It's like having a personal assistant for both you and your business.
If you run a business, you know how much has to be done. It's a constant battle to keep up and keep the business running smoothly.
A good business planner will help reduce some of the stress that comes with running and business and help you be more successful.
Why you need to business planner for your business
A planner will bring you and your business a lot of benefits. One of the most important benefits is the fact it will help you keep track of everything going on in your business at all times.
One of the most important things is the planner will help you create clear goals based on the vision you have for you business.
You'll then be able to create an action plan with tasks necessary to reach your goals.
You'll be able to schedule tasks and events on your calendar and know exactly what and when you have things going on.
Even if you have employees or people you delegate tasks to, you still have to keep track of what is going on and who is handling those tasks.
All of these things are made much easier with a business planner.
Benefits to your business
- Set personal and business goals to reach your vision
- Track and review progress
- Forget less meetings and appointments
- Keep organized notes
- Save time by knowing what is coming up and when things need to be done
- Boost productivity
If you think you can just hire a personal assistant to do all of this, you could, but that's not always possible. Plus, it's going to cost you thousands of dollars per month and it could take a lot of time to find a good candidate.
Even if you have an assistant, it's always good to have your own business planner to keep track of everything going on in your business.
Difference between business plan and business planner
When people start businesses, they think they need to have a fancy business plan. Sometimes this is true, but for most people, it's not necessary and actually a waste of time.
Especially in the beginning, your business plan is going to change a lot. It's important to have a plan or planner that allows you to adjust and pivot quickly.
You always want to have a plan, but you don't necessarily need a traditional business plan like you'd think. Make sure you create a plan that gives you a few goals and a strategy to accomplish those goals.
Your "business plan" is always a work in progress and never done. As you reach new goals and milestones, you're going to build on it and make adjustments.
This is why it's important that your planner is flexible and lets you make changes quickly.
What should you look for in a planner
Simple but thorough.
As we mentioned, you're going to want something that allows you to make adjustments on the fly. No plan will stay true forever so as long as you can make changes quickly, that's a good planner.
Also, you want to have a variety of business aspects covered without getting hung up on unnecessary details.
Since your plan is going to change, you don't want to spend or waste a lot of time creating planing just to find out you need to scrap it.
A simple plan and planner are sufficient to get you started.
Look for something that allows for goal setting, adding actionable steps, room for notes, and monitoring projects.
Beyond that, the features are more luxuries and make for a nicer planner but aren't a necessity.
Digital, paper bound, or printable?
There are a few different types of planners you can use for your business. The 3 main planner types we'll discuss today are digital, paper bound, and printable planners.
Digital planner
If you're new to our website, we specialize is different types of planners and our most popular planners are our digital planners.
For those who are unfamiliar with digital planners, think of pen and paper planners but on your iPad or tablet.
You use a stylus to write on them just like a traditional paper planner but you can still enjoy a lot of the benefits of being digital.
If you would like to read more about digital planners and how to get started, we have a more indepth guide available here.
A deeper look into our digital business planner
We offer a specific Digital Business Planner that is meant to really help you build and grow your business.
It's light but still covers all of the necessities that you need.
Business overview
This section is for setting high level planning. It will let you think about and figure out some of the different aspects of your business such as the customers problem and how you offer a solution, strengths and weaknesses, etc.
Goals and KPI's
Goals are a necessity if you want to be successful. You can set 3 business goals (more if you duplicate the page). You can continue to change and update your goals as you complete them or things change with your business.
In addition, you have space for KPI's which are key performance indicators. These are going to be vital metrics to track to see your business health and how growth is going.
Markets
This is a great section to set a clear picture of your market, including the target audience, who the competition is, sales channels, and figure out a marketing strategy.
Finance
Your finances are the heart of your business. Many great businesses have failed because the money was poorly managed and dried up.
While this isn't a full budget, it is something to give you an overview of your businesses finance so you can see if things are good or not.
Team goals
If you have team members or employees, it's important to set them goals. You want to help them grow and do better, especially for your business.
You can manage and track each goal you set for your employees here, with up to 4 team members per page and you can create as many pages as you need.
Projects
You may only have a few projects to manage or maybe it is a lot. Either way, running a successful business is all about managing people and projects.
You'll have a nice little display of everything your business is working on, who is working it, and when it is due.
Delegate
As we mentioned, it's important to manage the people in your business and know what is doing what and when.
You can build on previous template and use this delegate page to assign people to projects and keep track of them that way.
Habits
A popular tool for all of our planners is the habit tracker. For you to be a successful leader in your business, you have to self reflect and work on self improvement as well. Improving habits is a great way to do this.
Yearly, monthly, and daily planning
First, we offer 2 different versions of our Digital Business Planner, one is undated and the other is dated. The dated planner is for a full calendar year. The undated version has no dates, you enter them manually and can use it year after year.
In the yearly calendar area, you have a full view of the entire year.
Then, you have a monthly planning section. Each monthly page has room for up to 6 goals and space for important tasks for that month. On the next page, you have a full month calendar where you can plan out the month.
Within each monthly section you have weekly planners. You have each day broken up by the hour so you can plan out your entire week.
Weekly planning is effective at giving you a quick overview of everything you have for the week.
The last part of this section is the daily planner. Some people don't use any kind of daily planner and that can make it very hard to get focused each day.
This daily planner lets you create a to do list and work on 3 different tasks or goals. Obviously you can duplicate the page if you need more room.
By combining the monthly, weekly, and daily planner, you'll be more focused and organized and it'll allow you to be more successful as well.
Notes
Lastly, we have a notes section. This is just a blank section that you can use to write down any notes you might have. There are 4 different design format that you can use.
Our Digital Business Planner is our best and most popular option for business planners.
Paper bound planner
The next planner we have is our original paper bound planner.
This was initially created for entrepreneurs. As the founder, I created the planner out of personal need with running my business.
When I was at a low point and struggling, I knew that getting organized with a plan would help. I built and used this system to go from $40k in credit card debt to $30k in profit a month in only 8 months.
At the time, I used printouts and notepad templates but when I decided to sell my planner, I created a paper bound version.
It's not offered in 2 different sizes, Compact and Ultimate, and it gears toward productivity. We also offer a spiral bound version and several cover options to get exactly what fits you.
In a world getting more and more digital by the day, some people prefer a good ol' paper bound planner. Our key is focusing on the goal setting system.
Proper goal setting and planning = success.
Start at the high level, life goals, and work your way down. Breaking the big goals into smaller goals and steps makes it easy to take action on and achieve.
Working all the way down to the daily planner, you'll have the perfect road map created to know exactly what to work on every day.
Printable planner
For our printable planners, we took all of our undated digital planners and covered them into a printable format.
All planners, including our Business Planner can now be printed right at home from your printer.
Printable planners are a great way to create a customizable planner binder.
You could build your planner completely on a single template such the printable business planner or you could combine different elements of our printable planners.
Building a planner binder is a popular way to help organize and run your business.
Best business planner for entrepreneurs final thoughts
Running a business can be extremely stressful and success is never guaranteed. That is what makes it so difficult.
One of the easy ways you can reduce stress and improve your chances of success is by using a business planner.
We have several options that can really help you create a plan and stay organized. Once you start building your plan, you'll immediately see the benefits and be glad you started.
The best business planner for entrepreneurs is the one that helps you accomplish the most and reduce stress and anguish.
References of interest
- Why you need a daily plan
- 9 reasons to use a digital planner for iPad
- 9 side hustles to make extra money
- What is the Eisenhower Matrix?
- Different types of planners
- Shop digital planners
- Shop paper planners
- Shop printable planners
- Free digital planner sample download
- Free printable calendar download
