I love New Year’s Day. On this day almost anything seems possible. Closing the books on 2011, it is time to plan for the year ahead.  And just like every year for the last ten years, I am putting the finishing touches on my business plan. While not as formal as the plans I wrote in the early years of the business, I still spent time reviewing goals and tactics. I focused on mapping out some of the big changes we need to make in the months to come if we want to hit our year-end sales goals.

As I reviewed my plan I spent some time researching what other business consultants were suggesting.  Here are a few of the more interesting things I found:

• Crowdspring shared a new twist on the 3R’s.  The author shared his thoughts on research, refinement and writing (well, it is an R if you spell it phonetically).  He suggests that your plan is a living document you should return to over and over again throughout the year. The form itself is not so important, but the continuous process of refining your plan will help create a stronger, more sustainable business.
• Tim Berry suggests five questions you should ask in your business plan.  I liked his approach, again less formal, but certainly thought provoking:
• Is my price right?
• Can I afford to hire?
• Am I implementing my strategy?
• Can I afford to relocate?
• Am I stunting my growth?
• The Myth of the Business Plan – Kate Lister suggests that companies need to business plan (verb) but they don’t necessarily need a business plan ( noun).  Her emphasis, like many of the other authors I have been reading is focused on the act of planning, without worrying about the final format of the document.

In the early days of my business I used this small business plan outline.  It served me well, laying a foundation I could build on each year. But after 10 years, I am opting for a much more informal process. Just a handful of strategies and key metrics everyone on my team can see every day. There are few secrets at Roundpeg.  Maybe that is my biggest suggestion for the year to come. No matter what form your business plan takes, be sure to share your goals with the people who can help you achieve them and hold you accountable to stay on track.

When you set up on a long trip to an unfamiliar location, you need a map. The same is true for your business.  Discover the most common mistakes business owners make as the develop their business plan, and how to avoid them

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I’ve had a real job for about 18 months, but I’ve never taken a real vacation. Sure, I had a couple days at Christmas and a few days for some minor surgery, but nothing lasting even a week. Until June 6, when I took two weeks off.

For many people, taking two weeks away from their job is unthinkable. For someone at a small business, it’s even harder. I asked Lorraine for permission a year ago to take my dream trip to Egypt, a belated graduation gift. I wouldn’t just be out of the office–I would in all likelihood be without Internet access at all, and certainly without phone access. It was a daunting prospect for me, and probably an even bigger one for my boss. But we all survived. How can you take a vacation without causing office chaos?

Small Business Owners Can Take Vacations

• Plan Early: As I mentioned, I gave Lorraine a year’s notice. That might be a little extreme, but the more notice you can give everyone, the better. It gave everyone time to get used to the idea that a member of the team would be out of action, and let us plan accordingly.
• Make It Manageable: I started working on materials for my absence about two months before I actually left. How is this possible? I knew what my baseline work was, what was owed to retainer clients, and what I could plan for. So every week, I wrote an extra blog post or two to hold in reserve, saved a few more tweets to be scheduled. That way, I wasn’t scrambling in the week before I left to finish two weeks of work.
• Get People in Place: I know that I can always count on Lorraine, Jay, Rebecca, and the rest of the Roundpeg team, but when it came to choosing my intern this summer, I knew that who I chose would be extra important, as she’d be helping with tasks that arose while I was out. So I took my time, and made sure that I found a quality candidate in Melissa. She did a great job.
• Let Clients Know: For about a month before I left, I started planting the seeds with my clients that I would be gone. A week before, I sent them an email explaining my absence and telling them the best person to contact with their concerns while I was gone. This way, there were no nasty surprises when a client realized I was gone, and the transition was smooth for them.
• Let Go: We all like to think that we’re irreplaceable, that our workplaces couldn’t function without us for a week or two. Guess what? They can. Sure, they’ll miss you, but with the proper planning and preparation, you can go on an incommunicado vacation knowing that things will chug along without you–and not return to a terrible pile of work on your return.

How do you plan for your vacations?

Starting a business is exciting.

There is so much to be done.  Planning, building a revenue model, creating a budget, and developing branding are all important parts of starting a business, right?

According to Eric Tobias, founder of iGoDigital those things are a waste of time in the very early stages. Speaking to a packed house at Verge the other night, he said it is easy for entrepreneurs to get distracted by those elements before the know if they have a product anyone will want.   His advice was simple:

1. Build a prototype
2. Go get a customer
3. Don’t do anything that does’t involve #1 or #2

This was hard for me to agree with because I write business plans for living and teach small business owners how to do it themselves.  The more he spoke, the move convinced I am that he is right.   All the spread sheets in the world, with fabulous hockey stick shaped projections are meaningless if no one will buy the product.  I am not giving up on my belief that business owners should have a plan, I just think they should have a product first.

Are we, marketing firms really different then other small businesses?   That was a question I wondered about when I saw a question from Darren Dahl, a writer for Inc. Magazine.  He was working on an article about business planning for specifically for our industry, and was looking for input.

From my perspective, the suggestions, tips and strategies I sent him, weren’t really that different from what I would say to any small business owner.  They were included in a terrific piece, which included comments from owners of agencies like Roundpeg around the country.  I think the suggestions have great application for any small business owner.   Here are just a few:

• Define your audience – your plan will have a different focus if you hope to use it to raise capital or run your business
• Build a team - A marketing firm’s No. 1 asset is its staff   I know this is true.  Roundpeg is a very different company today then it was a year ago. While I have made some changes, the biggest changes were in my staff.  I know I am lucky to have Jay, Allison, Rebecca, Taylor and Sharayah, and I tell them often.
• Map out the opportunities – Define your market – Everyone is not your customer.   We say this to our customers on a regular basis, it is a good reminder for us as well.
• Know your competition – Every company has some!
• Know the numbers – This one is easy for me, I actually like numbers.. but that is not always the case for marketing firms, or business owners in general.  My advice?  Don’t avoid them. If you don’t want to spend the time, hire someone who will!

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Want to know more about business planning or need a place to get started?  Download our business plan outline, and we will enroll you in our free:   How to write a business plan in ten weeks program.

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Recently, I attended the Business Marketing Association’s February event. The speaker  was John Luginbill of The Heavyweights, who discussed increasing your company’s value. One of the lessons I took away from his presentation was that all of us-CEOs, managers, and even entry-level employees-own our own company.

The real lesson is that we all have a personal brand, and it’s up to us to decide how much that brand is worth. Every time we learn a new skill, acquire knowledge, or exceed expectations, we add value to our brand. At the same time, just like with multinational companies, a personal brand can be destroyed in a matter of moments.

What is your personal brand? How is that brand viewed by others? Most importantly, how much is your own personal brand worth? As an informal study, I asked my Twitter followers for their feedback on what the “Jay Mattingly” brand represents. My responses ranged from charismatic and energetic, to friendly, to my personal favorite “Master of B.S.” Asking people I know how they view me gave me some great insight into which traits I need to hone and work on in order to continue to increase the value of my personal brand.

It is never too early to start cultivating your personal brand identity. Unfortunately, for many of us in the early stages of our career, we may not be sure how we want to define our brand. The good news – brands, both company and, evolve over time.

What’s your perspective on maintaining a personal brand? And what have you done recently to add value to your “company?”

I like strong visuals, but sometimes I think the wrong picture simple adds to the confusion.   The image below is one such example.  I found it in a post on the Church of the Customer Blog.  While I typically enjoy their blog and agree with many of their suggestions, I think this one is way off target.

The graphic below is supposed to be a simple, one page snapshot of a strategic plan. It is pretty to look at, but impractical to create. I like the organization but I think I would spend more time trying to create the visual then working on the plan.  What do you think?

Don’t get me wrong, I think small business owners need a business plan.  And I agree with the authors, it doesn’t have to be a formal bound document. It can be a simple one page summary of objectives, goals, strategies and tactics.   I just think it should be easy to create and update, and I think this would be neither.

On the last working day of the 2010 year, the entire Roundpeg crew took time out to  discuss where we’ve been, where we are, and where we’re going. The company has grown over the past year, and we have several  exciting projects planned for 2011.

The end of year meeting was a time when we could all set company and personal goals, and challenge each other to grow and learn.  Quite often, it’s easy to get so overwhelmed with work you forget to step back and analyze the bigger picture. Are you still on the path to where you want to be? If not, what changes to you need to make?

Personally, I’m looking forward to teaching more seminars like Forget Henry Ford in the next twelve months. I’m also excited to work with our clients on more strategic, big picture projects.

2011 should be an even better year here than 2010. What would you like to achieve in the next twelve months, and how do you plan to get there?

As each year winds down, I pull out my business plan and compare what I thought would happen, with what actually did happen.  The process is painful, fun, enlightening,  and motivating.  I take some time to figure out why I achieved or missed a particular goal, then I decide what is possible,  create new goals and start working toward them.

Why?   Because goals make a difference!  You have probably heard about the study of Harvard MBA students in 1979

They were asked if they had clear, written goals for your future and  plans to accomplish them?“ Only three percent of the graduates had written goals and plans; 13 percent had goals, but they were not in writing; and a whopping 84 percent had no specific goals at all.

Ten years later, the 13 percent of the class who had goals were earning, on average, twice as much as the 84 percent who had no goals at all. And  three percent who had clear, written goals were earning, on average, ten times as much as the other 97 percent put together.

So if goals are so important, why don’t more people take the time to set them, and work toward them?  Author Brian Trace identified four reasons why people don’t set goals:

• They don’t realize the importance of goals
• They don’t know how to set goals
• They fear failure
• They fear rejection

So what is holding  you back?  Do you have your plan for 2011?  It is time to get one!

1. Start small, take out a few sheets of paper and write down one goal
2. Next write down the barriers to accomplishing the goal
3. Take some time working on a plan to address each barrier.  This is the beginning of your action plan.

It is great to have goals, but it is the action plans which  move you forward.