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Business Planning Step 1 – the big picture

Aug 27

Posted by Ellen in Current Events, Introduction to Astrology for Business, Long-term Planning, Pluto in Capricorn, What to do now | No Comments

We’ve been talking about Saturn in Virgo, and how this is the perfect energy for business planning.  You may want to review those posts before beginning this Step.  You will find them under the “Saturn in Virgo” category in the column to the right.

OK, here we go.  Are you ready?  Let’s take the first step by looking ahead to 2010.  What will the general trends be?

Starting from the most outer planets, let’s begin with Pluto in Capricorn.  You may want to review the posts on Pluto in Capricorn under that category to the right before you begin. 

Pluto will remain in Capricorn for the next fourteen years, so little by little we will learn to take advantage of this trend.  The following are some of my predictions about how this energy will play out

  • Real estate will become a good investment again, in the way it used to be:  a solid, slow-growing asset that is the largest piece of most people’s financial wealth.  A dependable, if illiquid investment.
  • Conservation of the earth’s resources will be a major focus.
  • More and more people will go into business for themselves.
  • Body-based therapies will replace psychological and spiritual therapies.
  • People will be looking for new traditions and ceremonies to build into their lives.
  • A very strong materialism will be apparent, with a focus on the old-fashioned and traditional, such as antiques and conventional homes.
  • Services for the elderly will be more required as the baby-boomers start to get into retirement age.
  • Elderly people will be working productively well into their later years, by choice or not!
  • Consumers will be risk-adverse and will respond well to money-back guarantees, warranties, and service commitments.

 

Process

Step 1.  Make a list of anything you are doing now in your business that takes advantage of these trends.

Step 2.  Review the list you made in Step 1.  How well are these initiatives working?  Write 3 specific actions you can take to improve, maintain, or stop the ones that are not successful.

Step 3.  Dream.  Think about the Pluto in Capricorn energy.  Hold it in your awareness and ask yourself, what can I do that would really capture this energy in my business?  Write down whatever comes to mind.  You may want to stop here and let this energy sink in.  Other ideas may come in the form of inspirations or dreams.

Step 4.  Pick one or more items from Step 3 and write 3 specific actions you can take to implement these strategies.

Step 5.  From Steps 1 through 4, pick 1 or 2 items to carry into the next phase of the process.  You may have to choose among several good alternatives.  That’s OK.  At each step in the process, you will have to narrow your options in order to create a reasonable, practical, achievable plan.

 

Good job!  When you’re finished, move on to the next step. 

 

By the way, I tried the process myself.  I particularly resonated with “more and more people going into business for themselves”, “real estate as a good investment”, and “services for the elderly”.  I’m as curious as you are about where the process will take me!

Let us all know in the comments below how you did with this first step.

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Saturn in Virgo – To Plan or Not?

Aug 25

Posted by Ellen in Long-term Planning, Saturn in Virgo, The Planets, What to do now | 1 Comment

Cheshire Cat
Alice asked, “Cheshire-Puss…would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”

“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.

 

Last week we started looking at Saturn’s transit through the sign of Virgo, where it’s been since September 2007 and will leave in October 2009, returning for a few months during 2010.  To best take advantage of this energy, we’re going to begin looking at business planning, aided, of course, by astrology’s ability to forecast coming trends. 

We spoke last week about Saturn in Virgo’s love of classifying data into information to make it useful for decision-making.  Every business owner knows the importance of accounting and controlling, even if for no other purpose than preparing your taxes!

Upsides to Planning

I advise my clients to prepare detailed business plans each year.  I have found the most beneficial aspect of this is the planning process itself.  The combination of letting your imagination soar and then putting your ideas to the test on a spreadsheet is an invaluable learning tool. 

Most management consultants say that a drawback of business plans is that people tend to leave the plan on the shelf until next year when it’s time to make a new plan.  I disagree.  I know many people who go through the process – the process itself clarifies their priorities – then put the plan on a shelf, never look at it, and then when the next planning cycle comes and they take down last year’s plan, they find they have accomplished every  goal.  The process clarifies their intentions, and their intentions bring about the results.

I advise business planning because in the process you quantify your assumptions and test their validity.  There is nothing like cash flow projection worksheets to show you whether you’re in the realm of the reasonable or not.  Business planning is a time to test, analyze, and assimilate new ideas – activities Saturn in Virgo loves.  In the words of Dwight D. Eisenhower, who had Saturn in Virgo,  “In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.”

Downsides to Planning

But I want to warn you before we begin about some of the downsides of Saturn in Virgo and how to avoid them.  For some people, the Virgo energy is tedious and time-consuming, and when added to Saturn, downright irritating.  Saturn can manifest emotionally as fear, worry, and a tendency to perceive a half-empty glass.  In Virgo, this can become worry over inconsequentials and becoming lost in data and details. 

The test with Saturn in Virgo is whether you have the discrimination to assess what is important and what is not.  And this discrimination comes with the business planning process itself. 

I know some business owners who don’t plan at all because they can’t keep their hope alive if they start to miss their metrics.  Or they feel they cannot control the outcomes, so why plan at all?  Or they sense the humorlessness that can be part of the process, the over-seriousness that can become so rigid there is no room for spontaneity and taking advantage of opportunities.  Other people make a business plan, but it is too vague, too unrealistic, or too future oriented.

What to do?

How do you walk the line between specific enough but not overwhelmed by details?  How can you let your optimism soar to the skies yet keep your feet on the earth as you plan the implementation?  By following a short step-by-step process that allows for creativity and practicality.

Over the next two weeks I’ll lay out a process for you, guided by astrology.  You can follow it day by day, as I will, and share how it’s going in the comments section below.  Or you can pick a couple of days between now and the end of October, clear as much of daily operations off of your desk as you can, sit down, have some dream time, and write your business plan for 2010.  Your business will thank you, your wallet will thank you, and you will thank yourself.

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Saturn in Virgo – Managing by the Details

Aug 20

Posted by Ellen in Saturn in Virgo, The Planets, What to do now | 8 Comments

Luca Pacioli, the creator of double-entry bookkeeping. (Source:Wikipedia)

Luca Pacioli, the creator of double-entry bookkeeping. (Source:Wikipedia)

I’d like to start talking about medium term trends so you can take advantage of the current energies. 

There are three categories of planets when looking at trends. 

  1. The inner, personal planets and luminaries are the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, and Mars.  These are planets that move so quickly around the zodiac that they influence our day to day lives but do not deliver a lasting impact. 
  2. We’ve covered some of the very long term transits of the outer planets, Pluto in Capricorn, and Neptune in Aquarius.  Uranus is also a planet with a very long orbit and I’ll cover him in upcoming posts.  These three planets are called the impersonal planets because they have such long orbits that they tend to affect long periods of time and whole generations of people.
  3. There are two transpersonal planets, Jupiter and Saturn, which have orbits somewhere in between, twelve years for Jupiter, 29 years for Saturn.  These planets are not entirely personal as they stay in one sign so long that large groups of people are born under the same sign.  But they’re not entirely impersonal either, as they indicate trends that play out over a manageable group of years and we have some power to take advantage of their influence.  They are seen as a bridge between the purely personal planets and the purely impersonal planets.

We’re going to skip to Saturn in Virgo, because there are only a few more months of this influence.  Saturn entered the sign of Virgo in September 2007 and will leave the sign in late October 2009.  It will briefly revisit Virgo from April to July 2010, but then it doesn’t return for 29 years.  We want to make sure we’ve made the most of it before it leaves!

We’ve spoken about Saturn and how its qualities are beneficially associated with business ownership.  Saturn understands conservatism, budgeting, and the needs for controls, policies, and rules.  Saturn contracts the energy of ideas and inspiration into the material plane.  It sees the goal at the top of the mountain and can patiently follow a prescribed plan to get there.  Saturn does rule boundaries and limitations, yes, but willingly accepts these as a fact of life on this physical earth and knows how to put these things to use to accomplish success. 

We haven’t talked about the sign Virgo yet.  Virgo also has a natural alignment with business, especially the parts of business management having to do with planning, documnetation, auditing, accounting, and finance.  Virgo has a facility with all kinds of information, especially the collecting and categorizing of information that then can be turned into  knowledge.

I once attended a seminar in a business conference that spelled out the following flow:

Data     becomes        Information   becomes       Knowledge     becomes    Future Strategy

 Virgo rules the first step in this process, where data is categorized into information.  Virgo understands the practical need for documentation and systems of testing and analysis so that all the pieces of data can be turned into useful information.  Virgo records the details, in black and white, that must be preserved for future decision-making.  In addition to accounting, bookkeeping, and auditing, it also rules engineering and scientific research.  It is practical and down to earth, cares more for application than theory.   Virgo is fond of precise and detailed rituals, daily routines which performed day after day add up to a storehouse of practical wisdom.

Saturn in the sign of Virgo brings conservatism and material outcomes to business planning, auditing, and analysis.  And since we’re firmly in the second half of the year, why wait to write your 2010 business plan?  Remember, you only have until the end of October to have the support of this energy.  What are some of the items Saturn in Virgo is looking for?

  • Do you and your company have a clearly defined mission with a written mission statement?
  • Do you have a written sales plan?
  • Have you developed an annual budget?
  • Do you have a written pricing policy?
  • Is your inventory adequately controlled?
  • Do you have an adequate bookkeeping system?
  • Are you aware of tax laws and their implications when making decisions?
  • Do you perform cash flow projections regularly?
  • Do you prepare daily, weekly, and monthly financial reports?
  • How do you insure quality control?

This is what Saturn in Virgo loves.  Note we did not mention what you do with all of this information.  Saturn in Virgo is concerned with having the process and systems in place to provide it.  It takes other planets and signs to interpret and form strategies from it.  But without the above, there is no information at all.

So over the next couple of week, we’re going to celebrate Saturn in Virgo by talking about business planning for 2010.  And not just any planning, but a process informed by the astrology of the coming year and how you can take advantage of the trends.  We’ll begin next week by looking at some of the pitfalls of Saturn in Virgo, and business planning in general, and how to avoid them.

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