Good Business Ideas: have you made yours a reality yet?

A good business idea: without a destination, any path will take you there!

Having a good business idea is never enough. It is the ability to execute a good business idea that brings long term success, business growth and sustainability.

If you have not got a clear actionable plan yet, perhaps we need to have a reality check here. Are you set up for business growth?

Does your business planning consist of a to-do list which you work down, ticking off each task as you complete them? Do you work it out as you go? Perhaps you feel uncomfortable thinking big about where your business could go? Are you afraid if you set big goals you are going to fail? 

Here is a short blog about how the fear of failure can be overcome.

Fear of failure: If your year hasn’t quite gone to plan, read this!

The difference between successful long-term companies and the ones that start well and then die slowly is that the successful ones prepare for next week, next month, next year. Their big idea, their just cause, is often far bigger than just hitting their annual financial targets.

The wake-up call here is that if you don’t put in that preparation and create a plan and follow it, then in 3, 5, 10 years time you will still be waiting for your business to work the way you want it to – still not earning the money you need, still not living the lifestyle you desire and still not spending the time you want with your loved ones. Just think about what else you will have missed out on along the way.

Equate this to a car journey. If your destination is nearby, the route is pretty simple and perhaps you’ve done it before and know the route. You can just jump in the car and take the road straight there. No preparation or planning required. However, if you are visiting Glasgow for the first time and you are based in the south, you’ll put a little more effort in planning the route you are going to take. You’ll need to be better prepared. If you don’t, goodness knows where you’ll end up and, if you do manage to reach Glasgow, there’s no certainty you’ll take the direct and most economical route or when you’ll arrive.

The same is for your business. We tend to prefer action over planning. Sometimes we spend lots of time making pretty plans only to put it in a file to never look at again until we’re having a clear-out and find it at the bottom of the drawer. 

We gravitate to the doing, the fancy stuff, the jazzy stuff without really thinking everything through. 

We start the marketing, we get the customers and then we can’t fulfil the business. To make it a long term success, rather than short term tactics, you’ve got to have a long term goal, you’ve got to know where you are wanting to get to and build a route to get to that point. That’s a strategy.

Business Growth: have you got a marketing plan linked to an operations plan?

To create a plan that you will actually follow and keep following, there are some things you need to put in place first, the foundations for your plan.

The two most important parts of any plan are the starting point and the endpoint. You have to know where your business is today and you have to know what the outcome is going to look like. Without those two key points, any road will take you to your future, but it won’t be the future you identify with.

The five key elements of any business are marketing, sales, operations, finance and people. All elements need to have their individual plan. 

The marketing plan element focuses on generating the leads, identifies who your customer is, attracts, connects and engages with them. The next step is sales, converting those leads into your customers in a way that will deliver the results you’ve identified you need in your business. 

Meanwhile, the operations plan is about having a reliable and scalable system and process that enables you to deliver the desired consistent outcome for your customer. 

The finance strategy is making sure you are producing the sustainable returns your business needs to make it work, creating reserves to support the business growth. 

And, finally, the people element is about recruiting, retaining, nurturing, inspiring, challenging and empowering the workforce. It is about creating effective business relationships, developing your delegation skills, avoiding the temptation of micromanagement.

All the plans work together so that you develop unbreakable confidence that you are able to deliver a consistently extraordinary customer experience to your customers, building a strong and sustainable business.

Growth Mindset: do you know the questions to ask?

To get you started, here are three questions to answer for yourself.

1. What are you doing your business for? Work out why it is important to you and your customers, be clear about what you are trying to achieve by building a business.
2. Who are you doing your business for? You need to know who your ideal customer is, what their problems are and why they want what you have to offer.
3. What’s your timeline? Be courageous and set a date when you will have achieved your goals. Set a deadline.

These are simple questions and when you have answered them you will have the clarity needed to start making the plan that will get you there.

Business success comes from consistently improving what you did yesterday and doing it better today. It’s having small incremental improvements every day: having a clear plan and executing it better and better, day by day whilst measuring, changing and adjusting as you go, consistently. Over a long period, you will see your business grow and it will grow faster and faster as you get better at it.

Or, you could continue to wing it. The tortoise and the hare story is rewritten every year in business failure. Success is about building the foundations first so that you are really clear on how you are going to achieve it.

Business growth is all about discovering the good business Idea, translating it into an achievable goal, then developing the business skills to create an actionable business plan and discovering what makes a good leader. Once you have that, then you are ready to make a plan to Build a Business That Works.

So let me know your answers to the following:

1. What are you going to do to create an actionable plan to produce the business growth you want?
2. What actions has the “Build a Business That Works Framework” identified for you?
3. Have you got clarity on your endgame and are you clear of where you are starting from?

I would really appreciate it if you would let me know in the comments below and I will address your comments in a future post.

To take your good business idea and build a business that works for you, your team and your customers is a complex task with literally 1000s of moving parts. It is important that you know where you stand in 5 key areas and understand the actions you need to take. To help you build a business that works for you, download this simple 5-Step Framework that maps out exactly how to run a successful business, have time to enjoy being with loved ones, have great uninterrupted holidays and follow your non-work pursuits.