Want an easy way to outsmart your competitors and dominate your market? One that doesn’t involve an investment of time or funds in social media, Google AdWords, email marketing, SEO or any of the usual suspects.
Nor will you have to employ a swathe of graduates from Harvard, Oxford, or Cambridge to carry this one out on your behalf.
It’s one that will give your organization a distinct and profitable advantage over the majority of SMBs, no matter your industry or specialty.
So what is it?
Well, you may be surprised to discover that it’s the oh-so-humble business plan. Yes, that often dismissed document can indeed give your company a distinct competitive advantage over the rest of your market. (If you’d like to find out more about how to create and use an effective business plan/implementation timetable as a working document to keep your business on track to achieving your desired objectives, you can download a free report now by clicking here.)
Our experience, and just about every survey you read, shows that SMBs who have and use a business plan are consistently more successful and more profitable than those that don’t. A survey commissioned by business and finance software provider Exact, for example, found companies with a business plan were consistently more profitable (70%) than those that did not (52%).
So why don’t all SMBs have a business plan, one that details the company’s operating and financial targets, its strategic direction, and tactics? Apparently, many don’t consider it necessary. Or their entrepreneurial owners like to keep everything ‘in their head’. That’s probably fine for a start-up but fatal for a growing company.
There are so many benefits to having and using a well-constructed business plan. It will help you and your management team to:
- Clarify objectives and develop suitable strategies
• Understand your market
• Identify and overcome internal and external threats
• Seize opportunities
• Organize the company
• Raise external funding
• Obtain raw materials
• Develop new products or services
• Generate sales
• Comply with regulations, define job duties, etc.
There’s a catch however. While having a business plan is mission-critical, creating it can be arduous, which is probably why so few SMBs have one.
After all, thinking through objectives and likely outcomes which may occur many years down the line is, by nature, challenging. But it is the hard work up front which makes for lighter work down the road as all of our team of part-time CFOs will attest to.
It’s the case that most CEOs and Managing Directors just don’t have the time to spend on quality strategic thinking and to document and communicate that thinking in a way which allows the whole business to buy into the vision.
Likewise, they don’t have the time and specialist knowledge to manage such a business plan.
That’s unfortunate because a business plan provides CEOs, Managing Directors, and management with an ability to foresee threats and opportunities and course-correct when necessary.
Not spending quality time on strategic planning usually leads to a chaotic working environment. Opportunities get missed. Threats aren’t identified until it is too late. Small wonder that the business owners who reach out to us often talk about ‘not feeling in control’ and ‘not really knowing what is coming around the next corner’.
Business planning and getting it right brings a real sense of clarity and direction to a business – this is where an experienced CFO or Finance Director (FD) can make a significant contribution. They can help you to create and manage a highly-effective implementation timetable.
CFOs often possess a different, albeit complementary, set of skills to CEOs/Managing Directors. What’s more, they can act as devil’s advocate to ask the right questions and help to steer the company in the right direction. Meanwhile, you can get on with what you do best. This 3-minute video explains the part-time CFO/FD model in a little more detail.
Now, if you’re like many SMBs, you probably don’t have the resources or the need to employ a full-time CFO. So what can you do? You can try to manage the entire process on your own. Or, you can make it easy on yourself and your management team by hiring a part-time CFO to manage the entire process for you.
The CFO Center will provide you with a world-class CFO with ‘big business experience’ for a fraction of the cost of a full-time CFO. It’s the business equivalent of having an Olympic coach to help your business thrive.
To get started, just book your free one-to-one call with one of our business planning experts today—just click here now.
