The first sentence in our first book asks, “Has anybody ever written a losing business plan”?
Of course the answer is no! Nobody ever writes a business plan without first convincing themselves they are on to a winner. The content of such documents is the normal hype of positive words and an optimistic spreadsheet that supports this proposition. This is the usual course of events. Despite extensive business planning few if any new products or services have been launched that achieved their forecast outcomes in the manner expected. There are countless examples presented in the book “Think New” on Product Innovation by Roger La Salle.
A properly constructed business plan needs to be developed from what we refer to as “zero based”. In other don’t start with an expectation but build the argument on sound pillars of logic and fact to reach a conclusion. There can be no other way, a way we teach in our innovation training programs.