Elephant burgers (AKA how to eat an elephant.)

From somewhere in the dark recesses of my mind I recently recalled a course  many moons ago run by TMI (Time Manager International) and entitled 'how to eat an elephant' - a concept which is outlined here - how to eat an elephant.

 Our elephants are all around us, in both the work and home environments and whilst mowing the lawns over the weekend (something of an elephant itself, as the management company have only done it twice this year) I thought about this in the context of the business plan. Largely through necessity and pressure from banks or investors most business plans rely on big round figures which are sometimes backed up by a breakdown of the underlying assumptions; thus a business relying on tele-selling might have monthly revenue £10,000 = 100 calls per day (20 days per month), average 5% conversion, average order value £100. The visible plan won't show the testing or flex in these assumptions - such as the fact that - whilst 100 calls a day is feasible - it is unlikely to be a realistic average. It is easy to suspect that in a lot of cases the underlying stats are adjusted to the end result rather than the other way around.

Unconstrained by the need to impress investors or banks, I have set about rebuilding my business plans (2 businesses) based on lots of bite-sized goals set daily, weekly, monthly. Thus, rather than making X number of calls, I have set my goal to get in touch with 2 existing 'live' contacts, and to make contact with 3 new (named) business introducers or prospective clients. Of course, this might be 5 phone calls or 100.

There are about 6 of these 'burgers' each day, some bigger than others; on a purely temporary basis I have removed any kind of financial parameters until the underlying assumptions are tested. The burgers won't fill the day for a number of reasons, such as that the main goal is to stimulate incoming enquiries, which must then take top priority, plus there will always be random items and tasks to do (something which almost every business plan ignores). If my day ends at 2.00 PM I can always add more or treat myself to an afternoon off, which is supposed to be the benefit of running a small business!

Looked at in isolation the plan looks extremely unambitious but, interestingly, if achieved it should actually produce good results.I am looking forward to testing and refining it over the next couple of months.

Incidentally, my biggest commercial elephant is my database which comprises about 1000 contacts (many probably obsolete) and is spread over 3 different media. I have decided to set my email-marketing database up on Mailchimp - a free email marketing service about which I have heard mainly good things, and to test and transfer 5 items a day - it will take a long time, but at least it will get done,