Business planning

Starting up a business can change the life of the entrepreneur in many ways. In some cases this is even one of the key motivators. Therefore it seems preferable that all efforts should aim to make these changes positive. Without a plan, it is unlikely this will happen consistently on the positive side.

Ideally, your new venture should bring greater personal satisfaction supported by financial, emotional and creative rewards. Compared with the majority of business start-ups, what makes the creative entrepreneur’s journey somewhat unique is the weight placed on these last two expectations.

Typically a business plan is seen as a financially focused document, proving the case to invest money to make money. While to a degree, this is also true of a creative entrepreneur’s business plan. It is important to recognise early the specific nuance of a ‘creative lead’ enterprise, because it will effect almost everything you encounter.

The reason is that business practices in general do not readily accommodate or understand the abstract returns on investment that design delivers, unless a convincing case for financial return is made. Similarly many in the creative community are wary of the seemingly mandatory aspects of business planning, fearing it may restrict the necessary volatility of the inventive process.

There is almost no way of avoiding this dichotomy. ‘Creative led’ enterprises need what the conventional business world has, and vice versa. The creative entrepreneur must learn to package ideas in a way that makes them ‘attractive’ (financial return) and most importantly ‘reasonable’ (viable, demonstrated by convincing assumptions). There is nothing more fearful to a banker than a wild idea without constraint, regardless of how brilliant.

Writing a ‘creative lead’ business plan is quite simple by elaborating on four key attributes;

– Build the case of reason, (the science: market size, volume, value, need);
– For the idea (the art);
– By describing the course to be taken (the business: operations, marketing, distribution);
– That will accomplish the objective (the reward: ‘a better world’, return on investment, business sale).

This model naturally includes a financial component, but most importantly it has the ‘idea’ firmly and centrally placed. It differs to conventional business planning models that may focus more critically on financial aspects. Even though the overriding purpose of all business plans is essentially the same.

The process should be treated with care, patience and self honesty. There is only one person who can write the business plan and that’s you. Don’t be deceived and think that lack of business knowledge is a reason to pass the planning on to someone else. There are many business plan resources on the internet to sufficiently fill the knowledge gap.

The form of a business plan is less critical than a well-articulated idea and the process of writing it. Look at it as your own induction – an opportunity to apply form to the idea and lean quantitative assumptions against it to see how it holds up.

Take time, ponder, visualise, and accumulate the facts to substantiate. In some instances a year would not be a long enough time to consider your plan, but certainly you should take more than a month. Those life changes depend on it.

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