Business Planning: What horses know that cowboys don't.

I love working with entrepreneurs and start ups for one reason. It is a time of absolute freedom and possibility. Like a horse running free, we stretch our imagination on the open road of what's next. It is exhilarating, exciting, terrifying and rewarding.

When we start a business, we first tend to focus on the product or service that we think we should be delivering. Our focus is on how to make money.  So we put our energy into getting the product into the market and find customers who want to buy it or use the service we are offering.

At the end of the day, that exercise of developing the menu of products, services and prices does not a business make.

The business is made by the way it is constructed - with the vision of a defined future in mind.

I always say that a business should be built in its desired state from the beginning. For example, if you envision centre of well being and wellness, then the business plan must be about what would sustain that centre in its envisioned state as opposed the "here and now".

It needs to tell the story in a progressive and logical manner that begins at the end with the vision, expresses the day to day focus (the mission), the way the participants interact and act (values) and how it stands out in the market place (strategic positioning).

The plan must explain the environment in which the business functions so that risks and opportunities can be identified.  The plan must have goals that focus on the areas that will make the business successful - like its people and culture, focus on clients, business management and financial sustainability. Within each goal, measures are set, risks are identified, objectives are set and strategies formulated.

Plans are road maps that chart the future course and help you to control and manage your money and your message, and inspire your staff, your customers, your suppliers and maybe even your mother.

Some people say the plan is in their head. To that I say, that's great if you don't need anyone else to work it with you.

Others try to run their business cowboy style and hope for the best with no vision, strategy or structure.  That's a bad idea. Failure is imminent because customers, suppliers and employees will revolt, your time and money will begin to work against you, your quality and product will suffer, and then the bottom line crashes.

So before you get on that horse and ride, remember that starting at the end is the only way to begin in order to create a business that has a chance of being successful.

Time travelling on open roads and stubble.

I like open roads, blue skies, the smell of dirt, the feeling of my boots sinking in the dirt after a rain, the smell of a fresh green growth and the crunch of stubble in the fall. 

I have a penchant for white steeples against the blue sky and the sight of an open field takes my breath away every time.  

My inspiration for the endless sky comes from the rural playgrounds of Saskatchewan. From this place called West Bend, Saskatchewan where I spent my summers as a child with my grandparents, my parents and my brother and sister, I learned to think big.

I remember running through the fields of wheat at harvest, chasing chickens, gathering eggs and playing ship on an old hay wagon that sat in the middle of our farm yard. 

To this day, I can't pick up an egg without remembering my grandmother's directions: "slide your hand under the chicken, palm up, then gently turn your hand and take the egg".  

Sadly, some of us never get to see these places as more people have moved into the cities over the years. West Bend, once a bustling town is now very small in population. Nevertheless, these towns and villages are the patchwork of our history that was borne out of hardship, horizons and freedom.

This hankering for freedom has been with me as long as I can remember, which I why I was never very good at jobs that confined me to a desk or a single activity. My work has been about helping business owners, entrepreneurs, founders, corporations and non-profits reach out and touch the future, and write about it so that others could see it too. 

That's why I do strategy. It's all about not only seeing the horizon, but reaching out and touching it. It's about bringing people together to make things happen. It's about asking why, and how. It's about seeing the big picture and making connections and adding new dimensions.  

I would love to plan in an open field.

I do bring the open sky into my planning.  I take my planners into a journey of tomorrow, today.  We stand in the future, and speak about it in the present tense. But we are not dreaming. We are stretching and we are realistic. We talk about the good, the bad and the ugly. The things that work. The things that don't. The things that will be, and what we need to do to make that happen. 

Not only is it an exciting way to move forward, it is the only way to move forward.

My next adventure is to explore the world of community based planning and economic development to work with cities, towns and community based businesses  to find their new horizons.

Gone are the days of secret strategy sessions and closed door meetings.  These days, people are engaged in the decisions that our elected officials and business leaders make.  We want to understand how they got there, why, who was consulted, what they thought and why, what were the options, what was chosen and why.

This is apparent in the stadium announcement at Saturday's Saskatchewan Roughrider Game where we heard we will have a new stadium in Regina by 2017.  Of course we cheered. We love the Saskatchewan Roughriders and we love to watch them play. In fact, most of Canada loves them, so share the love. But getting there was tough slugging. I think our politicians and bureaucrats heard the message loud and clear.

But community based planning is not just for the stadiums and football teams. Community based planning is about creating viable futures that are socially, environmentally and economically responsible and sound.

Strategy is a conversation to be had with the people who have a stake in the future, so it's not meant to hide in a board room. Nor is the point to produce a document that never sees the light of day.

This is about inspiration. Engagement. Possibility. Performance. Alignment. Clarity.  Strategy is an exciting conversation for real people, who really care about the future, and who want to be part of making it happen.  

I am so lucky.  I get to help make those conversations happen. There is nothing like seeing the light of possibility shine when we open our eyes to it and dare to time travel over the open roads and stubble into tomorrow. 

Do you have vision, or a craving for cheese cake?

There are times when I actually see a flash of brilliance in an entrepreneur's vision that goes beyond mere money and material growth to making the world a better place. When this happens, I know exactly why I love helping bring great ideas to life.  






I get excited about vision because quite often it is desire that shows up to the meeting.  So how do you know if you have a desire, or a vision?  Here are some indicators. 


Vision perseveres.
Desire cuts in and out, like a love / hate relationship with chocolate and cheesecake. 
Vision finds a way. 
Desire wants to know the way. 
Vision is the inspiration from which everything flows. 
Desire needs to be justified, manufactured, defined and aligned. 
Vision is about making a difference in the world. 

Desire is often defined as something material, earthly and in some way individually cathartic. 

In the past 20 years of working with organizations who are either in search of the light, defining the light or following the light, I have found that good thinkers, good thinking and good intentions almost always leads to great visions. 


Leadership is about having vision, and visionaries are not necessarily the promoted. It is also not true that all leaders via position on the org chart are leaders. Organizational performance structures and top - down leadership styles tends to exclude real visionaries from coming forward. Top down hierarchical structures can foster an environment of control. Control leads back to desire, and desire wants what desire wants, hence we begin to feel a sense of entitlement. And so the story goes. Companies inject employee satisfaction tactics when all they really need to do is lead and inspire with vision. 


'Finding visionaries is not that easy.  But when I do come face to face with a true visionary who has a desire to make a difference in people's lives, that's the sweet spot where the sun shines the brightest. When I have experienced this, I know that I have seen a rare light, and everything else thereafter dims in comparison.


Mama always told me not to look into the eye's of the sun.

But mama, that's where the fun is.

 - Manfred Mann's Earth Band. 

Thumper's Rule for On-Line Etiquette

When I am researching a topic, or helping a client with a communication plan, I often research the on-line chatter to discern what the issues might be that are not often communicated in formal communications, like news releases. Reading some of these comments can be akin to watching a train wreck.

These days, there are thousands of ways to get an opinion out there in the blink of an eye. I am often taken aback by what people will say without understanding the impact their words might be having.

Expletives are not the worst of it. I have read comments that people should be fired or publicly humilated in some way.  The comments that make me wince are those that demand we end a person's life, or assume people are lazy and deserving of suffering.

In the world wide web of never ending access to information and communication, it is important to remember that what we say on-line lives on forever, and chances are, the commenter does not have the full picture at hand to make an intelligent, helpful comment.

Regardless of the fact that we may be interacting with the world in a room by ourselves with a computer and keyboard or a 1 x 2 square inch screen on a smart phone, it is important to remember that we are all connected as people and what we say may be personal and hurtful to someone. I wonder if the people who leave these comments would say the same thing if the person they were affecting was sitting in front of them.

There is a rule of thumb in communication that I learned when I was about five years old.  It precedes the Internet and it goes like this:

"If you can't say something nice, don't say nothin' at all".  - Thumper

Virtues of a rock and a rolling stone

Ponder the virtues of a rock. It is an inanimate, non living thing that seems to just sit there. Not so, says the rock. Rocks erode, crack, crumble and wash away. They become mountains, and then filter streams. Rocks are the sands upon which we walk. Rock causes quakes. They destroy and they protect. There is no such thing as a good rock or a bad rock; a rock does not decide. It just is. And we accept that and respect its power.

People are made of flesh, bones, hearts and souls. Our existence is both fragile and powerful. Unlike the rock, we can take some control over our change. We can decide what we want to change to and from. We can decide what we want to accept or not. We can decide what to put into our mouths. When to exercise. What to read. What to think. Who to like and who to ignore. We have the power to walk away from a bad situation, and the power to stay.

People have the power to alter another person by the things that are said and done, and we each have the power to choose how it affects us. The only thing we cannot control is time and the fact that every day we get older. But we are powerful, more powerful than the rock.

The thing about people, however, is that we seem to lack knowledge of ourselves. We all know someone with untapped potential. We all know that we ourselves feel that way. Unlike the rock, we are capable of feeling fear. Some philosophers refer to this as ego. As mere mortals, we are flawed, imperfect and fraught with the free will, such that we can create havoc or heaven for our self and others.

I like to think that most people aspire to be good people who act with the best intentions. I like to believe that we are all in this together. But sometimes things happen that can weaken us and test our resolve. That's when we demonstrate our the virtue of a rock.

I ain't no template girl.

The other day, somebody asked me for a planning template, to which I replied, no thank you.

The truth is, planning templates are available literally at your finger tips.  So fill your boots, I say, because there are thousands of them at your disposal on the world wide web.

But here's what the template experience looks like, in case you are wondering.

You sit down to your computer, cat at your side and best intentions.  You download the template and you begin.

The introduction tells you all about the benefits of the business plan - creating a clear path for the future, mapping out goals, objectives and targets and a sprinkle of initiatives, topped off by a healthy and satisfying budget.

The first section asks for your vision.  You stare at it, your fingers grazing the keyboard, in search of a thought. Something grandiose.  A cause worth fighting for. Something that will get you out of bed in the morning. Something in the neighborhood of Martin Luther King and John F. Kennedy.

You google "Vision", and lines and lines of vision references pop up about how to create visions and great visions of our time. You read about them and their dreams, and you think, what the heck is mine? What does this have to do with cupcakes or fixing cars? Who needs a vision anyway, you say to yourelf. I just want to sell cupcakes or build cars.

It wants to know your Mission now.  What the heck is the difference between a vision and mission, you ask yourself.  You google mission.  A myriad of references pop up on your screen. Wikipedia says it is a grape, a practice, a statement and a style of furniture. Sigh.

Values.  That's easy. The top three that you heard your former boss talk about fall from your mind to your finger tips - honesty, integrity, respect.  Eager to fill in blanks, you go on.

Goals. Objectives. Measures. Targets.  What is the difference? How do I know, you ask. You walk away, frustrated.

Later, someone asks you for a business plan, and you say, "Oh, yea, we are working on it". The fact is, "we" are stuck and in "our" own way.

Here's the problem and the solution.

First, we think creating a business plan is a one time event. Business planning is a process. Rarely do we sit down and bang it out. There is work involved.

While a template tells what the components of a plan are, it does nothing more than that. Creating a business plan is not facilitated by a template. You actually need a facilitator - someone to guide the process, challenge your thinking, and help you in the documentation process.

Business plans are technical documents that represent your business mind. To put the best foot forward, I would recommend using a business planning facilitator who actually knows how to get from A to Z, from Aspirations to the bottom line and who can bring in experts as needed, such as accountants, lawyers and other professionals.

Your business planning facilitator should have a resume of having created actual business plans for numerous organizations. If you need a business plan, and you and your template are not getting along, give me a call. 

How to be a Ninja Mouse.

With all the hoop-la these days about being an entrepreneur, we are glamorizing the concept to the point of not telling the truth. So here it is.

An entrepreneur is an owner or manager of a business who makes money through risk and / or initiative. Being an entrepreneur is frightening, lonely and risky. There are real life changing opportunities and risks at hand when one embarks on a new business venture.

But still we forge ahead, fueled by that feeling deep within our gut that calls out to us to be . . . . .  

The entrepreneur's quest is always inspiring. We aspire to be financially successful, unique, innovative, creative and doing work that is meaningful and worthwhile.  Magazines articles about real life entrepreneurs tell stories about people who followed their love and found success.  

Nobody aspires to be poor, mediocre, same old, same old, stuck in a run, trapped in a job you hate, and bored to death.  But somewhere along the way, that is exactly what can happen, and this once inspiring adventure becomes a ball and chain. Sometimes we exhaust our personal resources, burn out, or bail out.  

Statistics say that 80% of small business owners give up within 5 years.  I can see that. Even in a well established corporation, five years is a long time. For the entrepreneur, that can mean five years of dipping into family time and money, working long days and nights juggling managing, creating, delivering, marketing, and innovating.  

So how do the successful entrepreneurs do it?  How do they move from mice to elephants?  How did Bill Gates go from a computer lab being one of the richest people in the world? How did Mark Zuckerberg know that Facebook would revolutionize the way we interact?  

Both of these super ninja entrepreneurs were essentially at the right place at  the right time, with the right idea and the right support. 

Using the analogy of mice and elephants to compare small business to big business, mice are nimble and can move like ninjas, where as elephants are not. Mice can turn on a dime; elephants, not so much.  

But mice and elephants both require the same skill sets to be successful.  The difference is that elephants have the resources at hand, and mice tend not to.  

For example, every business needs expertise in accounting, technology, marketing, strategy, communications, human resources and operations. In a large corporation, this combination of skills comprises most executive teams. 

The challenge for mice is to be resourceful to take advantage of their ninja-like capabilities. There is no rest for us if we are carrying the weight and responsibility of a large organization without the resources. Eventually we become exhausted, frustrated and paralyzed. As one of my readers put it, "I feel like the elephant, and I can't move". 

We tell ourselves stories that keep us going and we read Inc. Magazine relentlessly studying great entrepreneurs and wonder what's wrong with us. When we feel like we are sinking, we quote what I call entrepreneur dogma: "I would rather work 20 hours a day for myself than 20 hours a day for someone else", and "I am investing in my future", and my favorite, "but I am free".  

We are the architects of our own misery when we do not tell the truth about what is keeping us up at night.   

The truth is, we are afraid because of what's at risk. There. I said it.  Fear of losing everything. Fear of failure. Fear of others perceiving us as failures.  The good news is, these fears are legitimate and possible for businesses of all sizes and types, so why not talk about it? What keeps us trapped in this spin cycle?

Brutal honesty is the only way.  Failure is imminent when we go into business with our eyes shut.  Anyone who says differently is not being honest.  Understanding risk is about seeing the road ahead in 2020. 

As an extrovert, it has been my experience that starting a business is L.O.N.E.L.Y.  I believe we spend too much time alone and in our own heads, so we are not in the practice of talking about these issues. We work out of home offices, telling ourselves we need to keep the overhead low.  As a result, we don't ask for help, nor do we have the network of helpers that those working in corporate settings do.  So we sit alone on our island and wait for our ship to come in. But that only happens in the movies. 

I believe that there are some things we, the mice, can do to overcome the perils and become the ninja mice that we are deep down inside:  

• First, we need to create a community of our own, where people of common values and complimentary skill sets can work together  and help each other. 
• Second, we need to get out of our home offices and share professional space and management services so that we can focus on the real work on creating something that adds value to the lives of people such that they will part with their time and /or money to have it. 
• Third, we need to take time to incubate the idea instead of jumping to execution and working like a dog to keep up before we know where we are going. 
• Fourth, we need to create a plan that will take us to that place and allow ourselves to explore that which does not yet exist. 
• Fifth, we need to evolve our ideas and grow in a managed way as mice, not elephants.