Before sharing and explaining the #1 Universal Funnel Law for Business, you may be curious about the word funnel and rightfully so. Imagine a funnel if you would for a moment. The purpose of a funnel is to take a large amount of something and focus it into a more concentrated stream. In small businesses to Fortune 1000 companies, a large amount of activity is focused to generate a specific, smaller outcome. Using a funnel as a visual analogy, is a good way to demonstrate the flow of business activity towards a specific end result.

Remember, the old adage of the 5-Ps Proper Planning Promotes Positive Performance? This is another way of stating the #1 Universal Funnel Law for Business. Every business needs a plan of action specifically a strategic plan that clearly articulates Who does What by When.

Many business owners and executives are familiar with business plans. This is quite evident by the numbers of searches according to Inventory Overture which indicated over 148,500 searches during September 2005. Business plans are usually presented to investors or banks to show the rationale behind the business and the potential for generating profit.

The main difference between a business plan and a strategic plan is one word implementation. A strategic business plan revolves around Who does What by When or simply stated implementation. Given that during the same time frame individuals conducted only 614 searches for Strategic Business Plan , may help to explain why implementation continues to allude business owners and executives.

The strategic plan is the big picture from which the smaller courses of action evolve. If the organization has a multitude of departments, each department also then has a strategic plan that is in alignment with the central strategic business plan.

Some key elements within a strategic business plan include:

• Vision
• Values
• Mission
• Critical Goal Categories
• Analysis of External and Internal Factors
• Market Plan
• Sales Plan
• Financials

The First Universal Funnel law lays the foundation for the other for laws. If YOU truly wish to double your business, then begin by predicting your future performance because you have NOW properly planned for those results.

Copyright 2005(c) Leanne Hoagland-Smith, M.S.

This article may be freely published. Permission to publish this article, electronically or in print, as long as the bylines are included, with a live link, and the article is not changed in any way (grammatical corrections accepted).