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The one and only reason that Business fail…New Zealand business planning in 5 minutes...

I love small business.

According to the Statistics Department as at 2008 there were 480 thousand businesses in NZ......97% of these are Small businesses – that means roughly 460 thousand business run by passionate people who have the audacity to RISK capital, borrow against their houses, HIRE Staff and contribute to the economy because they think that they can ‘give it a bash’.

The interesting thing about this is that approx 40% of the countries tax take comes off the back of these small businesses and the PAYE from the people that work for them.

This means that we all have a vested interest in ensuring that small business is given a fair go as they do actually pay a portion of your Education... your health and your social welfare.

Unfortunately the cards are pretty well stacked against small businesses

• Small businesses are amongst the most heavily complied organisations in NZ – get this... Small businesses are subject to the same amount of legislation that huge corporates are subject to – ACC, OSH, Tax Compliance, Health and Safety, etc. – the only difference is that BIG business have staff that are dedicated to sorting and navigating these issues
• Unions find small business easier to pressure and bully
• Greenies hate small biz because they think that small business only exist to steamroll the environment....
• And not to mention the Business Consultants Industry ...you will find no shortage of consultants, academics, agencies whose main aim seems to be to find small businesses and educate them on HOW much they don’t know, confuse them and then offer assistance in the form of incredibly high fees and EXTRACTION of what little resources that SMEs have ... and all the while continuing to confuse and create more work.

So... from someone who does help small businesses... The purpose of this article is to let you know that business planning and small business development is a very simple process and that there are in fact no tricks , secret techniques or special qualifications (apart from having been there, done that).

Business Planning is a dry subject – it’s almost guaranteed to put some people to sleep. HOWEVER there is only one reason that businesses fail. Ask 8 different experts and you will get 8 different answers –CASHFLOW being the favourite, wrong location, wrong car, wrong logo, wrong staff and so on – however I put it to you that the only reason that businesses fail is the inability or reluctance of Business OWNERS to plan – WHY – Because somehow they have been told that its a HUGELY COMPLEX, COMPLICATED process which involves many experts and professionals to assist you.

IF you are like me you hear this and the first thing you do is think $$$$$$$, and you tend to brush over or ignore the need to plan.... Yet if businesses only knew the truth that PLANNING is simple and can accelerate you on the path to a healthy viable business.... then I suspect we would see fewer businesses facing the wall.

My preferred business planning process......is this:

A simple formula – with a bunch of questions to ask yourself will give you a thorough business pathway enough to give you and your team focus, direction and the ability to carry out your day to day work with a purpose.

The Formula
THINK + GAMEPLAN + ACTIONS = RESULTS