Can you plan too much?

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When I chat with my mastermind friends, and other colleagues who own businesses, the most common topic that comes up is the amount of work we have to do. Not necessarily the volume of what has to be done (although that might be topic  #2), but the challenge of deciding what to do first.

People are often shocked when I tell them I have my main activities for developing and marketing my own business mapped out at least 6 months to a year ahead. They’re also perplexed when I talk about scheduling client projects for the summer. But how do you control that, they ask, when you’re in a service business?

Let me tell you – once you have a plan, it really is easy! Much easier, in fact, than having to make a million decisions on a daily basis.

Among the people who struggle with this, I find there are a few archetypes that summarize how they approach planning in their business.

The Starter – the person who always has a great new idea, and jumps in quickly to try the latest thing, but never seems to get anywhere.

The Plodder – the person who keeps putting one foot in front of the other, but never looks up!

The  Finisher – the person who only tackles one project at a time, and doesn’t start anything else until the first one is done.

You can already guess that none of these approaches work very effectively. In all cases, these business owners may be busy, but they will not be able to get the ultimate benefit  of planning, which is really just making sure you’re on the right track to get where you want to be, and that you’re checking out your progress frequently enough that you can change course if you need to.

If you don’t have a plan, or at least, have gone through the “Great Plan In Your Mind”, I can pretty much guarantee that you are wasting your time, throwing away money, and making bad decisions. The impact of these decisions could be incremental, like a drip from a leaky faucet, or huge, like a water main break, but either way, they are costing you. You’re probably not making the most of the existing opportunities you have either, because you are only looking at the next few days (or hours!) and not further out.

When you have a plan and a decent strategy behind you, at a glance, you can schedule important tasks for each week, have a more reasonable expectation of your business expenses and income, make informed decisions on participating in training or making a larger expenditure, and evaluating opportunities that come your way.

You can predict your busiest times and know when you will be able to slide in other projects, or even launch certain services to take you through traditionally slower times. You can seek the kinds of projects that fit the timing. For example, in the summer months in my consulting work, I look for and schedule work that doesn’t involve outside meetings because my daughter is home for summer vacation. This allows me to keep making money, but on a completely open schedule over the summer months.

Many business owners think they either don’t have time to plan, or don’t know how. And people who are just new in business think they can’t because they don’t have any experience in their business yet. This is not true!

Whether your plan is on a napkin, in an excel spreadsheet, or in your head, you should be able to answer these basic questions:

• Do I know what is different about my business that people find valuable?
• Do I know exactly what I am selling, and who I am selling it to?
• Do I know the best ways to reach these people?
• Do I have ways to connect and build credibility with them, without selling to them?
• Do I know the main activities I am going to do regularly to reach these people, as well as attract new potential customers?
• Do I have a way to follow up with clients when the work is done?
• Have I set aside enough time each week to work on developing these activities, and taking care of business?
• Do I have a way to measure how I’m doing?
• Do I know where I want to be at the end of the year? Next year?

These are just some of the questions that I would ask you, if we were sitting down together talking about this. Planning isn’t about having the perfect plan, it’s about the process, and it’s about doing it! I encourage you to spend some time thinking about these questions.

Once you know the answers, it becomes less daunting to take out a calendar, make some choices about your key marketing and managing activities, and start scheduling out what you have to do and when.

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR EZINE OR WEB SITE? You can, as long as you include this complete blurb with it:  Sherri Garrity is the Chief Corporate Fugitive and creator of the Five Keys Success System^TM for ex-corporate employees and aspiring entrepreneurs who want to break free from the confines of their corporate experience and  unlock their business potential for greater  personal freedom and prosperity. The Corporate Fugitive system demystifies the business of setting up, managing, marketing and growing a successful entrepreneurial adventure. Visit www.corporatefugitive.com for free tips on how to unlock the business in you.