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It is easy to focus on one approach to your business. Since you have so many different responsibilities, you most likely have your attention split in so many different directions that you may not even realize that you are only looking at one approach to your business. However, you must make sure that you are looking at both the strategic and tactical areas of your company.

The first thing you need to do is make sure that you understand what each of these approaches mean. Strategic refers to what your business need to operate properly now and in the future. Strategic also has to do with understanding why your business needs certain things. On the other hand, tactical has to do with how things will work for your business, or how things will be handled within your business.

How does the strategic approach actually work within your business? First, a strategic approach will help you, your employees, and your customers understand why your company is in operation, why certain things are handled in the way they are, and why your company offers what they do.

In addition, strategic planning will have to do with the future of your business. You will need to map out what you expect from your business in the next month, year, and five years.

How does the tactical approach have to do with your business? This has to do with exactly what happens to your business each day. Think of it as the day-to-day operations of your business. This is important because you need to have an idea of how each thing is handled so that you can determine if your business is operating at optimum capacity.

Tactical planning will have to do with everything from what each employee's job responsibilities are all the way to who is responsible for cleaning the bathrooms each day.

You cannot put too much emphasis on one without the other. If you neglect either approach, then the other approach will begin to breakdown. Both tactical and strategic planning goes hand in hand. In order for your business to operate successfully, you r have to place importance on both.

At this moment, you need to stop and evaluate how you are approaching your business. You will need to ask yourself questions. Are you considering each approach evenly? Have you neglected one approach in the business of day-to-day work? What can you do to balance out the problem?

It is never too late in business operation to work on keeping a balance between tactical and strategic approaches to your company. Once you get everything into balance, you will quickly see that it is a big asset to your business.

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When you finally know that the time is right for you to branch out on your own, you experience a mixture of excitement and fear unique to starting your own business. Nothing else can make you feel that exact rush of emotions. You have so much possibility before you; you can't wait to get started!  But you will save yourself a lot of time and heartache if you slow down, take your time, and do it right.  So, here is the primary factor you need to know to get off to a great start:  Planning.

Planning is critical.  Many first-timers tend to skip the process of planning.  They're so excited to get things going that they just dive right in, without being ready and without working through all the boring, nitty-gritty details.  Some people don't put a lot of stock in plans, because they want to be more flexible – after all, plans change, right?  Right, and wrong.  Very wrong.  You wouldn't take off on a road trip in a foreign country without knowing where you're going, and you shouldn't do this with your business either. 

Planning serves more than one purpose, and should be the initial stage of any business’s development.  First, planning allows you to measure the path you must take toward eventual success and profitability. It allows you to map out what your expectations will be, and schedule time frames for meeting each of those expectations. For example, you can choose a date for your grand opening. (A snow cone and hot dog shack would get off to a much better start if it opened in June versus November.) And once you open your business, you're going to have operating expenses.  With a plan in place, you would know that the best month to open would be just before summer hits, and then once established you can adjust your menu to include hot lattes and soup for the winter months. 

You also should know what you need to do in order to cover your end from the very beginning. Do you know what process you have to follow in order to register your business with the local government offices? Do you know about zoning? If you’re going to run your business out of your home, do you know what zoning you have to apply for within your community? Think about doing all of this without a plan. Could you manage to keep everything in order and straight? What if you opened a hair salon in the basement of your house and things began to pick up only to have a knock on your front door one evening from your government’s officer informing you that you’re in violation of local ordinance ‘so and so’ and have to close your business until such time that your paperwork is in order?

What will you do if, within the first three months, you have minimal interest from the community? What will you define as successful or minimal? What is your marketing strategy? When will you evaluate whether it’s working? A plan will ideally answer these questions and give you a reference to review when the chaos of your business really kicks in.

Don’t be afraid of plans. They are certainly made to be broken, but it's foolish to start your own business without one. Plans will increase the odds of your success. They help make your own luck.

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Clearly an action plan to pursue a business or a career opportunity is more often than not a case of dealing with many, many unknowns. Plans, as they say should not be set in concrete; not in sifting sand. But we all need plans. The human condition is such that most people require structure, a sense of purpose, a clear direction. They also express the mission, the underlying "reason" to be doing what you're doing.

A plan is often complex but it need not be. Simplicity and elimination of unnecessary steps should be guiding principles. Typically, people learn by taking action and then take corrective action in developing a basic model or prototype.

First, and foremost we need a short-term plan and a rhythm that sets the tasks for all involved in the business. Each successful business has a certain 'rhythm' about it. There's a strong sense that people are busy but not chaotically busy; that things get done within the context of a master plan. The long term plan addresses the question "where do you want to be in five years?" What will the business look like? What are the metrics that make up this long term business goal? Create the picture, down to the detail (number of people, location, and the like).

The rules? The first rule is: don't put limits on your goals.

The higher you aim, the higher you'll go. To quote Werner Von Braun, the early developer of the space rocket, who said, "Man belongs where man wants to go."

Business planning needs great flexibility and business leaders who have their sights on the 'big picture', the long term goal, will invariably be willing to respond to setbacks, with an attitude of "what can I learn from this?' This is something that great medical practitioners attest to. Doctors learn about the patient and their disease when they apply their skills to the situation. There would be no learning if they did nothing. Commodity traders make plenty of mistakes but they learn from their mistakes and move on. Business planning is like any discipline: it's a learning 'curve'.

There is little doubt that successful businesses are the product of a successful mindset. This is something that is challenged every day in business. Every setback is an opportunity to continuously improve an aspect of the business. The role of the business leader is to:

- Identify weaknesses and take action to correct - To be relentlessly persistent about improving procedures - to stay with the goal but also try new approaches. - Understand and appreciate that there is a good side to every situation. - Accept that every setback is a lesson.

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