While many of the aspects of developing your action plan are taken from standard business planning procedures, there are essential differences as you are now involved in planning, not organizational planning. Following are the essential differences between the two:
Although some self planning should primarily encompass the nontraditional approach to creating a business that evolved during the searching period, traditional methods of creating a business plan should be considered as well. However, any solid business plan must incorporate a flexible series of steps or programs that can be adjusted to changes in the marketplace. Self plan must also anticipate the unavoidable changes that occur as life passes. The professional athlete's career, for instance, is an excellent example of the need to plan for changes that accompany aging.
Prior to discussing the nontraditional elements incorporated in a portable executive's planning, it is important to review the three traditional elements of a business plan that must address: market research, competition, and financing.
Market Research
Throughout the searching phase of the job creation process, you probably did a great deal of market research in order to come to an understanding of how best to employ your skills and capabilities in the marketplace. Analyzing marketplace realities is essential in creating any business plan, but it is particularly critical for you as a portable executive, it significantly affects your action plan.
The more you know about the realities of the marketplace, the better able you will be to adapt and recombine your core capabilities. In the planning phase, your market research should not be broad based, but rather aimed at defining applications, targeting markets, and identifying customer bases. Business owners Carol and Bob Fernier run a marketing business from their home in Vermont. Though the two spent many years producing commercials in Boston, today they work with dairy farmers placing ads on milk cartons.
The Fernier initial market research helped them identify this untapped advertising potential. Then they discovered a unique niche for their business through more extensive market research.
Competition
Every business entity contends with some form of competition. While the competitive source is not always clear to the individual executive, there is usually ample information to be gathered on one's competitors through networking, reading, and listening to potential and existing clients who have done some comparative shopping.
Since your competitive edge lies in your core capabilities and the ability to apply them effectively in the marketplace, an important part of creating a business plan involves developing an understanding of what the competition is doing, in order to distinguish your value from that of the competitions. It is not sufficient to simply know who your competitors are. You need to develop a sound sense of your competitors' strengths and weaknesses in order to sell into the market more effectively. Frequently, the best way to do this is to solicit feedback from clients about the service they are getting from the competition.
Often what gives you the edge in the marketplace is the very fact that you are portable. Marketing consultant Jim Schwarz, for instance, discovered that his competitive edge results from his ability to forge close relationships with his clients. They value his personal attention to detail, and certainly prefer it to the impersonal handling routinely offered by one of his larger competitors.
Finance
Must develop a traditional financial plan to project income, expense, cash flow, and capital requirements. While your business financial plan will intersect with your personal financial plan, they should be separate and distinct. The business financial plan will vary in complexity and detail depending on the type of employment vehicle you select. The most complex plans are those that involve starting a business or acquiring an existing business, while the least complex are those of who elects to be employed by an organization again. A financial plan must be developed even by those who opt for traditional employment, as all executives need a financial plan to prepare for the changes that will occur in the course of their careers. Marketing executive Kathi Trepper, who began her career in the 1960s at Procter & Gamble, moved through several companies during her career before she was downsized out of TWA and ventured out on her own. Even before that, Trepper saw the necessity of creating a financial plan despite her full time position
The reality is that a company only hands you a paycheck for the days you're working, but it doesn't guarantee long term. Not only are you expendable, but you don't have the opportunity to leave your mark on a company anymore.
Knowing this, I have an investment counselor and I read Money magazine, the business section of the local paper, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times business section on Sunday.
Kathi Trapper's forward looking financial planning is precisely what needs. As Trapper said, in today's economy, you receive a paycheck only for the days you work.
