Strategic Planning

Both startups and successful growing businesses need a 'plan'. Business planning forces you to put on paper your roadmap to success. One of the best ways to learn about writing a business plan is to study the plans of established businesses in your industry.

The business plan is perfect for start-up ventures or for businesses that need a formal written planning document to communicate with members of a management team, employees, customers, or financial backers.

The strategic plan is based upon a proprietary planning process that helps you to express your vision as a strategic story. It is ideal for existing or growing businesses that are seeking to conduct a strategic planning session. The strategic plan demonstrates that the best visions, and strategies for that matter, are stories-stories told in a future tense. Creating a story is a creative act, not a systematic or mechanical technique. It's a process perfectly tailored to creating strategy since strategy making itself is a creative act.

However you decide to put your plan together, whether using packaged commercial software programs, simple outlines, or any number of very instructive books available at popular bookstores, the plan should be reviewed by someone you believe can give you honest and unbiased feedback. The SBDC at Daytona State offers free and confidential counseling to clients writing business plans.