In 2024, The Marketing Centre asked nearly 2,000 UK small business leaders whether they had an actual written business plan, and most of them did not; this includes practices like yours.
Practices that have never written their plan down are, statistically speaking, in excellent company, though that company is mostly guessing too.
| Original Research | A UK-wide survey found that most small firms operate without any documented business plan. |
|---|---|
| Source | https://www.themarketingcentre.com/business-insights/marketing-maturity-in-2024 |
| Overview | The Marketing Centre, a marketing consultancy, surveyed almost 2,000 UK SME decision-makers in 2024 about their marketing and planning habits. |
| Year | 2024 |
| Publisher | Brand, The Marketing Centre |
| Relevance to Wellbeing | Wellbeing practices are small businesses too, and the same planning gap almost certainly applies to coaches, therapists and clinics just as much as everyone else surveyed. |
| Our Verdict | Too early to tell The sample size is respectable and the finding rings true, but it covers SMEs generally rather than wellbeing specifically, and it comes from a firm that sells marketing services. |
| Our Summary |
|
| Our Geo View | Survey is UK-specific; the exact percentage may differ elsewhere, though the underlying pattern of unwritten plans likely holds across most markets. |
The Marketing Centre put a number on something a lot of small business owners already suspected about themselves: nobody's actually written the plan down.
The Marketing Centre, published 2024 as part of their Marketing Maturity report.
Credibility flags: sample of 1,988 UK SME decision-makers, methodology described as a survey of business leaders rather than a nationally representative census, publisher is a marketing consultancy with services to sell.
A relevance score out of 100, built from three things: how well it fits the six practice types, how recent it is, and how solid the methodology behind it is.
It scores well on how current it is, middling on how well it fits wellbeing specifically since practices weren't asked about on their own terms, and moderately on how solid the method is, given it's an industry-commissioned survey with disclosed but not independently audited methodology.
| Practice type | Relevance | Recommended action |
|---|---|---|
| Coaching | High | Draft a one-page plan and use it in client conversations as proof of your own method. |
| Therapy | Medium | Document a simple growth plan separate from clinical notes, just for the business side. |
| Training | High | Plan your course calendar a term ahead and publish it, rather than deciding week to week. |
| Alternative Healing | Medium | Write down your offer and pricing structure so it isn't reinvented every time someone asks. |
| Clinical | Medium | Keep the business plan distinct from compliance paperwork, but make sure it actually exists. |
| Retreat/Centre | High | Put a documented plan in place covering programming, pricing and staffing for the year ahead. |
Best before: revisit this one when The Marketing Centre runs its next Marketing Maturity survey, or sooner if you finally write your plan down and want fresher proof.
Anyone who has meant to write a proper business plan for the last three years will recognise this statistic immediately.
We love that about you. Thorough people tend to love what we've built - a story garden, a visual river, a listening wind, and a discovery call that goes properly both ways. The kettle's on. How do you take your coffee?
≡