Do I really need to do a five-year plan?

Dear Aunty B,

I have been asked to do a five year plan. It’s not for a bank or anything. It is to “get me thinking long term” as my board put it. How can I do a five year plan? I can do a one year plan and even a two year plan and I know pretty much that I can control all that. But five years?? Please!!! Google didn’t exist five years ago. I didn’t know five years ago that I would now have a young son and boy did that turn my world upside down.

So Aunty B, what use is a five year plan when the world can change tomorrow?

Vic
 

Dear Vic,

Look. Tonight when you get home, get out a nice bottle of wine, pour it into a big glass and find a comfy seat. Now start to imagine your business in five years time.

How much revenue do you want? What would you like your profit to be? How many people would you need to achieve that? What would your structure look like?

The more you drink, the bigger the plan. Write it all down. You don’t have to specifically spell out what projects you might do but just slot in new projects etc. Just dream.

You sound like you are fully in control of your business.  So you are not going to be stupid about it.

Then when you wake up tomorrow with a headache and are thinking more rationally, you start to write down how you will do it. The revenue and profit you need to make every year, the staff you need to hire, the processes you need to put in place… and so on.

You then take a few days to sit on that – and adjust it down or up. You run through it with your accountant and your sales guys, distil it into a one page plan and voila – your five year plan.

And you know what? You are now in a totally different headspace than you were before you did it.  And that sounds like what you are being asked to do – get out of your comfort zone and look at the future.

Be smart
Aunty B

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