The plan-freaks and the freestylers.
Very often it could seem so boring to plan out strategies before you actually start your business. Is that a waste of time or do you think even a small roadside business needs to create a plan first before starting?
The plan-freaks
The plan-freaks are the ones that spend months breaking down every piece of their idea and outlining every single process hidden in it. Even when it is over exaggerated and not necessary to plan out everything like that, but frankly, if you do not examine all the parts of your business idea, it would be sooooo (See how I stretch it) difficult to actually build a successful business. Even when you start, several challenges will surprise you. I am talking about daily things like fuel scarcity, dollar rise or simple stuff like late-comer employees. But the plan-freaks are almost never surprised or taking off guard. They have plan B if there is no fuel, they have plan C if dollar increases. Actually they are like those students that covered their answers during examinations in secondary school.
What about the freestylers?
Passion is burning in their soul and they have a big vision of how the business could be like! I did not say clear, I said big vision! Freestylers are great storytellers. They have brilliant ideas but 12 months will pass by, no action was taken, instead, they even have a bigger vision now. Actually, they are the kind of entrepreneurs that have multiple business ideas at the same time, but become overwhelmed of their own ideas, that they actually end up no really launching any. Their excuse? Creativity! They will tell you “Do not lay all your eggs in one basket”, even when they misunderstand the actually meaning of that saying.
Do not get me wrong, both entrepreneurs are enthusiastic and they want to give it all into realising their idea but the issue here is how do you spend the time? Where do you invest your time in? would you take after the plan-freaks who could spend months planning how the business would be designed? Or just flow like the freestylers who and spend the next couple of months visualisation what could yield out for the business idea?
Nevertheless, here are two things we can learn from both entrepreneurs.
- We can learn to plan like the plan-freak, but with ease. Not everything must be planned out.
- After starting our business, we can learn to freestyle but in line with the plan we created.
So you see, we need both skills, because the more uncertain and unpredictable our economy is, the more we need to plan out a strategy for any of our ideas no matter how tiny the idea is and the more we need to master flexibility in our daily activities. Now tell me, what kind of entrepreneur are you?
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Cheers, Joana
