Business Development For Dummies

Chapter 6

Building Your Business Development Plan

In This Chapter

Considering the essential role of planning

Formulating your successful plan

If you’ve ever run a marathon, got married or settled down in front of the TV to binge on Breaking Bad DVD box sets, you know that these activities don’t turn out well if you leave things to chance. You need to prepare, plan and execute properly to succeed. Every so often, you look at the plan and ask yourself how you’re doing: ‘Was my 15-mile run on pace?’; ‘Did the cake get ordered last week?’; ‘Do I have enough beers in the mini-fridge?’

Without a plan and a way to monitor how you’re doing, you’re likely to lose the game. And running a business is like a game, with a purpose, rules, scoring, challenges and other competitors: lose some, win some, but become the best team you can.

In Chapter 5, I lead you through developing your offer. When your offer’s ready, you can start to build your business development plan. Here I help you focus on the areas most important to your success, so that you can build a plan specific to your business, starting from where you are today and where you want to be one year from now. It’s a short-term plan, because that makes it about real action, not ‘head in the clouds’ long-term visions. Nothing wrong with ...