The Business Plan For Non-Successes

Keyword for this post:
Start Up Business Plan

There's an interesting post in Entrepreneur.com's blog. They asked "50 top bloggers" for "top recommendations". What makes it so interesting is things like this:

18. "If you don't enjoy planning your business' future, you must be doing it wrong; ease up on the business plan document, do just the planning, just big enough to run your business and control your own destiny."

19. "Measure EVERYTHING in your business that you care about and use your findings to drive your decisions so they are based on facts, rather than emotions or seat of the pants guesswork."

There was a surprising amount of this in the list. Like there is no good advice. Like the experts don't know what they are talking about. And, guess what? The experts DON'T know what they are talking about.

Truthfully, there is no one "right" way to start a business, or run one. The "right" way is the way that suits your style. Some people feel most comfortable trusting their gut. Others need numbers to back up their decisions, or even to make decisions. The key is to find YOUR style, and stick with it. Don't let bullies try to tell you what is "best". They aren't you. They don't know what is best for you.

(Here's a brief commercial.) That is all very comforting, because that is how we constructed our "start up" series. There's not a lot of lecturing. But there are a lot of questions. Lots. Entrepreneurs need to answer these questions for themselves. If you really need to be told everything, you are not meant to be an entrepreneur. Go work for someone else -- they will tell you what to do. But for creative, intelligent people, entrepreneurship is a wonderful adventure. (end of commercial)

Perhaps that is why so many of us aren't a roaring success the first time around in business. We need time and experience to develop our own center, our own style. It is sad that so many banks won't look at business people who have these "less than success" stories in their background, for that is where we learn about our style. We learn about how we work best. We learn how to make a success of what we've got.

Should you be faced with constructing a business plan, and someone on your team has been less than 100% "successful", focus on what the successes really were. Never, ever lie. But focus on the plusses. Lots and lots of entrepreneurs make great comebacks, and you could truly be one of them.