Don’t write a business plan; rather create a “game plan.” To really make it work, you must do more than change the name. You need to understand the difference. A business plan is something that a company would give the bank to get a loan, or what a company may use to determine the financials. A game plan is something that tells a leader or a professional the what, the how, the when and the why of achieving particular goals. A game plan is all about taking control of the business and ensuring that others will not affect the business negatively.
Step 1. Write it Down. The first step in creating the game plan is simple, and yet it is what most people reading this will never get to doing-write it down. If your game plan is in your head you don’t have a plan. You have a thought. Nice, but useless. Thoughts have no business value until you write them down. Writing a game plan does three things for us; creates thought process, creates confidence and creates action-results.
Step 2. Stop and Think. When you create a game plan you are forced to look at your desired results and stop to really focus on what activities are required to achieve your set goals. Just the focus and thought it takes to create a real game plan is beneficial and helpful. It creates an environment to review what has worked, what hasn’t, what is working for others, and so forth. In addition, when you create a game plan, you become more confident and therefore become more motivated to take action. A real workable game plan is more than a nice three ring binder that a person looks at once a year and puts on the book shelf for the next 11 months to collect dust.
Step 3. Be Logical. When you create your game plan, the plan should not be a dream that no one could achieve, however, it should be a stretch from the norm. Many business consultants and leaders will tell you to make a plan realistic, and that is a sure fire way to limit one’s success. Realistic is not a good metric to measure by because it is limited by the past and provides excuses. The activity and goals need to be logical not realistic. Logic takes out lack of human discipline and desire. A game plan should force a person or team to always believe they can be number 1. Logical says, “Someone has to be number 1, why not me?” Stop being realistic–start being logical and don’t let your past limit your future; let your present create a momentous future!
