For years I thought I was an accidental business owner. I mistakenly believed that I’d fallen into business ownership out of a determination to avoid bosses and office politics, which eventually led to an aha moment when I figured out that—yes!—I like the business of running a business.

What really happened was that I identified a market need and the appropriate universe of prospects, created services and pricing, developed a marketing strategy, and got to work selling. In other words, I had a plan.

And that’s the short secret to business success–and the topic of my latest column for IABC’s CW Bulletin. It features wisdom from Tim Berry, entrepreneur, founder of Palo Alto Software, and author of The Plan-As-You-Go Business Plan, who talks about misconceptions about planning and offers three planning essentials.

Read the complete article here.

Photo by w00kie (Flickr).