The Red Tree’s innovative RaceFit™ program launched last year to help brand owners evaluate their brands’ strengths and weaknesses. An industry first, and easily completed in 25 minutes via an online platform, feedback is instant via a detailed, bespoke report full of expert advice, precisely engineered to get a brand RaceFit™. The Red Tree’s RaceFit™ Focus is sharing its content series that explores the seven key building blocks that underpin a successful brand. In this article, Business Ambitions Managing Director, Selwyn Pattinson, focuses on the importance of business planning, a critical activity for beauty brands that are looking to succeed.
A search on Google using the phrase “Business Planning” returns nearly 58 million entries. No one can be in any doubt about its importance—or short of advice on the topic! And yet, most business plans are either dated “dusty” documents—or sketchy “back of a fag packet” outlines.
What’s yours like?
Do you even have one?
Ah yes, I hear you say, we used to have a plan, but to be honest, things never go according to plan, so it’s all a bit of a waste of time and energy. Well, here’s 3 reasons I think you should have a plan:
1. “Take that hill”
Your team is looking to you for leadership—and that means being crystal clear on the goals for the business, both in the longer term (say 5 years) and in the next 12 months.
By all means involve them in the “how to,” but I suggest that you don’t want a debate about whether you should do x or y to defeat your opposition—the other brands that occupy your space.
If you like to think of yourself as a people person, you owe it to them to have clear goals!
2. “We’re all going on a summer holiday”
You wouldn’t dream of going on holiday without a plan. There’s probably 3 main vacation periods, 196 countries, 5 possible modes of transport, and 10 possible accommodation types—so that’s 29,400 possible combinations! How many different combinations for your business?
Consider the possible destinations, the routes to market, the pricing strategies, the branding options, the purchasing options … the list goes on. That’s a lot of options, and picking the best one takes a lot of thought—and a lot of research, advice, and consideration. The beauty industry is highly competitive and every category is saturated, so getting it right is critical.
If you want to be a successful business person, you need to stop “doing” and start making critical business decisions on the best options.
3. ‘ … And the score is …’
Anyone who has ever been on a diet, exercised or given up smoking knows the importance of having clear goals—and keeping track of performance! They know where they want to get to, and they reward themselves for the “wins” along the way, the new personal bests, and the improvements.
If you want to maintain team motivation, it’s vital that you have a system to monitor performance—but to do that, you need to be clear on both the destination and the “stepping stones.”
Know where you’re going, have a plan on how you’re going to get there, and set up a system to keep track of how you’re doing. You’ll be amazed where you can get to with a plan!
