Business planning – You need people

This is the most compelling case ever for preparing a Business Plan.  At some point in the evolution of your business, your success will mean that you are standing alone holding a tiger by the tail.  You need help (that is nowhere to be found) but if you let go you are screwed.  You pray for a person with a solution.

By definition, your business will become bigger than you.  It’s only a matter of when.  As much as you wanted to do your own thing, by yourself, in your own time, without annoyance from anyone, you actually kissed off that plan the day you started being good at what you do and giving some half decent service to your customers.

People tell other people and before you know it, a trickle of business becomes a torrent and suddenly you can’t cope alone with the increased demand. So much for your vision of being a business hermit!

Of course, there are two sure fire ways you can kill off your business from here.  Firstly, you can start turning good paying customers away so that you keep your business at a level you can handle.  That will quickly poison the well, because bad news always travels faster than good news, and there is no news worse than rejection.

Secondly, you can hire the wrong people to help – desperation hiring!  This accounts for a lot of business failure just when things were looking up.  Why?  You will be frantically busy and have a problem to solve.  So there is a huge temptation to hire someone who is available and can start Monday, rather than someone who fits the ‘skill’ bill and is good at what they do.

You can change this dynamic by making your business so attractive that all the good people want to work there.  Create your business plan and put the highlights on your website (newly created) ‘Careers’ page.  It is the first step in becoming a magnet for good employees.  And you thought marketing was only about attracting customers!

Until next time!

Gary