Have you ever wanted to go on a trip, but wasn’t sure where to go, the city, the suburb, neighbourhood? The first thing you do before embarking on a trip is figure out what you want to get out of the trip – this determines where you choose to go. You will identify the location based on where is best suited for the activities you’re interested in. It’s when you have figured out what you want, that you go on to work out how to get what you want out of your time away.
Similarly, in business, it is important to work out what your business is about. What are you in the business of doing? You want to take the time to cultivate clarity on where your business is at, whether it is aligned with what you want to be engaged in. Take the time to identify what your business’ core activities are and the problem they are solving. From this point it becomes clear where the business needs to go to fulfil its mandate. This is what I refer to as a Business Roadmap. With the roadmap, you have a big picture of what you are building and can confidently take your business transformation journey with the end in mind.
With a roadmap in place, you now begin to drill down on the various aspects of the business, why the business exists, who it exists to serve, the solutions it offers, and how the business plans to reach its clients. This in a nutshell is the basis of a business plan. In the business plan, you go in-depth to discuss concrete ways to attain your business goals, with clear indications of numbers involved. The numbers you need to be clear on are the clients you have the capacity to serve, the revenue you plan to bring in, the cost of your products, your planned profits. What this does for you, is it gives you clear indicators that you are working towards, that you can evaluate on a weekly basis, on a monthly and quarterly basis to determine whether the business is on the planned trajectory or not. Adjustments can then be made as needed, with clarity around what’s working and what’s not! This results to successful business transformation and success.
Entrepreneurs are making the mistake of wasting precious resources developing business plans, without taking the time to build a business roadmap that enables you to assess your business viability in the current business environment, figure out where to start, recognise what no longer works, make the necessary pivots, and cultivate the very right clients.
