2019 is right around the corner, which makes today the perfect time to think about your business goals and where you want to be one year from now. As year-end wraps up, you will soon know your financial numbers for 2018. You will then be able to evaluate how you did and map out a new plan for 2019.
If you are like many small business owners, you may have started your business without a business plan. Most businesses do not need a long 20-page document that will just gather dust on a shelf. However, you might want to consider putting together a short, 1- to 2-page concise document that includes the basic components of a typical business plan: mission, vision, strategies, and objectives.
A mission statement describes what the company is in business to accomplish. While you could simply state a mission similar to “Our mission is to sell our products and services,” you may want to think bigger than that in terms of how you want to be known or to impact more than your customers. Team One Accounting’s mission statement is “We deliver ethical based connected accounting solutions to enable small and medium business’s to pursue their passion that will make a difference and provide peace of mind.”
A vision statement describes your company’s future position. A vision statement is what you aspire to be. It could again be, “Our vision is to sell more products and services than any other business.” Or it could be more inspiring and uplifting.
Your business strategies support how you will get from where you are to where you want to be, listed in your mission and vision statements. While there may be many ways to accomplish your mission and vision, strategies are the approaches you will take to get there.
Goals are measurable destinations with a timeline that are created from your strategies. Objectives finally get down to the nitty gritty and state the tactics and action plans you need to execute to put all of this work into play.
Each of these items can be written out on a few lines, taking up all together no more than a few pages. The benefits of having a concise business plan are many: if you think of an idea you want to do, you can check the plan to make sure your idea falls under your vision, mission, and strategies that you have laid out for the year. If it does not, then you will know that your idea would take you off track from your plan, and you know how easy that can happen these days with all of the distractions and options available to us.
You may want to add additional sections to your plan depending on your strategies. If you plan to launch a new product or execute new marketing strategies, you might want to add a Market Summary section. If you seek new funding, you might want to have a section on funding options. With business planning, it makes sense to do what is relevant, and nothing more or less.
We wish you the very best in 2019! If you need help with the financial portion of your business planning, please reach out to Team One Accounting.
