What is an Entrepreneur Development Plan?

I’m sure you’ve got your strategic business goals set for the next year and have a business strategy ready to implement. But do you have goals and a strategy to develop yourself as an entrepreneur, so you don't get left behind as your business evolves?

Read on to find out why an Entrepreneur Development Plan is critical to your ongoing success and get a 6-question stack to help you create your own plan.

Why an entrepreneur development plan? 

You know how important goal-setting is for business growth and to have a strategy to achieve these goals. But what about your development as an entrepreneur?

As a business owner, your company’s success is a reflection of your purpose, insight, values, resilience and identity. And at the same time, leadership stress, anxiety, frustration and self-doubt are also reflected in the business vision, goals and projects.

Consequently, these qualities and challenges are immortalised in your brand’s culture, processes, infrastructure and reputation.

To grow a business to match your aspirations it takes more than business know-how, the right strategy and high work rate. The key is to become the entrepreneur you aspire to be, so you can stay ahead of the business. As you grow, your business grows.

For example, your plans will reflect your evolving purpose, vision, values and insights. Increased self-belief and resilience will enable you to implement your plans effectively and lead with clarity and confidence.

Reaching your potential as an entrepreneur

As an entrepreneurial leader, you need the purpose and self-belief that enables you to perform to your full potential when you need to – whether it’s to set and communicate a bigger vision, pitch for new funding, make difficult decisions effectively or successfully sell your business.

An entrepreneur development plan and goals can help you identify areas that have been holding you back, connect more powerfully with your purpose, build resilience and get the confidence to tackle the challenges ahead.

The specifics needed in an entrepreneur development plan depends on you, the entrepreneur, and your aspirations for your business. The business reflects you, so a well-developed entrepreneurial plan translates into a better culture, process, and bottom-line. At work, there’s less stress and more success - to say nothing of the quality of your life outside of work.

What happens without entrepreneur development?

Your business is a reflection of you. If you don’t stay ahead of the business, a whole host of issues can arise from lack of productivity to stress and burnout. In short, you’re on a journey to losing control of your business.

Let’s unpack an example of what happens without entrepreneur development...

Is this what you dreamed about when you set up your business? For entrepreneurs in this position, they may experience high levels of anxiety or burnout while the internal struggles may lead to brand reputation issues, high staff turnover or customer dissatisfaction.

Discovering the psychology behind the entrepreneur development plan

From experience, I can tell you an effective entrepreneur development plan is a game-changer. In my previous career, I hit a wall in my progress. My vision for the future had become vague. This wasn’t because I couldn’t see any possible futures. It was because I felt conflicted about those futures but couldn’t see a better alternative.

Back then, the best strategies available to me were to double my efforts and do more skills-based training. But it felt like there was some invisible force holding me back from making the next leap. It was a dark time on the edges of burnout.

Driven to understand the hidden forces at play, my challenge led me deeper into the study of success strategies and performance psychology. Through this study and expert guidance, I realised that I had the skills, plenty of support and that my work rate was more than enough - in fact it was extreme. What was holding me back? Unconscious psychological factors...

Ultimately, that journey re-connected me with my passion for enabling entrepreneurs and athletes to reach their potential. 15 years later, here I am, still running my own performance coaching practice and feeling as purposeful as ever.

With clarity of purpose from the entrepreneur, the business vision and values will be clearer and more authentic, creating a stronger brand proposition, which can be communicated clearly both internally and externally to customers. What better example of how your development directly impacts business performance?

How do we create an entrepreneur development plan?

Keeping it simple, here are 6-questions to help you start to create your plan:

BTW I know how helpful expert guidance on this was at an important time for me. So, if you don’t want to go it alone, here are some options.

Are you already the entrepreneur you aspire to be?

If you feel you’re already there hitting your entrepreneur goals, that’s superb - congratulations!

But if you know that you could be achieving more, I know how that feels. I encourage you to set aside time in your diary to use the questions above to plan your entrepreneur development strategy.

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