Are You Planning or Failing?

If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. ~ R. Franklin. 

I've heard this quote many times before and googled it to see who said it. It's attributed to Benjamin Franklin, but when you look deeper you find out it was said in 1973 by Robert Benjamin Franklin, a TV evangelist. That's quite different from who you think of when you hear Benjamin Franklin, right? 

Planning is a lot like researching that quote - you don't stay on the surface, but you dig in to see what works best for your business and you work through all the details. To do that it's great to have checklists and a roadmap, and that's exactly what the Simply Good Business Planner is. 

Planning is one of the things I enjoy most in my business. Yes, I'm serious. It carries so much possibility while at the same time being grounded in facts. Do you get excited about that as well? If not, then maybe you're just missing the right planning resource and need to give the Simply Good Business Planner a try.

One of the things that might be holding you back from planning every aspect of your business is that you'd rather be doing than planning. I completely get that. There is nothing worse than doing something just for the sake of doing it, just because someone has a course or a resource or even a freebie for it and you go down the rabbit hole without ever actually getting anything done. Planning is not one of those things, my entrepreneurial friend. Planning is the fuel for doing, it's what takes your business from best laid plans to being simply good. 

You wouldn't ever go on a vacation without having your flights and hotel booked, checked that your passport is valid, and have at least an idea of what you want to do and see during your vacation, right? So why would you stumble through your business year without having a plan that probably won't take longer to put together than those vacation plans? And the ROI for business planning will ensure the funds for the next vacation to boot. Sounds like a deal to me.

The Simply Good Business Planner has yearly, quarterly, monthly, and weekly sheets and covers Strategic Planning, Pro Bono Work, Accounts and Services, Finance, Marketing, Goals, Networking, Important Dates, and a Weekly overview. It also contains a link to resources for creating your strategic business plan and defining your target market. It's a 30-page pdf you can print or fill in digitally, to suit your personal planning style.

My planning style definitely includes pen and paper and if I had enough space in our home I would love to hang up every single page of the planner in sequence, because I love a visual overview of my planning projects. But if yours is all done on an ipad while enjoying a bubble bath - more power to you. As long as you plan and get your business set up for success, it really does not matter how you get there.

The Simply Good Business Planner has been out since 2017 and recently got a complete redesign, revision, and expansion; it's available for CAD$17 in my Gumroad shop and I hope you give it a try! Happy planning!

{P.S. If you're also looking for a kick-ass resource to get your business organized, check out the Business MasterFile and sign up for a free sample.}