Making the decision to start up your own small business can be one of the biggest choices you make in your life. Running a business takes serious commitment, and a lot of hard work, and isn’t a decision that should be entered into lightly, but if you have decided that this is definitely the route for you, then writing up your business plan is one of the first things you need to consider.

Your business plan will lay out in detail exactly what you want to achieve, and how you plan on doing it, the more detailed your plan is the better. You will need this plan not only for yourself, but also for your bank if you are going to be applying for financial help to start your business, so make sure it is written professionally, as the bank won’t be impressed if you turn up with coffee stained scraps of paper with a few ideas jotted down.

• The first thing you need to make obvious within your business plan is exactly what your business will do, what products or services you will be offering, how you will offer these to customers (online, by phone or from a shop etc), and how you will approach the pricing. Clearly defining your business in this way will make it easier for the bank to decide if you are viable for a loan. It will also help you in the long run as you will know exactly where you are heading.
• Think about who your customers will be, it is essential to have a clear idea of who you are marketing your products or services to so you can promote your business effectively. Questions to ask yourself may be; Are your customers young or old? What are their lifestyles like? How will you market your business to them? The more information you have regarding your potential customers the better.
• Choosing a name for your new business is essential, and you should put a lot of consideration into this. The name should suit your business and reflect the image you wish to portray. Look online and check if there are any businesses already using this name or something very similar, you can do this by going on a website registry site and typing in the name you wish to use. Try to choose a name that isn’t too long and can be easily remembered.
• If you are going to need to take on staff include this in your plan, as this will be an extra expense you will need to think of. Also you will need to familiarise yourself with employment laws.

These are just a few of the things to consider when starting your business plan. Remember your plan isn’t set in stone, as your company grows you may need to adjust areas, or add sections you hadn’t thought of before.

One thing to remember is that to be successful in setting up a new business you need to be flexible and realistic

Kicking & Screaming

Most business owners and department managers know they “should” have a plan. Yet in all my 25 years of helping business owners and managers grow their businesses, just four of my clients possessed a written plan, and only one was actually using it. Why do so many business owners skip this crucial step? Some common explanations I’ve heard go something like:

• “I don’t need funding, so I don’t need a business plan.”
• “My plan is going to change anyway, so why should I waste my time creating it?”
• “It will take too much time.”
• “I started to and found it overwhelming.”
• “I didn’t start a business to do the types of things I did when I worked for someone else.”
• “I don’t want a big company. I don’t want employees.” (I just created a J.O.B. for myself.)
• “I don’t know which planning program to use; there are so many out there.”
• “It’s expensive to plan and I need to spend my money on other things.”
• “I don’t need to plan; I just want to work in my business.”

Does any of that sound familiar? For the most part, “winging it” from day to day works-until it doesn’t. Many business owners learn this the hard way. Whether at the $60,000 per year income level or at the $30 million level, without a plan, a business or its owner will eventually crash. Owners or managers will often agree to use a plan if someone else creates it for them. That’s a BIG no-no in my book. It’s important for business owners to gain the experience of the planning process. At least once, they must tackle the questions they’ve put off answering. Otherwise they run the risk of never gaining real clarity regarding the direction of their business.

The Care and Feeding of Business Owners & Managers

As the old saying goes, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.” Clients who come to me for help with their strategic plan are often feeling a “pain”. It is a common experience, often necessary to compel them to take a “drink” from the strategic planning process. Here are a few common “pains” my clients have reported:

• They’re not attracting their ideal clients and are sick and tired of working with jerks.
• They need to be making more money.
• Their spouse informed them that if they don’t spend more time together, they’ll file for a divorce.
• Their spouse wants them to get a “real job”.
• They’re retiring from a job in “x” years and want to have an immediate income at that time.
• They’re retiring in “x” years and want all the work, time, and money they invested in their business to be their nest egg.
• They’ve discovered that a business isn’t just a place to work, but an entity to grow.
• “Someone” told them they had to create a plan.
• “Someone” told them that their marketing is “all over the place”.
• They need help managing their company or department.
• They became an “accidental” business owner or were promoted suddenly, and need help fast.
• They’re turning 50 and want to examine the next 30 years of their business with someone who isn’t as vested in the business as they are.
• They want to work one day per month because they want to start a non-profit.

These and many other possible “pains” or problems will hopefully lead a business owner to re-evaluate the need for planning. But where to begin? The task of planning can seem monumental. Luckily, there is a one-page process which makes planning not only exciting, but simple and straightforward.

When the Light Bulb Flickers

When someone seeks my services, they often need more clients, better clients, or more money. In determining what is hindering their growth, we find they have no vision, mission, objectives, or strategies written down. They usually have no action plan, marketing plan, or financial plan, either. Here are some reasons they’ve given for finally taking the planning plunge:

• “My original business vision was thrown to the wind and all I’ve been doing is looking at ‘today’.”
• “I realized that the business I envisioned is not what I have, and I don’t like the business I have.”
• “I read Michael Gerber’s The E-Myth Revisited and realized I need systems.”
• “I’m getting older. I want to get top dollar for my business in (5, 10, or 20) years, and I know I need to have a turn-key business. My business is anything but turn-key.”
• “I’m getting bored of running my company, and want to get it ready to sell/hire a CEO.”
• “I have tried to grow my business for the last two years and what I’ve done isn’t working.”
• “I want to start my business right; I know I need a plan.”
• “I want to earn more money.”
• “I’m frazzled. I network and market all the time and am not seeing the results I once saw.”
• “I am creating a new position within the company. I need to bring the concept to my boss in an organized way.”
• “Although I work for a company, I’m paid on commission, and I need a plan to expand.”
• “I want to open a branch office, but I can’t see having two unorganized offices. I need the first office organized, and systems created before I start the second.”
• “I don’t like my business model but don’t know what to change or how to do it.”
• “My business does not have an inner brand, niche, or focus.”

Back in 2000, with a year-old business of my own, I had the opportunity to attend a one-day planning program which helped me to create a plan on a single page. This plan would encompass all of the plans mentioned above. As a participant, I realized the importance of planning strategically before attempting execution or implementation. Today, my clients use that same methodology to bring greater success to their businesses. And when someone wants me to create the plan for them, I do it with them. My clients are present during the process, learning a system that can be reused in the future to make their lives easier-and more profitable-in the long run.

“Failing to plan is planning to fail!” was a phrase commonly heard as far back as high school when speaking with my career counselor.  As cliche? is the statement is, most business leaders will suggest that there is a great deal of merit to it, to the extent that most business leaders either a) have started thinking about writing a business plan, b) have started writing one or c) have one tucked away on a shelf that they haven’t looked at, ever.

Business plans take too long to write, they are more of an academic process, they are impractical, they are only used to raise money when starting a business and most good business leaders don’t need one, anyway, right?  While there have been many the albatross thrown around the neck of the business plan, we hope to give you new perspective on creating a business plan and hope that you will engage in one for your business.

In this issue of “Had an Aepiphanni, Lately?” we are going to discuss the justification of the business plan, or why the heck we need one, anyway, and how you might implement one into your daily business without it becoming a burdensome exercise.  Topics we will cover include:

The Business Plan: Why?
The Business Plan: Types
The Business Plan: How?
The Business Plan: When?
The Business Plan: Why?

Your business plan is a way to get the idea or vision for your business down on paper in order to determine:

if it makes sense, as in, does it fill a specific want or need and can that need be met, if it is feasible, as in, are there people or businesses who would be interested in buying your product or service at a price that works for you and them explore potential risk, how to avoid some and how to manage others,  costs of starting it and keeping it going and financial outlook.  

Additionally, simply going through the process of building the plan will provide you with a great deal of information you will need while running your business.  Additionally, as the business grows, you will want to use the business plan to help guide you in your future planning and decision-making processes.  Finally, if you expect to raise money using investors – whether friends and family or through venture capitalists, you will need a good, strong business plan.

The Business Plan: Types

The first thing you’ll want to do for your business plan is to determine what it is going to be used for.  Basically, there are four types of business plans:

Startup plans – sometimes this will be more of an overview of the business with expected sales and expenses, discussion about the product or services, the market and marketing.  These plans can be very short (10 pages) and effective for the startup phase of the business.

Operational plans – that focus on how the business will operate, heavily focused on processes, systems and people.  Ideally, cost analysis of the various processes and systems should be included, but often, current financial information and projections are used in the plan.  These can be equated with business architecture and strategic planning.

Presentation plans – these plans are used to attract partners, donors, executive teams and investors.  The key, here, is that this plan is used to attract them. Rarely will they be the final piece of information required.  In this type of plan, we focus on outcomes: the product and why there is a great need for it in the marketplace, what an investment will do to bring the product or service to market and what type of return one might expect as a result of investing or partnering with the company.  It will normally include a lot of visuals and is, essentially, a marketing piece.

Investor Grade Plans – these are the all inclusive business plans that combine all three of the other plans, with the addition of exploring risk.  This is the epitome of a marketing and investing tool that potential investors will try to tear holes in (versus trying to justify) to determine whether or not they will invest.  The executive summary, alone, needs to be powerful enough to engage potential investors to read further.  Financial plans need to extend three to five years.  This type of plan requires the greatest investment in research and financial planning of the four plans.  It will be the authority on operating the business.

The Business Plan: How?

Many people begin their business plans with a simple template.  Templates can be found all over the internet, in books, through SCORE (Service Core of Retired Executives) the SBA (Small Business Administration) and the SBDC (Small Business Development Centers).  You can take courses on how to develop the plan, or you can work with a consultant or business plan expert (Note: I emphasize with. For your business plan to be practical, you need to fully understand what is going into the plan, why it’s there and what to do with it!).  

The most important aspect of the plan, however, is that it needs to work for you and your business.  If you are a visual person, you might create a plan that is pictorially based.  If you are a task-oriented person, you might use bullet points to describe many areas of the business.  If you are a story teller, create a story, first, before even looking at a template.  Templates can be intimidating given all that is required.  Take it one step at a time.

The Business Plan: When?

When?  Your business plan should be your road map.  How often do you look at your road map when you are going somewhere you’ve never been?  Hopefully, you will look before you begin to veer off course.  Does this mean that you need to look at the whole thing, from beginning to end each and every day?  Not practical.  So when do you look at it?

The easy answer is: depends on your industry.

The better answer is – it’s too big to eat all at once.  Just like eating an elephant, you need to break it down into manageable pieces.  That means that you will want to put the marketing plan in one folder, put the SWOT analysis into another folder, your financial information in another, your processes in another, etc.  Your business plan does not necessarily need to be a single three inch thick document.  

With the plan separated, it becomes much more practical to use and update.  You might do marketing every day, but do your SWOT only once a month or once a quarter.  Ideally, you’ll manage your finances regularly and can look, at any time, to see where the business is financially.  As you update any area, stick it in the appropriate area.  Once a year, you may wish to pull out a whole section, or the whole plan section by section to review and make plans for the following year.

In Conclusion:

Your business plan should be a living set of documents that can be practically applied to your business’s every day operations.  Just the fact that you’ve invested so much time and money into the development of it should encourage you to squeeze every bit of that money right back out of it, even beyond the investment stage.  Keep in mind that creating the right type of plan and creating it in a way that makes sense for you and your business is a major determinant in the success of your plan, and that implementation of the plan is not a once and done deal.