Tim Berry, who contributes here at Small Business Trends, was my guest earlier this week on Small Business Trends Radio. The topic of the show was business planning.
Tim is an expert in business planning, having founded Palo Alto Software, the makers of Business Plan Pro software. He also founded BPlans.com, an excellent resource for free business planning advice and tools.
Interestingly, for a guy who easily could be dubbed “Mr. Business Plan,” Tim takes a fluid and highly practical approach to business planning:
Plans are not a straitjacket — and a plan doesn’t mean that what you planned to do in June 2008 - you actually have to do in June 2008. It simply helps you to maintain a long term direction while managing constant short term changes.
If you were expecting a rigid my-way-or-the-highway approach to creating a business plan, you won’t hear it. More to the point, Tim knows first hand what it is like to be in the thick of that maelstrom we call “running a small business.” He recognizes that if a process like business planning isn’t practical and realistic, chances are it won’t get done.
We also spent some time in the interview discussing how Tim has transferred the CEO job at Palo Alto Software to his daughter, freeing up Tim for the role of public spokesperson. As he points out, that’s a role he rarely had time for when he was running the company day to day. And you’ll also learn how Tim started his career. Hint: it involved another country and it had nothing to do with business plans or software.
Listen to Tim’s interview by clicking on the player below. Or, if you jump over to the radio site you can read the detailed show notes from Tim Berry’s interview that Staci Wood, our Program Manager for the radio show, put together.
