How To Create A Mind Map - A Fun Way To Start Your Business Plan

By Marianne Craig

Posted in: How to start your own business
image of colour pencils

Mind mapping is a great way to plan any aspect of your life or career. Here coach Marianne Craig shows how mind mapping can be used to start writing up a business plan.

If you are starting up a business it is a good idea to create a business plan, whether or not your business idea require you to get a loan. Lots of people don't like writing these plans. It can be a daunting task- all these scary headings and forms to fill in. One great way to make a start is to mind map a business plan first. It's like being a kid in art class again!

Get down on the floor

Get some large sheets of blank flip chart paper or the back of a roll of wallpaper will do. Find chunky coloured marker pens. Sit at a big table or get down on the floor for this task.

Put a circle in the middle with your business in the centre. Then draw a line coming out of the circle in green and call that branch "marketing". Draw a circle round. Do the same, using different colours for each branch: my skills and experience, products/services, finances, business objectives, my business vision and so on. You probably have some headings of your own. Or if you have a pro forma from a bank, you can use those headings. Then for each branch, staying with its own colour, draw lots of little branches off, giving each one its own name (use a keyword or symbol.) So for marketing, the little branches might be: press coverage, advertising, contacts, promotion, my marketing strategy, website etc. And for "finances", branches will include projected income, projected capital expenditure, fees, bank loan etc.

Brain Dump

Drawing a mind map is a bit of a brain dump and is a very creative process. Just bung down all your thoughts until you can‘t think of any more. Then go off for a coffee, come back and you'll probably think of a few more ideas. Stick them down. If one branch becomes very crowded you can take a fresh piece of paper and do a separate mind map just for that heading.

Once you have done your own business plan as a mind map, you'll find it much easier to write a full business plan. If you have loads of business ideas capturing them on a mind-map is fantastic. You can go on to do a mind map for each idea.

And mind mapping is a great way to plan any aspect of your life or career, as well as being a useful technique to share with others. Mind mapping is also a fabulous tool for studying, as an aide-memoir.

You can find out more as well as see lots of colourful examples of mind maps in The Mind Maps Book by Tony and Barry Buzan.

Leave a comment: If you use mind maps for business and career, in what ways have they helped you?

Forever Scottish and based in the seaside town of Brighton in the U.K., Marianne has been working as a coach for more than eight years. She specialises in coaching people who feel they are at a crossroads in their career and their life, and has developed the pioneering Firework Career Coaching Programme www.coachlifeandcareer.com. Marianne coaches you through a structured step by step process, helping you discover a fulfilling career and life path, and to complete an action plan. Marianne is currently working on a project offering low cost coaching to social entrepreneurs and social activists. See www.miruscoaching.org Email coach@coachlifeandcareer.com


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