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Planning is both an art and a science. Putting together a serious business plan requires you to gather data, analyze the information, and then turn it into knowledge about your situation. A serious business plan requires that you think strategically. What do we mean by that? The word strategy comes to us from the ancient Greeks and translates literally as the art of generalship. So it shouldn’t be surprising that when you start thinking strategically about your business, you feel that you’re suiting up for battle and jousting with your competitors for the hearts and minds of customers (to say nothing of their wallets and purses).

Modern definitions of the word strategy have become a bit fuzzy. But what matters isn’t so much how the term is defined, but what it does. When you think strategically about business plans, you do the following:

 You clearly describe how to reach the goals and objectives that you set for your company (see Chapter 4 for more info).

 You take into account the social values that surround your company and drive your staff, you included (see Chapter 3).

 You think about how to allocate and deploy your human and financial resources (see Chapters 12 and 16).

 You create an advantage in the marketplace that you can sustain, despite intense and determined competition (see Chapters 10 and 14).

Don’t misunderstand us here: Planning is not always rational science, and business success sometimes can be an inspired outcome of “art.” Some people are intuitive by nature and “go by their gut” more than engaging in a lengthy planning process such as we encourage in these pages. The late Steve Jobs of Apple, Inc., was supposedly one of these creatures. Good for him and them. But let’s be honest: People like Steve Jobs don’t come along often, and the probability that you are one of them is negligible at best. In fact, now that we think about it, Mr. Jobs — one of the most remarkable and admirable business leaders of modern history — could have saved himself a decade of time and boatloads of money if he had devoted a bit more effort to understanding the threat of competition for his original Apple I and II machines. So when that Blinding Flash of Brilliance strikes, grab it and thank your lucky stars. But please don’t run with it until you’ve finished our book. You and all your involved associates will be thankful not too far down the road.

Make sure you don’t forget the strategy behind your business planning. Without strategic thinking, business plans often turn into those neatly bound fantasies that begin and end with numbers — revenue projections, cash flows, expense allocations, and the like — that alone don’t help you figure out what to do. This is what we call the “SPOTS Syndrome”: Strategic Plans On Top Shelves, where the document ends up gathering dust and little more. Trust us, we’ve seen this. They don’t represent planning; they represent a waste of time.

What can you do to make sure your business plan includes a strategy? When it comes to strategic thinking, a healthy dose of plain old common sense and logic works wonders as you pull all the pieces of your plan together. Experience in your industry and some smarts are advantages, too. Unfortunately, we can’t give you any of these gifts. But we can offer you some solid advice to keep you on track. Go to Chapter 14 for more on strategy.