Planning is a key element to running a successful business. To get where you want to go, you’ll need a business plan. Use the previous 4 exercises to help you write your plan.

Most businesses don’t have any kind of plan. So, start with a simple plan that pinpoints what you want to achieve. Here’s an example:

1. In five years’ time, I want the business to be worth £5 million
2. To achieve this, it must make annual profits of at least £1.5 million
3. To achieve this, it must have sales of £10 million
4. I need to increase my sales by, on average, £1 million a year
5. To do this, I will need to:
   1. Increase my customer base by 15%
   2. Increase the number of times my customers buy from me by 20%
   3. Raise prices by 10%

Having developed a basic plan, it’s time to identify the constraints you think may get in the way of successful implementation. Consider the following:

1. Inside the business, what are the principal constraints on our growth? Some possibilities:

• Lack of capital (financing)
• Lack of credit from suppliers
• Too many customers owing you money
• Underperforming owners/attitude issues
• Underperforming staff/attitude issues
• Internal conflicts
• Lack of direction
• Outdated technology
• Lack of marketing
• Missing skills
• Retirement and succession issues
• Undesirable customers
• Excessive payroll
• High occupancy costs

2. Outside the business, what are the principal constraints on our growth?

• The economy
• Regulations
• Competition
• Demographics
• Energy prices
• Shipping costs

What you should find is that you can’t do much about the outside constraints but you can do a lot about internal constraints.