One of the best ways to ensure your business plan is used and not gathering dust is to have your copy on your desk at all times. Don’t print it in color. Don’t bind it. Don’t make it look nice. Add margin space and leave some half blank pages throughout. Tag each section with post-it to ensure you can find it quickly.
Many business plans are viewed as finished documents because they are put into “presentation format” when they are initially produced. This is great for taking to the bank manager but it is not so useful within your business. By leaving it in a non-perfect form, with spaces for handwritten notes and ideas, you will break the mental pattern that sees your plan as being complete. Instead, view your business plan as an eterna work in progress. It will not be complete until your business is. As your business will always be changing and growing, so too will your business plan.
Whenever you are considering a change of direction or a new opportunity, pick up that tattered, dog-eared document and flick through – how does this new opportunity fit with our objectives? What threats or competitor activity have we previously identified that we need to consider? Does this open up a whole new game book that requires additional research?
Highlight the answers in your document. Write any unanswered questions in the margins. Find the answers and scribble them onto your half-blank pages.
In the course of everyday business, make notes on your business plan, highlight sections and cross out information that is no longer relevant. Every now and again, update it and print out a new copy. Then use it and abuse it as much as you did the last copy. It will be of a lot more use to you than the beautifully bound “presentation model” that you took to the bank manager.