Guide to Long-Term Business Planning

In depth business planning is an essential part of the process of starting a business. A good business plan has many functions. A business plan serves as a blueprint for your business, helps attract investors or partners and serves as a basis for business growth.

Long term planning in business differs a bit from quick-start business planning. You can write a long term business plan before starting your venture to detail the process in advance, or you can rewrite a business plan once a business is a success to work towards more long term goals.

When business planning for the long term plan you must:

1. Decide how long long term planning is; in today’s ever-changing industry and technology, two to five years in considered long.
2. Stay mindful of the plan’s main goal.
3. Define clear standards for measuring the business’s success.

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Find long term business planning software

Long term planning in business often means investing in a software application that meets your specific needs. Good long term planning tools can be found in several products on the market.

I recommend: PlanMagic offers business plan templates and financial tools. Look at a great example of a long term business plan through Palo Alto Software's website.

Establish successful cash flow management

This process monitors and adjusts business cash flows according to how much revenue is brought in. For small businesses especially, it is very important not to have too great a gap in between cash inflows and outflows, which can result in long term business develoment problems.

I recommend: Try Ironware or Whitebirch software to help organize cash flow management.

Include marketing in your long term planning

Successful marketing plays a very important part in long term planning of a business. A marketing plan should detail the goals and objective of a marketing strategy on the timeframe of two to five years. Come up with ways to market that will last for that long.

I recommend: Find a marketing plan template with Marketing Plan Pro9.0, or get marketing consulting from Factor 3 Marketing.

Have a profit and loss account included in the long term business goals

A profit and loss account determines how exactly revenue is translated into profit for your company. This shows investors and employees how exactly the company made per each defined period, whether it be a year or quarter.

I recommend: Use QuickBooks or NetSuite to aid in the organization of accounts.

Create a long term financial plan

Set clear financial goals and a clear time frame of when you'd like those goals to be achieved. Determine how much must be invested in order to turn into a profit in the allotted amount of time. Break the long term financial plan into smaller short-term plans with specific steps to achieve.

I recommend: Get financial consulting from Reese Partners, or get help with a plan from MasterPlans.

Tips & Tactics
Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• Think outside of the box when writing a long term plan.
• Keep the plan personal with goals that are unique to your business, not every other business.
• Write short-term plans to fit within the long term plan.

The official source of Long-Term Business Planning is
the Long Term Business Planning page at Business.com