The business plan nobody actually uses

Added: 2026-05-22

[00:00:00]The first reason is the complexity.

[00:00:02]Traditionally, um business planning templates, the kind that you find on government websites, the kind that banks ask for, the kind that they that the business schools teach, they're built for a completely different purpose than what you, running your business, need them to do.

[00:00:18]They're built to satisfy lenders and investors. They're documents of persuasion, not documents of navigation. And so, they end up being long and detailed and full of sections that are genuinely Look, they're only useful for banks' credit committee, but almost completely useless to you on Tuesday morning when you're trying to figure out what to focus on this week.

[00:00:39]So, the second reason is that they're static.

[00:00:43]A traditional business plan, it's written at a point in time. It captures the world as it was when you wrote it.

[00:00:50]Your assumptions about the market, your projections, they're all based on the conditions that may have already changed by the time you finish your plan.

[00:00:58]You know, your strategy as it existed before your three biggest competitors all shifted their pricing last quarter.

[00:01:05]Uh and if the plan hasn't moved, um when that business moves, it it becomes irrelevant. And when it soon as it becomes irrelevant, it doesn't get used. It's as simple as that.

[00:01:15]The third reason, number three, [sighs] and this is the one I think is most important, there's no actual operating system around the plan.

[00:01:25]Uh a business plan without a rhythm is like a GPS without signal. It might know where you want to go, but it's got no idea where you are right now, and it can't recalculate when you take a wrong turn.