Planning every aspect of your home business is not only a must, but also builds habits that every home business owner should develop, implement, and maintain. The act of business planning is so important because it requires you to analyze each business situation, research and compile data, and make conclusions based mainly on the facts as revealed through the research. Business planning also serves a second function, which is having your goals and how you will achieve them, on paper.
You can use the plan that you create both as map to take you from point A to Z and as a yardstick to measure the success of each individual plan or segment within the plan..
So here is where I make my big pitch for every library to have a written strategic plan. Got it?! Good.
I can hear you know - yea, yea, right old ABintheLibrary. I have 1 staff member - me, and 4 out of 7 board positions filled. Even if I thought we needed a plan (and I a don't) when am I supposed to write this plan?!
and you would be right and wrong. If you don't see a need for a plan, you won't see the necessity of making time for that plan. But let me take a shot at rattling your cage, just a bit. If your library had to cut spending 40% tomorrow - what are the core functions you would work to preserve? Quick - what are your priorities? Books, movies, storytimes? materials, resources, services, programs?? Quick - tell me!! Or if someone came to you and said, I have $100,000 for the library, but I want to know what you will do with it - can you tell me your #1 priority? What would you answer them???
A well written plan does this for you. It keeps you on track, focused and helps to make those tough decisions for you.
And here is the question I ask in my workshops - Is your library a success? (Usually about 3/4 say yes) How do you know that? (silence).
Your plan defines success for your library, which will be different than success in my library or the library in the next county. How can you tell potential shareholders that you run a successful library when you cannot show them a definition of success?
This plan does not have to be 40 pages, cross indexed and all. It does have to be thought out and written by some sort of team - you, a board member, a customer and a member of the Friends. If you are part of a township or county, I would include them too. And it does not have to be done today. It should take a while, for you will need to stew and think and simmer on some sections of this. But start today. Make a time to meet and being the planning process.
"The discipline of writing something down is the first step toward making it happen" – Lee Iacocca
*taken from 25 Common Characteristics of Successful Entrepreneurs on entrepreneur.com http://www.entrepreneur.com/homebasedbiz/article200730.html
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