What is Most Important In a Plan

Chapter 2: Pick Your Plan - Page 2.2

What's Most Important in a Plan?

It depends on the case, but usually what's most important is the cash flow analysis and specific implementation details.

Cash flow is important because it is both vital to a company and hard to follow. Cash is usually misidentified as profits. They are, however, very different. Profits don't guarantee cash in the bank. Lots of profitable companies go under because of insufficient cash, due, for example, to having to wait for customers for pay invoices. It just isn't intuitive.

Implementation details are important because that's what makes things happen. Your brilliant strategies and beautifully formatted planning documents are just theory unless you assign responsibilities, with dates and budgets, and lots of following up and tracking of results. Business plans are really about getting results, and improving your company.

Are There Standard Steps to Completion?

I don't recommend developing the plan in the same order you present it as a finished document. For example, although the Executive Summary comes as the first section of a business plan, I recommend writing it after everything else is done. It will appear first, but you write it last.

This book, therefore, discusses the business plan in the recommended order you develop a plan, rather than the order of the document outline.

Is There a Standard Business Plan Outline?

No, there isn't. Every plan should be tailored to your needs. Don't include anything that doesn't help you do your business better. The purpose isn't the document; it's the results of the document.

However, if and when you have a specific audience for a business plan, you should recognize what's standard in that audience's mind. Certainly banks, investors, academics, and seasoned business people have expectations that a business plan should meet.

The business plan outline on the next several pages explains in detail where the different tables and topics fall in a standard outline and where you can find the related discussions in this book.

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