Planning Your Small Business Success Journey: Six Steps to a Dynamic Action Plan

You are considering starting a small business. Most startups fail. So why should yours be any different? Any strategist will tell you that there are many factors that make or break any business, but the only factor that will guarantee failure is the lack of a realistic and detailed action plan.

Step 1 – Set realistic and specific goals

The key to knowing which goals are realistic and specific is experience. In an established business, past history provides the clue. In a franchise, the franchisor can help you set realistic and specific goals based on years of experience in the industry. For an independent startup, a lot of research is needed. Talk to other businesses in the area where you are considering opening your business. Talk to other business owners in your industry. You’ll want to ask about customer traffic, revenue, and costs. Then set your goals in each specific area.

Step 2: Identify activities, resources and responsibilities

I know it worked for Kevin Costner in Field of Dreams, but in the real world, if you build it, nobody comes. You have to inform your customers about what you do and why they should patronize you. In many startups, you need to attract your first customers through the use of coupons and special events. Identify the specific marketing and sales activities that will attract your customers. Have a detailed list of all the resources available in your area, such as signage, media, and public relations. Outsource what you can. Hire when necessary. Do it yourself if you have to. Have a detailed list of responsibilities for each activity and hold your contractors, your staff and yourself accountable.

Step 3: Define your schedule

Your schedule is often closely tied to compounding. Industries have time-tested standards for profitability. A house painter can be profitable in 6 months, but a restaurant takes 3 years to be profitable. If you are considering investing your life savings and need to be profitable in the first month to make your mortgage, look for a less expensive business to open. Chart your course carefully.

Step 4: Create contingency plans for other possible outcomes

General George Patton once said, “Every plan is perfect until the first shot is fired.” What is his contingency if he gets a different result than what he planned? If you run a special expecting 20 sales of a particular item, what is your plan if you sell 10? What if 30 people want the special? Always have a plan to liquidate the excess with little or no loss, or to get more product quickly if necessary. If you’ve done your marketing right, people will show up wanting to do business with you. Don’t let them down. If there’s equipment that’s critical to your business, like a coffee pot in a coffee shop, know where your back is. That doesn’t necessarily mean you have another one in the cabinet, but rather that you have a relationship with your repair service so you can rent one within the hour.

Step 5: Combine your Action Plan with your Calendar

Each plan must be linked to a realistic and specific timetable. In Step 4, you established a timeline for reaching the overall goal you identified in Step 1. Now set specific milestones tied to the activities you identified in Step 2. These can be represented graphically with project management software or with a simple scheme. Just make sure you have identified which tasks need to be identified first before others can be started. Think about this carefully. Building from the bottom up makes sense, but don’t lay the carpet before you finish the ceiling.

Step 6: Delegate, Supervise and Evaluate

Launching a startup is a daunting task. Often, first-time entrepreneurs assume too much and burn out. Then they look for someone they can hand over the reins to while they focus on what they enjoy most. This is called management by abdication and it usually ends in disaster. To implement the plan, the entrepreneur needs to focus on delegation, supervision, and evaluation. This gets the job done faster without burning the owner.

Entrepreneurship is hard, high-risk work. So why are so many trying? Because there’s nothing quite as rewarding as building a business that can run without you and provide you with financial security for a lifetime. It may seem like the odds are stacked against the first-time entrepreneur, but a good detailed action plan goes a long way in leveling the playing field.