Once your direction has been fairly well established by the searching process, as a newly independent portable executive you may find yourself at a loss as you face the challenges and responsibility of planning your business. Since there is no one to approve or evaluate your plan other than yourself, it is less important that the plan look good on paper and far more important that it be a fully detailed, realistic document that will serve as a daily guide for action. This plan must function as an instrument of growth that will enable you to direct your limited resources to actions that will help you achieve your goals, both financially and personally. Financial consultant Dick West's action plan is simple, and he works with it on a regular basis.
It's not very neat. It's a yellow pad organized by major service categories, business evaluations, capital formation, mergers and acquisitions, and I try to work a portion of each day in each of those service categories.
TIME MANAGEMENT
As a portable executive, your greatest asset second only to your core skills-is your time. Therefore, the time management aspects of business planning are critical to your effectiveness. Organizing the data within your plan and estimating completion dates for projects prove extremely useful in helping you focus on those activities that are beneficial to your business. Initially, this process will be based on guesstimates and gut feelings, but over time you will develop a sound sense of what can and what cannot be accomplished during a given time period. For those who wish to manage their time on their computers, there are several time management software packages available for this purpose, such as Lotus Organizer, Shark ware, or Time slips, to name a few. For others, a daily "To Do" list serves just as well. Advertising executive Bud Chatsworth, for example, routinely sets aside an hour a day to plan the marketing for his business. When activities such as this are planned in advance, it enables you to keep all aspects of running your business intact.
BENCHMARKING
In large organizations, performance is periodically measured and reviewed against the goals set by the company for the individual executive. The process of benchmarking performance is equally important for you as a portable executive, as you're measure of success must reside within yourself and should not be derived from outside institutions. Incorporating benchmarks into your plan provides a disciplined way of objectively measuring your achievement against your goals. Portable executive Sam Marks, who has undertaken over thirty "temporary executive" assignments, keeps a diary of his activities with clients:
The diary is an invaluable tool. I call it my reality diary. The most important part of it is that I have my tasks writ ten down in it, so I can review my activities and give myself a report card. I ask, "What behavior did I change today?" and I establish a benchmark of where we started. Then I ask, "Am I making change? Is the firm making headway?" It's a report card for both me and the client. It tells me if I've developed my milestones correctly. It shows me if I'm navigating correctly, or if I'm ten degrees off or twenty degrees off.
As Sam Marks's comments suggest, for him, the diary is a highly individualized and precise check and balance system. While the diary system may not appeal to you, every portable executive must address the challenge of creating a disciplined benchmarking system of his own.
ANKING PRIORITIES
You will quickly recognize that in viewing yourself as an independent business entity, no aspect of your life can be excluded from the planning process. As you plan your schedule, it will become clear that allocating time for family, community, and other nonworking related activities must be balanced in your overall planning if you are going to achieve your personal and professional goals. This process offers you the positive benefit of integrating all of the aspects of your life and adopting a more holistic lifestyle.
