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What I am about to tell you is shocking, ground-breaking and is done only by the most successful business owners in the world.

You need a business plan!

Shocking? Ground-breaking?

Yes!

Because most people starting a business:

1. Don’t have a business plan
2. Don’t have a well thought out business plan, or
3. Don’t have a compelling business plan

A colleague of mine just told me of a client who brought him a “business plan” that had a rough design for brochures and the idea that they would “talk to a bunch of people“.

Huh?!

In my experience as a business coach, good business plans come from the head. They have:

• Strategies for how to get things done
• Structure for how things will fit together
• Systems to guide people and things where and how they are supposed to go
• Style or culture considerations so people know “how” to act and outline important relationship principles
• Skills that will be necessary to work with the systems
• Staffing considerations that are well thought out

Planning from the head is critical to the success of any business start up. But most new business owners miss an important piece, a key piece, in helping assure their success.

They don’t think about the heart.

Planning from the heart means you consider why you are starting a business.

• Is it what you love?
• Is it going to help some one or some group?
• Is it something that will help the community?
• Is it something that will help the  planet?
• Is it something that you’ve wanted all your life?

What is the emotional reason for starting your business? This is where the passion will come from. This is what will keep you going when it get’s tough. This is what will want others to “enlist’ in your mission.

A business plan must come from two places, the head and the heart.

If it only comes from the head it could very well be uinspiring and die from lack of enthusiasm.

If it only comes from the heart it may lack the strategies, structure and systems to be able to walk, much less run.

Your business plan should start in your heart and then be fleshed out in your head. Having both of these will increase the chances that you will be successful, make more money and be more satisfied and happy!