The Placid Water Plan
The assumption behind this plan is that things will remain pretty much the same as they have always been. As such, the Placid Water Plan is simply a plan that serves as a building block for the future. It relies heavily on past trends, which, while offering a good, safe place to start, often do not account for the changes in the global marketplace. This plan demands that you take a good hard look at the past, learn from it, and accept what is valid in that assessment, but it fails to incorporate significant current marketplace changes that are crucial to your ultimate success.
The Ski Slope Plan
The Ski Slope Plan represents the ultimate optimistic view of continued success and exponential growth ad infinitum. Portable executives on the whole, and particularly those just starting out, are often tremendously excited by their offering and are therefore vulnerable to falling into this trap. The person who creates this type of plan probably has not done enough market research or competitive analysis to inject sufficient information about the realities of the marketplace into his planning. No company, no matter how well planned, can grow on a straight upward trajectory forever. Adjustments to a plan such as this must account for those independent variables, such as limited time, limited energy, and other nonworking related priorities.
The Hockey Stick Plan
The Hockey Stick Plan incorporates the reality that during the start up stages of a business there are likely to be struggles, difficult challenges, and flat, or even negative, performance periods before the business takes off. After the initial struggle, one's business can catch on and produce the same upward trajectory of growth as seen in the Ski Slope Plan. This plan prepares you realistically for a slow period in the beginning, but it is important to time your "takeoff" correctly, or else it is possible this plan will not be achieved.
The Swiss Alps Plan
The Swiss Alps Plan illustrates the peaks and valleys many experience in developing a new business. This view is, in fact, closer to everyday reality than the others but cannot accurately predict when, realistically, the peaks and valleys in the marketplace will occur.
Two Steps Forward, One Step Back
The plan called Two Steps Forward, One Step Back is the most realistic-it is optimistic enough to reflect a general pattern of growth but also acknowledges that there will be ups and downs. It also suggests that you step back to assess and evaluate every period of growth to make sure that the growth is solid and to plan the next move upward. With this type of plan in place, you can quickly adjust to periods of growth and adversity, as it al lows you to monitor and assess the progress being made before you commit your efforts and resources to the next project.
Pipe Dreams versus Reality
One of the biggest challenges in the planning process is to be sure that you don't create a plan that is so optimistic that you will never achieve it or so pessimistic that you don't really grow, or achieve your goals. There is no better feeling in the world than to actually realize your dream, and if you plan realistically, its achievement becomes possible.
In coming to view yourself as a business entity, you eventually begin to think like an owner and CEO. You realize almost simultaneously that while you are responsible for the whole show, you can't possibly do everything alone. You learn to deal with and, in some cases, expand upon your limited capacity. And you have the ultimate thrill of controlling and growing your business and achieving your goals.
There are many challenges for you to meet as a portable executive: devising marketing plans, setting up an office, and, most important of all, planning for the maintenance and growth of your portable skills.
