The first term for business plan is your overall attitude toward planning. A timid company approaches the planning process differently from an arrogant company. A conservative company produces a plan far different from an aggressive company that doesn’t believe in planning in the first place. Timidity and arrogance are the two ends of the continuum for failure, each with a different story that ultimately fails. Then, is the time consideration of your business plan. A story stretching out over ten years is significantly different from one that reaches out only twelve months. Your story will be enhanced if it covers a longer period of time. This makes it more believable. The resulting plan will appear more logical if your time frames are realistically matched to the grand scheme of your vision. This match creates congruence in your story.
The third term for business plan is the guidance you receive from higher headquarters, corporate headquarters, or those in a position to approve or reject your plan. It does little good to build a plan if it falls outside the box of your board of directors’ guidance. Better to know the expectations of those who control your destiny before putting efforts into an extensive planning process. Better to know that your story fits the profile of their story before you strengthen a culture and then have to change it. Your business plan has high potential for failure if you neglect to consider the issue of guidance. Then, the basic assumptions you make for your planning. What guesses are you making about the future? Assumptions are those things you believe to be true that affect your plan if changed over time. The more accurate your assumptions, the more definitive your plans become. Your plan fails if your assumptions are grossly off the mark. The validity of your story is also questionable if your assumptions don’t make sense. This creates a problem of congruence, authenticity, and believability.