I knew that I would be going on this trip last year. It’s what has become my annual pilgrimage to Silverstone and the British Formula 1 Grand Prix. By the time you read this, it will all be a fading memory.

Everything was booked more than 9 months ago, and it has just been an entry in my diary until today. It’s been the same with other tickets where they have been booked and paid for sometimes more than a year in advance.

If you are in business, your planning often stretches years into the future. That just seems to be a given and not worth comment, but having to wait 9 months for the Grand Prix seems to be a much bigger deal.

We should all have at least an idea of where our businesses are going. We should be planning for success, whatever that word means to you.

Clement Stone was a successful businessman. He is quoted as saying, “Aim for the moon. Even if you miss you’ll land among the stars.”. In other words, aim high and don’t plan for mediocre.

Do you have a BEHAG? A behag is a Big Hairy Audacious Goal. It is that dream for your business that seems so ridiculous that you don’t share it with anyone. But it is there in the back of your mind. It is your dream, almost a fantasy, of where you want to end up.

You may never get there, but it lifts your efforts, and you achieve more than you would if you had more mundane dreams.

Ivan Misner, founder of BNI, speaks about EGBOK. It stands for Everything’s Going to Be OK. We often say “it’ll be fine”, no matter what is going on around us. What we mean is that no matter how bad something may seem to be at that moment, we will work through it and come out well enough on the other side. We have done it so many times.

Ivan Misner says you must concentrate on the goal and your principles, and you ignore all the chaos and panic going on around you, generally whipped up by others. If you try to fix the chaos, you just get stuck in the quagmire, and then you are stuck, unable to progress. You just sink. Stick to the matter at hand and on track. Let others worry about the chaos and debris.

Having bought four businesses, I think we know more about this than most. Every acquisition has expanded our small business at the time by between 50% and 100%. I am surprised we are still sane. I think we discovered EGBOK for ourselves many years ago. But in addition, I suppose sanity is having a strong team. Helen and I have worked together for over 30 years, and have been business partners as well as living together for much of that time. It works, albeit that in many respects we are quite different, but in the important ones, we are very similar. I would hate to run any business on my own.

Do we have a plan? Do we have a BEHAG? It does not matter that we may well fall short of our goal, but we have achieved far more than I think either of us thought we would. Shooting for the moon has paid off.

So, when does the planning stop? If you are anything like me, never. But in any developing business, there are always limiting factors. If we wanted to continue to grow, we would need to consider what resources we might need, what people and skill sets would be required. You cannot just get bigger and bigger.

I have seen businesses that outgrew their management and ultimately failed as a result.

There is a theory that any one person cannot supervise more than 4 others, so one director can supervise 4 managers, who in turn can supervise 16 supervisors/team leaders, who supervise 64 foot soldiers. But if you want to get bigger, you need another director, and they might want to be part-owner. Lots to consider as you grow your business.

So, where are you in the grand scheme of things? How are you performing compared to the plans you had for the business? Are you ahead or behind? Have you rethought and revised your plans? Have you taken action to follow a new path, or settled for the status quo because that is fine for you just now?

The way you choose to go is a personal decision and has nothing to do with anyone else, but at the end of the day, when you look back, will you be content with all that you achieved? We can’t all be a Jeff Bezos, but we can get a lot of satisfaction from our own small successes.

And then you can take time out to go to the Grand Prix.

 

Alan E Long

The Long Partnership

07770 738770