs to change. So when you're talking about keeping flexible, obviously business plan gives us some, I don't know what you want to call them, guardrails to stay with it?

Craig P. Anderson:
I think the business plan gives us some guardrails to kind of say, "All right, this is kind of the larger way we're trying to go, right? Here's kind of the things we're measuring in the plants we're building, so we kind of know the world we're working in."

Craig P. Anderson:
But you know, to quote the business leader, Ferris Bueller, "Life comes at you pretty fast," and you have to be prepared for change. But what's nice about having a plan that kind of gives you those guardrails is you understand if something new comes in, you know where you have to make those adjustments.

Lou Quinto:
Right.

Craig P. Anderson:
And I think you have to be prepared to make those adjustments because where in January you the world's going to be December, it could be a very different place and you have regulatory changes, new competitors entering the space, changing customer demand.

Craig P. Anderson:
So you really have to be realistic about saying things may change and I need to be able to be flexible about it. What I really want to do is kind of keep myself true to what's the vision of what I'm ultimately trying to build. The path I take to get there may change.

Lou Quinto:
Right.

Craig P. Anderson:
But you're still riding in the same place. And I think that's the important piece to keep in mind is where am I trying to go, and then where do I need to adjust to get there?

Lou Quinto:
Okay. And how do you communicate that? Or how would you recommend communicating that flexibility to people that you're working with? Because in some instances, some people may see flexibility as the game is constantly changing and the Target's always changing, right? So therefore me inside, I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing because it's changing.

Craig P. Anderson:
Sure. Well, again, it comes back to have you clearly communicated the mission division of the organization, what it is you're trying to build? Do people really understand where you're trying to go? And then you can put these conversations in that context to say we're still working down. These are still things that are important to us now. But this new thing has happened and we're going to have to react to it and respond this way.

Craig P. Anderson:
So you need to kind of keep focused on, you know, as they said, in Good to Great, you know, never lose sight of where you're trying to go.

Lou Quinto:
That's two book references in one.

Craig P. Anderson:
Too big gets a big [inaudible 00:06:33] from me, Lou. But don't lose faith in where you're trying to go, and you've got to keep your people communicated. So that's not just your direct reports. You need to make sure, and it's a discussion for another day, but all across your organization, people understand what it is you're trying to build and then communicating that to them regularly, how you're progressing against that.

Lou Quinto:
I guess more meetings.

Craig P. Anderson:
Yeah. If you put it in more meetings, but meaningful meetings that are actually conveying things that are critical to the business and getting the team all together.

Lou Quinto:
That sounds like a good topic or a future...

Craig P. Anderson:
-I think so. I think so.

Lou Quinto:
All right, so what we'd like to do now is just come through some takeaways that we took in our period of time here talking about business plans. One of the things that came out to me was get away from the traditional 300 page business plan and bring it down to 1 page. One page is easily communicated with individuals. It's shared very quickly. It doesn't look like a Stephen King novel that you put on someone's desk and they have to go through it. I can look at it at a glance or as I said earlier, this is plans in soundbite.

Craig P. Anderson:
Yep. Yeah, exactly. And I think on top of that, what's really important is make sure you're tracking progress. Do you know if you're moving your way down that road and if you have to change, do you understand what the impact of that is going to be on your numbers? So those constant check-ins to where you're at and how you're making progress every month are critical to staying on track for the long term.

Lou Quinto:
And then obviously the last one is be flexible. Things change just because you wrote it in January and you wanted to do it this particular way. If something changes, make sure that you adapt because obviously adapting is part of being successful in business.

Craig P. Anderson:
Yep. Great.

Lou Quinto:
Well, we hope you've enjoyed this segment of Q and A on breakthrough leadership. If you liked this video, go ahead and click the like button down at the bottom. Subscribe to Q and A. And a watch for us in the very near future with our next segment. Thanks. I'm Lou Quinto.

Craig P. Anderson:
I'm Craig Anderson.