Going From Vision to Venture

You have a plan.  You have set your goals and objec­tives.  Do you know how to imple­ment that plan?  Your busi­ness should have a writ­ten busi­ness plan that helps to explain what it is you are doing, why you are doing it, what you want to do in the future, and what your long term pur­pose it.  And a good busi­ness plan will also lay out your goals and objec­tives with some gen­er­al­ized ideas as to how you are going to imple­ment your plan.  What does your plan tell you?  What do you need to do to start work­ing toward your goals and objectives?

Are you work­ing with a busi­ness coach to improve your account­abil­ity for reach­ing your goals and objec­tives?  A good coach will help you to be account­able by ask­ing you to share your plans, develop a timetable with pri­or­i­ties, and then report on them when you meet.  But in real­ity, the coach wants results that only you can pro­vide.  It is up to you to lis­ten and work with the coach on your goals and objec­tives.  You are the one who will need to be proac­tive.  When all the goals and objec­tives are laid on the table, it is time for you to take the steps — start to imple­ment what you say you are going to do.

But what if you know what you want to do and just don’t know how to do it?  This is often a prob­lem with busi­ness professionals.  If you have stalled then there could be a num­ber of rea­sons for why you are stalling.  Your busi­ness plan usu­ally doesn’t spell out every lit­tle thing you need to do in small, easy to under­stand steps.  But at some point, you should deter­mine smaller steps in an action plan.  If it isn’t time to start that activ­ity, then you can shelf it until the appro­pri­ate time.  You might need to imple­ment other action items before that activity. 

You might have a great atti­tude about doing some­thing yet is there some­thing else hold­ing you back?  Maybe you are not really clear about what it is you want to accom­plish.  You think you know what it is, but you are not quite sure.  Your busi­ness vision is not as devel­oped as you think it is.  Maybe you don’t have the expe­ri­ence or know-how to do what it is you want to do. 

Inex­pe­ri­ence and lack of know-how are com­mon with busi­ness own­ers who know how to make a wid­get or pro­vide a ser­vice, but do not have expe­ri­ence or knowl­edge in sales and mar­ket­ing, man­age­ment, oper­a­tions, book­keep­ing, or other impor­tant areas of run­ning a busi­ness.  The prob­lem might be that you are not fully clear about how you will do what it is you want to do.  You have to become clear about your next step!  Do you need to take train­ing or get a men­tor to help you learn how to do what it is you want to do?  Or, will you need to hire some­one with the right skills to assist with that area that you need help with? 

What if you have done your strate­gic plan­ning and risk assess­ment and are imple­ment­ing your plan but you don’t feel you are reach­ing the next level like you planned?  You are being account­able and doing what you say you are going to do.  You are just not reach­ing that next step!

There is a point where your busi­ness might ben­e­fit more by work­ing with a con­sul­tant spe­cial­iz­ing in strate­gic plan­ning, busi­ness man­age­ment, or that spe­cific area that relates to what you are try­ing to do.  In some cases, contracting a busi­ness con­sul­tant to help you with imple­ment­ing a project, mentoring you on how to imple­ment your plan, work­ing on increas­ing the clar­ity for your vision, or assist­ing you with ideas for reach­ing your goals can be more cost effec­tive and pro­duc­tive than imme­di­ately hir­ing an expe­ri­enced employee.  Or if you have employ­ees, you can con­tract with a man­age­ment con­sul­tant to pro­vide man­age­ment train­ing to bring your staff onboard with your plan, to help facil­i­tate meet­ings that reach higher lev­els of coop­er­a­tion and account­abil­ity, or to pro­vide objec­tive views on increas­ing effec­tive­ness and productivity.

Con­sider what is that is hold­ing you back from mov­ing up to that next step.  Could you ben­e­fit by get­ting an objec­tive opin­ion in a con­fi­den­tial agree­ment about your plan and actions?  Do you need help eval­u­at­ing your results and learn­ing about what indi­ca­tors to look for to bet­ter under­stand if you are on track with your goals or off course?  Do you need train­ing?  What do you need to do to get up those stairs?