Running a sustained profitable business might be hard, but it doesn’t need to be complicated.

Traditional advice guides business owners who feel stuck in some way to review – or create – a business plan as a framework for identifying the cause of feeling stuck. The catch is that a business plan can often be unnecessarily complex or lengthy for a business owner that is in need of quick and practical insights. An existing or template business plan may also be more geared towards funding requirements than the relentless grind of running a business past the initial exciting first few years.

Business owners who are feeling stuck or overwhelmed need a simple structure that they can remember and review of the top of their heads. The following structure requires that a business owner reviews the entire business using only three main topics – strategy, sales, systems – and five questions – why, who, what, where, when, and how. For more complex entities, the same three topics and five questions can be used for each distinct business unit.

The trick to keep this structure as simple and useful as possible is to stick to the three main topics, and to adapt the specific questions to the unique needs of the business. This flexibility also makes it much easier for business owners to do this review quickly and regularly.

Strategy
Every business needs a strategy. In the simplest terms, designing a business strategy is deciding where the business is going and how it’s going to get there. Questions to ask during this topic of the business review include:

• Why does the business exist? Is the reason for its existence still the same as when it started – to generate income after a job loss, or to fund a certain lifestyle, or to solve a specific market need – or did its main reason for existence change?
• Whose problem does the business solve? A business can have a fantastic offering, but if it’s something that no one needs or wants, that offering is of no value to the business.
• What value does the business add to its clients? Does the business only sell what it sells, or is it known for a unique feature or experience in addition to what customers expect?
• Where does the business operate? Is it time to move premises, or expand into other areas, or add e-commerce as an option?
• When does the business operate? To grow the business, is it perhaps time to consider moving from part-time to full-time, or to adopt the trending four-day work week?
• How does the business make a profit? A business owner doesn’t need to know all the detailed accounting information to answer this question, but they must at the very least know how the business generated its income and how that income is spent.

Sales
A brilliant business strategy is useless without sales that bring it to profitable life. Questions a business owner can ask themselves when considering the state of sales of the business include:

• Why should they buy from the business? Does the business offer something that is unique to their competitors?
• Who is the business selling to? This might be different to who the users of the business offering are e.g. babies may use nappies, but parents are buying the nappies.
• What is the business selling? Are the salespeople – or business owner – making promises the business can’t keep, or perhaps using terminology not commonly used by potential customers? This question is often the hardest for businesses selling services, but it’s even more important that those businesses be crystal clear on what they offer!
• Where is the business selling? Does the business market and advertise on multiple online and in-person platforms? Are those platforms contributing to the sales success of the business?
• When does the business sell? How often is the business prospecting for new customers? How often is the business telling its existing customers about new product lines?
• How is the offering of the business packaged? Does the way in which the offering is presented make it easy for customers to make an informed buying decision? 

Systems
Under the systems topic of this simplified business review, a business owner has to consider the people, processes and technology that enable the business to consistently implement its strategy.

• Why does or doesn’t the business use systems? Are the reasons for past decisions on this still relevant?
• Who does what? Is everyone in the business doing what they should be doing and in the way they should be doing it?
• What does what? There might be opportunity for collaboration or support within current processes or technologies, even if they were initially intended for a single purpose.
• Where can its systems take the business? It is astonishing how often legacy systems (people, processes and technology alike) prevent a business from achieving its full potential. A business owner must have the courage to make the changes necessary to these systems.
• When does the business do quality checks on its systems? As much as they shouldn’t micro-manage, business leaders can’t leave the ultimate oversight responsibility to someone else. They need to stay on top of regular quality checks to ensure that the business strategy is being implemented in line with the purpose of the business.
• How does the business measure success? Are the metrics specified and shared with everyone, and are performance reports accurate and simple enough to allow the business owner to make well-informed decisions?

After completing this quick review, all that’s left for business owners to do is to create an action plan based on what they discovered during the review, and then do everything they can to make sure that the plan is followed.

When we waterproof something, we do it to keep water out.
When we make something soundproof, we do it to keep noise out.
When we make something tamper-proof, we do it to make it resistant to interference.

If we consider this from a pure linguistics point of view, then why on earth would anyone want to FUTUREPROOF a businesses?!?!?!

Of course, I know that the intended meaning behind "futureproof" was never to keep the future out, but the literal meaning of words hold and convey power, irrespective of the intent behind them. If the intent of future "proofing" is to prepare people and businesses for success in a fast-changing future, then future "ready" is surely a better (or at least more literally accurate) word.

I first voiced this suppressed rant in 2021 as a client considered jumping on the trend bandwagon and adopt "futureproof" as their strategic theme for the year. I didn't have to rant too hard or too long before the client's team's eyes widened with realisation (in fact, the "rant" didn't even escalate beyond a polite but firm explanation of my point of view). A quick vote later the direction changed to my recommended "future-ready", and I am very glad to see that they are continuing to use the theme to this day.

To end this rant, I implore you to have a good, honest look at whether any of your "futureproof" initiatives are inviting the future into your business, or whether some of it might eventually keep the future out.

#rantover