What is a financial outlook and what role should it play in financial planning

Just what is a financial outlook? A financial outlook is the sort of overall hopes a company has financially for its future. It's a sort of a goal, a way of looking toward a day when we'll have this sort of money to work with. Lots of different things and people have financial outlooks. Businesses, for example, have financial outlooks. Universities have financial outlooks. Families have financial outlooks. Most people have financial outlooks to one degree or another. Some people may not be very good at following up on them; some people may never even try to follow up on them at all; but they have them, at least, in the sense that they vaguely say, I hope that by such-and-such a date I can retire etc.
Companies, on the other hand, have to be very, very specific. They have definite ways of realizing whether they're reaching their goals. Let's say that a company's financial outlook is that it wants to be bringing in a million dollars a year by the end of ten years. Their business is focused on selling a special kind of rose that grows in the winter and when summertime comes you can eat it. A hot item. People like it. It sells. But they're right in the initial stages of the thing, they only have a few employees, no marketing department to speak of, weak computers, outdated programs. But they still have this rather high financial outlook. They're ambitious.

So, what role should their financial outlook play in their financial planning that year? Let's look at some obvious things first.
- This company, when discussing its financial planning for the year (keeping in mind, of course, they're overall financial outlook), should focus on fundamentals. They should focus on those very basic things that are utterly required in order for them to achieve their goals. Let's say they need a certain strain of roses to begin, a greenhouse, a way of keeping the temperature a certain height all the time, at least one fairly strong computer as a monitoring device, and so on. Their financial planning would include all of these things. Their financial planning would say: Let's see, how much is the greenhouse; the strain of roses; the computer. They're financial planning would say, can we start with the least of this, the least of that-in other words, a starting company has to start with starting things. But you'd better believe that if they hope to have any success at all their financial outlook will be in their minds the entire time.
- So, you've decided on a budget for the year, exactly what you're going to spend it on, and so forth. Let's now talk about a cardinal rule of financial planning as it regards financial outlook. STICK WITH YOUR BUDGET. Except for in the rarest cases, always stick with your budget. Have faith in your original plan, don't stray too far from it. Even if something looks initially good, hesitate and think before you leap on it. Many a company has been ruined by carefully, cautiously creating a good financial plan for a year and then jettisoning it at the first get-rich-quick opportunity that comes their way.
- Remember that an ambitious financial outlook means hard, hard work. Ambition, to be successful, always requires work. No artist, no athlete, no businessman, no chef, etc., ever got to the heights of his profession by lounging about. Once you have a financial outlook and a financial plan, work like demons to meet exactly the requirements of both. Like DEMONS. Go without sleep, go without food, go without all those little perks that seem to be necessary to life but which really hold us back. Now, don't stop having fun. Don't stop relaxing. You'd die of exhaustion, your family would leave you, and so forth. But once you've got those goals in sight, fly toward them like-let's say angels. Maybe that's better.