Why Business Plans Usually Do Nothing for our Business

When I was new to the world of business, I attended a workshop that focused on planning as the answer to what ails you in business.

The leader encouraged us to decide what we’d do in the next 3 months. For instance, next month might be “set up a JV with Janet.” Then there’d be “Hold a Webinar on Latest Trend.”

Like many of my fellow workshop participants, I dutifully filled out the form. For one thing, we had peer pressure: who wanted to say, “I haven’t a clue what I want to do next week, let alone three months from now.”

When I stayed in touch with these participants after the workshop, I realized that most of us had just wasted our time. We had created a fantasy — not a realistic, results-oriented action plan.

The truth? Many of us decided “plan” was just another 4-letter word and we’d remove it from our vocabularies.

We were wrong. Why?

We didn’t have a clear vision of what the outcome would be. We hadn’t told stories about our plans. We just had numbers on paper.

Writing scenarios instead of plans would have gotten us much farther along. Scenario planning has been part of organizations. It’s been part of the military.

With scenarios, you use your left brain along with your right. You think about how a plan *feels* to carry out. You’ll know right away, “Will I really do this?” And “Have I accounted for all the variables?”

I’ve got a low-cost planning workbook that can get you started on planning with stories. Click here to learn more.

I’m Cathy Goodwin, a copywriter, strategist and storyteller. Visit my website at https://cathygoodwin.com