How many pages should a great marketing plan be? If you ask Jim Horan, the answer is one.
Of course, if you ask Horan how long a business plan, campaign plan, or divisional plan should be, he will give the same answer: one page.
For 20 years Horan has spread the gospel of the one-page plan. “It causes very busy people to stop and think,” says Horan, president of the The One Page Business Plan Company in Berkeley, California. “As they start to write, it confirms both their clarity and their confusion.”
Horan’s best-selling book, The One Page Business Plan, has sparked a revolution in how corporate America, non-profit organizations, and even independent professionals approach planning.
Two decades ago Horan, a former Fortune 500 executive, was a member of an entrepreneur peer group in the San Francisco Bay Area. He presented an idea to the group for an approach to simplify planning for small business. They told him he was on to something to help any business.
“The group advised me to speak about it, but I told them I was not a speaker,” recalled Horan. “The group said, ‘Get over it, you really got something here.’”
After about 17 speeches he reported back to the group the audiences loved the concepts and asked for a book. When the group told him he needed to write a book, Horan responded that he was not a writer and received grades of Cs and Ds in English.
“Get over it,” said the group. Horan said it took three years to write the book. Corporate America discovered the book and wanted software, something he did not know how to do or had the capital to invest in.
Their advice once again was to “get over it,” and so he did. Today he has 550 trained and licensed consultants using his books and software to help organizations simplify planning on all levels.
Jim Horan of The One Page Business Plan Company
The key to Horan’s approach is to ask yourself a series of thought-provoking questions around the subjects of vision, mission, objectives, strategies and plans. What are you building? Why does the business exist? What results will you measure? How will you build it? What is the work that needs to be done?
Simple, but profound. Horan often shares the words of the master architect, I. M. Pei: “You must simplify. You must make the complex simple, then you must make it work.”
Horan continues to win converts. Recently a $1 billion private equity firm contacted Horan about using his one-page plans as a portfolio management system. This could be a whole new market for Horan’s company.
His advice to other consultants is to capture their wisdom in book form and share it with the world. Being the author of a Top 50
“Your book is your ticket to what is next,” advises Horan. “A book can open doors and allow you to do things you could never imagine.”
