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Six Greatest Ideas for Building Creative Plans • 129

As I said before, I cannot really find any scientific evidence for what constitutes
becoming too dependent, but a rule of thumb that I have used seems to get good
acceptance from the people I have discussed it with. This is, don't get more than
33% of any year's revenue from a single account.

Idea 85 - Usea good planning process

So, you have a small number of key accounts and, let us say, an account manager
responsible for them. You need to get the manager and team to produce a plan to
ensure and exploit that long-term relationship. The 'bible' of the account manager
is the key account plan, or whatever you choose to call it. The you in the rest of this
idea is the account manager who may, of course, be you - the owner of the business.

Planning mission

A planning session starts from a vision or mission. We want to change, possibly
dramatically, a part of the world to our vision of it. The mission could be very broad
or very focused; but it gives the starting point of the plan.

The objective of a planning session is 'to produce the best possible plan to
achieve this mission'. Notice how the objective breaks the rules of normal objectives
- 'best possible' is not an accurate measurement for achievement. We have to ac-
cept this though, as a more accurate test for success could constrain the creative
thinking of the plan.

Examples of planning team mission statements could look like this:

• to be the supplier of first choice to the account in all of Europe and North
America;

• to be and to be seen to be a major supplier in the civil government market;