Planning for People

A business plan can help to organize the roles and responsibilities of all the people involved in your business. Even if it's just for your own benefit, a checklist of all the different tasks performed by individuals (or classes of individuals, if you have many employees) may be useful.

In writing your plan, show that you've considered options other than full-time employees. In many cases, a startup business or a business taking on a new product, service, or market will experience a short-term need for a lot of help. How you fill that short-term need for help will be dictated in large part by your expectations regarding business direction and performance. If you choose to use temporary help, what you learn about various temporary help providers, and any relationships you establish, could be quite helpful if you have a need for temporary help again.

At one extreme, your business plan can make it clear that you won't ever have any employees. What little you can't do, you'll contract out. Many businesses built around performing services tend to be near this end of the spectrum. At the other extreme, your plan may reveal a need for an exponentially expanding sales force until you have reps in every major city in the US. Your choice in filling short-term needs would be very different, and, in terms of building a sales force, very important.

It can be a little difficult to predict how many people your business is going to need, particularly if you're in a new business. The process of creating a business plan can help a lot. As you consider each of the key areas, you'll develop a picture of all the activities that go into running your business. Also consider the "key person" concept. Is there anyone whose presence in the business is vital (other than you)? If so, it makes sense to consider what your business would do in the event that a key player is lost.