• Survey
  • Book Becky to speak
  • The book: Small Town Rules
  • Shop Local video
  • SaveYour.Town

Small Biz Survival

The small town and rural business resource

A row of small town shops
  • Front Page
  • Latest stories
  • About
  • Guided Tour
  • Subscribe
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact
  • RSS

Another alternative to planning: experimenting

By Becky McCray

For everyone who hates business plans, I keep finding alternative ways of planning. Here’s another one.

Try more stuff. RT @transarchitect: Experimenting is the new planning.
— Saul Kaplan (@skap5) December 13, 2012

Sounds good: just mess around and try things, right? Well, that’s not quite enough.

Experimenting means more than just trying things. It means methodical testing. You have a specific idea you’re testing, and the test is designed to find out whether the idea is valid. And before, during and after the test you measure.

How do you use this as a replacement for business planning? Follow all the steps:

  • Come up with an idea for your business. 
  • Figure out a way to test it. 
  • Set up a relevant measurement. 
  • Run the test while measuring. 
  • Measure how well it worked. 
  • Decide how to improve the idea and test that. 

Not as simple as just “trying stuff,” but potentially powerful.

Do you think this could be a useful alternative to planning for you?

New to SmallBizSurvival.com? Take the Guided Tour. Like what you see? Subscribe.

  • About the Author
  • Latest Posts

About Becky McCray

Becky started Small Biz Survival in 2006 to share rural business and community building stories and ideas with other small town business people. She and her husband have a small cattle ranch and are lifelong entrepreneurs. Becky is an international speaker on small business and rural topics.
  • Survey of Rural Challenges 2019 results - December 5, 2019
  • Shop Indie Local adds a new twist to tired Buy Local campaigns - November 11, 2019
  • Better entrepreneur training for small towns - November 4, 2019
  • Culture is the intersection of people and place - August 19, 2019
  • For easier social media marketing, fill in the blank - August 5, 2019
  • Need a downtown business idea? Try a Cookie Crawl - July 22, 2019
  • Need funding for the next step in your business? - July 17, 2019
  • Youth business idea: phone clinics - July 8, 2019
  • Chain link is everywhere in downtowns. Here’s how to dress it up. - June 30, 2019
  • Stop using “3 legged stool” to describe any idea - June 24, 2019

January 1, 2013 Filed Under: entrepreneurship, planning

Wondering what is and is not allowed in the comments?
Or how to get a nifty photo beside your name?
Check our commenting policy.
Use your real name, not a business name.


Don't see the comment form?
Comments are automatically closed on older posts, but you can send me your comment via this contact form and I'll add it manually for you. Thanks!

Comments

  1. Jason Hull says

    January 5, 2013 at 9:38 pm

    When I was at Capital One, we were a very test-oriented culture. Any time there was an idea, you had to test it. The important things to testing are to make sure that you’re isolating one variable that you’re testing so that you can measure the incremental lift in the change and ensure that you’re measuring the truly important variable. For example, it’s useless to reduce the amount of calls that reach a live person if every profitable customer you block then cancels the card.

    • Becky McCray says

      January 6, 2013 at 8:06 pm

      Jason, thanks for adding what you’ve learned from testing as a way of business. Interesting to think of such a large company using this technique.

Howdy!

Glad you dropped in to the rural and small town business blog, established in 2006.

We want you to feel at home, so please take our guided tour.

Meet our authors on the About page.

Have something to say? You can give us a holler on the contact form.

If you would like permission to re-use an article you've read here, please make a Reprint Request.

Want to search our past articles? Catch up with the latest stories? Browse through the categories? All the good stuff is on the Front Page.

Shop Local

Buy local buttonReady to set up a shop local campaign in your small town? You'll need a guide who understands how we're different and what really works: Shop Local Campaigns for Small Towns.

Best of Small Biz Survival

What is holding us back? Why does every project take so long in small towns?

How any business can be part of downtown events by going mobile

Concert-goers talking and enjoying the evening in downtown Webster City, Iowa.

Why do people say there’s nothing to do here then not come to our concerts?

Retailers: Fill all empty space, floor to ceiling

More of the best of Small Biz Survival

Copyright © 2019 Becky McCray
Front Page · Log in