Is There Value in a Business Plan?
I got a surprise call yesterday from a business advisor service.
At some point several months ago I must have submitted my name in some online form. It took several months but they finally contacted me to talk about joining their program.
It was a neat concept, they would pair me up with an appropriate business mentor that I can talk with about my business development concerns. They were pretty competitive about joining the program, I would have to go through several interviews to see if I fit the type of person and business they were looking to help.
Anyway, at the moment I’m not looking for that kind of help with my business. However I did talk on the phone for about 20 minutes about where I was with my business, and what the next steps should be.
The woman on the phone commended me for being one of the 4% of people that actually write down their goals. She left me with one piece of advice: Write a business plan.
I’ve always thought of business plans as sort of a waste of time. I mean, they’re good as an exercise to examine what steps are needed and finding a time-line that will allow you to meet your goals. But as soon as they’re written, they’re already out of date. Keeping a solid business plan in sync with the business is hard work and takes a lot of time. Weighing the time cost of writing up a business plan against the value of just jumping in to get something started I always have considered it better to first focus on proving the idea.
Maybe it’s just the way that business development is headed in this online world. Go for a quick first version of a product, then let the people who use it direct the growth.
What’s your take on it? How valuable is it to have a business in the early stages of a business? Is there value in a business plan?
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