Business, marketing, and industries related like to throw around big terms. SWOT, the 4 P’s, the 4 W’s, 3 year planning, Pitch Desk, statistical models and more. It can be quite daunting, and honestly it is. If you’ve never written a research or term paper before, you’ll quickly realize why there’s so much effort put into a business plan and proposal. Simple ones can be 10-20 pages and more complex ones can be even longer. If you want to bloviate, then it’s going to be a long slog.

Some might say that they don’t have to be, and that’s putting it too simply. It may NEED to be, just for the fact that if you can’t answer some of those basic questions, you may need to think about what your business truly is. Books and articles like Chris Gillebeau’s “$100 Startup” (Still a great read if you haven’t read it) and others boil down a lot of facts into some simple terms. “Find a customer, find the product, and a way to get paid”. That’s certainly a key tenet of business, but it also doesn’t account for the problems that pop up after that initial sale or simple goal. When you enter into a business industry, or you have much bigger goals than simply selling a product, you’ll need as much information as possible. That’s not to stop you from attempting it, but rather, to inform everyone of the process that jumping in headfirst may not be able to solve. If you run a sale, and then expect residual sales, you’ll need some more information about the market and what it’s looking for. Simultaneously, you’ll also need information about why someone wants to buy your product-and how much you can realistically sell it for.

The truth of “The Art of War” is pretty much summed up as information. Know thyself, know thy enemy, and know thy advantages. It’s simple honesty, but when planning major tactics, it requires that simplicity and then uses it to become complex. Know yourself-what your business and product is, what it’s capable of, and what it’s NOT capable of. Know your enemy-your competition, and what the market around you has and is willing to offer. And Know your surroundings-again the market, the financials, the ability to sell and the ability to know what’s going to come next. It may sound silly to say “I want to take over the market of faucets!”, but if you start there, and then work backwards, you can see how it all starts with that first sale and location, etc.

A lot of small businesses put blinders on, and focus too intently on some aspects of these issues. You may tell yourself lies about your product, your competition or even yourself. But writing a plan, even a simple one, gives you a balance into the process that you can see and the process that you can change. Each one of those complicated terms above has a meaning that boils back down to how you approach the problems that surround the business. If you can’t answer those in a good manner, then you need to rethink your approach or your goals. It’s ok to have goals that are complex or even seemingly out of reach. Think backwards in a logical manner of accomplishing those goals and you can find the solutions to meet them. Instead of asking yourself “How do I reach 10,000 sales this month?”, ask “How do I get to financial stability?”. Then, think back on what makes that term viable, and you can realize that you only need 50 sales to make that issue work. Once you solve that problem, you can then think about how to increase your sales with a better goal in mind.

I like to have backups in my life. Digital backups on hard drives, equipment redundancies with extra cables and more. Plans for when my initial plans go awry. These plans may be time consuming, but they give me a sense of peace in that, if my initial goals fail, I know I will have a secondary route, and the logical approach keeps me grounded in the sense that I won’t panic-or maybe panic as worse as if I didn’t know what to do.

So make a plan. If you’re thinking of business, make a plan. If you’re starting up, make a plan. If you’re in business, make a plan or edit your plan. If you can’t, you may find that you didn’t really want to start a business in the first place. Everyone wants passive income, but the initial start to that takes a lot of work before you can slack off. In the end, however, it will all be worth it.