How to do a Practical Lean Business Plan in Four Easy Steps

By Tim Berry
SBA blog | Originally Published May 10, 2019

One of the most common reasons for business owners not getting the benefit of business planning is putting off doing a plan because it seems too hard. People still think of a business plan as a big formal document, hard to do, and — sadly — not worth the effort. But what they miss with that attitude is the lean planning that could steer their business better.

Here’s how to do a lean business plan in four easy steps:

Step One: Strategy is Focus

You can summarize business strategy with a few key points: the problem you solve, your unique solution to that problem, your choice of target market, and your unique business identity.

Don’t worry about big text, editing, or the document. Just write down your key strategy choices. Make it as simple as a bulleted list. Consider it for your use only, not an academic exercise; and not the big formal business plan you heard about years ago. If you know your business, then you know your strategy. You write it down as a reminder, to help prioritize.

Step Two: Tactics to Match Strategy

Strategy needs tactics for execution. Tactics are what you do to execute strategy: the product or service, the marketing, pricing, distribution, personnel, financing, and so on.

Here too, as with strategy, your lean plan doesn’t mean long texts with a lot of editing. It’s as simple as writing down, usually in a list of bullet points, the most important elements.

You are looking for strategic alignment. That means tactics match strategy. That’s hard to define but easy to see when it works. You are linking what you mean to accomplish(goals) with the key action steps for each of those goals. Does your pricing match your product-market mix? Do the distribution tactics match the product and market?

For example, if your restaurant is targeting high disposable income diners for fine dining, you don’t have discount pricing, half-off coupons, or a kids’ playground, but you may have reservation-only meal hours, valet parking, and glamorous dinning room décor.

Step Three: Specifics on What, When, and How Much

I call these milestones: smaller action items that you can put on the calendar to measure progress as you make it. These normally include tasks, deadlines, budgets, and responsibility assignments. Think of milestones as things like reaching the…[MORE]

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