Simply Junior

Having a good small business plan will ensure that your journey to success is much smoother. All successful business owners know that having an organized, well thought plan is essential to see the results they expect. Even if the business plan doesn’t give the results that you would have thought in the beginning, you can tweak and change different areas of your process to perfect it.

I thought I would go through a step by step guide to what you need for an effective small business plan. Many people try and start a business without any true expectations for the future other then ‘oh this is going to work’. You have to know exactly what “should” happen so that the surprises are less. In most cases surprises in business aren’t positive.

You must have a plan for many different areas of starting a small business. How are you going to fund the start up fees? How do you expect to sell your product/service? How do you expect to pay your employees? How are you going to promote your company effectively? Most importantly and what most business owners don’t think about is where do you want your business to be in 5…10…20 years?

Creating the right small business plan is all about creating effective systems. A system is something that you can use over and over again in different situations to receive expected results. You at least have some idea of what’s going to happen if you have the right systems in place.

The first step to your business plan is knowing exactly how much money it’s going to take to start your company. None of this has to be a professionally written up small business plan that costs thousands and thousands of dollars hiring an “expert”. Take out a piece of paper and write down your plan. The main thing is that you know exactly how you are going to fulfill your dream of being a successful small business owner.

So what are your opening expenses? Here are some questions you need to answer to find out your estimated dollar amount:

How much money does your product or service cost you? How much money will you charge for your service/product? How much money do you require to live for two years with no profit coming in from your business (safety precaution)? How much will it cost for your employees for 2 years? What are your legal fees? What are your CPA fees? How much will getting a physical location cost you (if needed)?

Every business is going to be different so think about anything that you need to spend money on to get it running. The next step you must consider is how are you going to get this start up money. Are you going to go to a bank for a loan? Are you considering finding a partner that can cover the costs with the agreement you can buy out the company later down the road? Do you want to talk with a wealthy family member about your business? Anyway you choose to get the money doesn’t matter.

Having a thorough small business plan is going to help you get that start up money though. As long as you can show the lenders how you plan on getting a return on their investment, you will be set. It doesn’t matter if you have horrible credit or don’t know anybody that will lend you large amounts of money. You can always find a way. Think outside the box!

Alright the next step should be the simplest for you. You want to write down your complete sales funnel for how you plan to sell your product or service. Go through every step you expect a customer to go through to reach your bank account. What are you selling exactly? How are you packaging the items? Are you providing multiple services and products? What do you expect to be your number one seller? What’s your specialty?

Once you have all these areas done, you have to know how you are going to promote your business and keep the business coming in. This seems to be the biggest problem most business owners have. You know everything there is to know about your products/services, but you know nothing about marketing. That’s expected too. Marketing is an expertise in itself.

If you’ve read much of my blog, you know how I preach about smart marketing. Smart marketing is all about spending your hard earned dollar and getting more then you spent in return. In other words, big return on investment (ROI). Every market will be different and different marketing tactics will work in each of them. You have a huge list of options too.

Newspapers, Yellow Pages, Radio, Television Ads Fliers, postcards, promotion coupons Referral programs Internet marketing Email marketing Holding seminars and special events Business to business referral programs

These are just to name a few of the options you have. You can never go wrong working with other local businesses. It’s beneficial for both businesses and can be something that explodes your business quickly. It should definitely be part of every small business plan.

No matter which direction you take your marketing in, remember to always be able to track your marketing method. You always want to know how effective each method is for your business. Don’t spray and pray! In other words, don’t just buy what that marketing salesman is selling you if they can’t show you how many customers you are getting in return.

Creating your small business plan with all of these areas covered is a great start to having a successful business. You can go in deeper and deeper to have an even more effective plan and you should, but this is a great start for anyone. Once you have the plan, you just have to follow it step by step. It makes your job so much easier. You have too much to worry about already. There is no reason to have to constantly be wondering…’what am I going to do now?’ You need to know what you’re doing beforehand.

Anyone planning to start a business needs to have a plan in place. Coming up with a business plan, no matter how small the business may be, is sometimes not very easy and may call for the services of a professional business consultant. The need to have a business plan is propelled by the fact that later on in the life of the venture, one may need to present it to investors for planning or partnership.

A business plan consultant is normally in a position to tell you what key points need to appear on your document. One may wonder why such a crucial document is so difficult to write, but as earlier mentioned, it needs to capture and sustain the attention of whoever will be reading it. The content will also be determined by the amount of starting capital that is being looked into at the start of the venture. A business plan written with an aim of getting a loan of $50,000 is definitely different from one that is targeting $5 million. All the same the content should not be more than 40 pages.

As a suggestion to what the business plan should contain, the consultant will guide you through the various sections of the document. The first one is the executive summary which should capture the main points of the content. Remember that, the first impression is the lasting impression and so, what the reader draws from here will determine his general judgment about you and the business.

You need to explain how you will market your business and what your strategy for growth and expansion will be. These two factors will be faced with competition from other ventures in the same industry, so be clear about how you plan to step up your game to deal with competition. The other most important bit is the budget, in which you should capture all the requirements for the start up and their costs. Be careful with the figures, neither underestimating nor over quoting prices.

When you start a business, you sit down and write a business plan (at least, you should do this). After your business is up and running, you will have to take that next step which includes marketing. Before you decide the first move of your marketing campaign, before you spend a single cent of your marketing budget, you have to write a small business marketing plan as well. And, just as the business plan spelled out all of the needs and possibilities of the new business, your small business marketing plan should also spell out the goals that you would like to accomplish.

Whether you are talking about a small business that provides a local service or a larger business that has a broader customer base, the first and most obvious goal of the marketing plan should be to increase the number of customers and the number of sales that you have. These are similar but different goals: you can increase the number of people who are coming to your front door or visiting your web site without increasing your sales by a single penny. You do need to get more people to have a look at your business, but you need them to actually open their wallets and shop once they get there.

When you are making your marketing plan, you are setting a road map for the marketing campaign and hopefully answering a number of questions that come up along the way. You might have some concerns about the cost of the marketing or may wonder what the best type of marketing is for your business. You might also wonder about where you should do the bulk of your marketing. As you answer these questions your small business marketing plan will start to take shape.

After it is written and implemented, the next step in the small business marketing plan is to decide whether it is working or not. You set the goals and the time line for those goals to determine how well the plan is working. As an example, you could say that you want to increase your sales by a set amount in three months or increase interest in your business by a certain percentage, or a combination of both.

Are you considering building your very own small business? Then, these ideas are for you:

1. Choose a business. There are so many small business ideas that you can explore but I recommend that you go with the one that is closely relevant to your hobbies or areas of expertise. Why? You can increase your chances of succeeding in this field if you are knowledgeable and if you enjoy what you are doing. List down the things that you find interesting and see if you can convert them to small business. Let me give you an example; if you love swimming so much, you can offer swimming lessons to kids in your neighborhood.

2. Plan ahead. You really can’t just wake up one morning and have your own business. Setting up a business, no matter how small, will need preparation. Identify the things that you need to have to get started and make sure that they are readily available. Depending on the type of business you wish to start, you may need to create a business plan and you may need to apply for financial backing.

3. Hire an advisor. It’s easy to get lost especially if you are just starting out. That is why, I recommend that you hire a small business coach who can help you all throughout. Choose a coach who have proven track record and who is highly recommended by other people and industry leaders. This coach can help you grow your business by making sure that you will avoid committing costly mistakes and by keeping you on track.