Your Small Business

How to Structure a Business Plan For Your Small Business

Three quarters of all small businesses fail within the first two or three years of opening.

Business owners who put together a business plan, and structure planning and strategizing as a formal function of their regular business activities, are more likely to succeed and avoid failure.

Even if they do not fail, they will make more profits than if they did not have a plan.

What makes small businesses very vulnerable is the fact they do not have the resources to take them through tough times or bad mistakes as larger companies do.

It is even more critical for a small business to understand their market and plan their limited resources accordingly to react quickly to changes, and to avoid critical business errors that could fold their company in a heart beat.

These statements alone should encourage every small business owner to learn and master the business planning process.

Business Planning is not just for borrowing money

The only time that many owners/managers produce a plan (even successful businesses) is when they go to their bank or investors to ask for money.

After the loan requirements have been satisfied, the plan usually gets filed away in a cabinet and never reviewed again until the next time they need to go for a loan.

Producing a business plan is not a one time event that is performed to satisfy a third party requirement. It is a function that needs to be designed into the regular activities of running your business to make it more successful.

Business planning is a function that helps struggling businesses to survive and good businesses to become even better.

Business Planning Elements

A formal business plan has several common elements regardless of the nature of your business.

The faster you learn and master these elements, the faster you will gain control of your business and direct it towards higher profitability.

I have included a brief outline of the necessary elements you need to include in your plan if it is to be reviewed by a third party lender or investor.

However, you should construct your plan in a manner that not only cover the detail for potential investors, but more importantly it needs to be constructed in a manner that it becomes a critical tool that provides practical guidance for your company.

1. Executive Summary

Your executive summary touches briefly on every element of your business plan. It is more than just an introduction, it is a shorter version of your entire plan.

If you are presenting your plan to a third party, the people reading your summary should be able to understand your business and your plan without reading any further.

2. Company Overview

This element describes your business.

Here you outline:

-The nature of your business -The key factors of your industry -Your customers -The product and service value streams you wish to develop

As you construct this element you also need to state:

-A Value Statement. Which defines your set of beliefs and principles that guide the activities of your business -Vision Statement. Which defines what you want your company to become -Mission Statement. Which defines your company’s purpose, what it is and what does -Goals and Objectives. List your goals for the period and the objectives that you have set to achieve these goals

3. Business Environment

Here you want to describe the nature of the business climate in which you operate. You should outline:

-The direction in which your market is moving -What your customers are looking for -The business conditions that are out of your control -The nature of your competition -The opportunities you see -The threats you see to your business -A description of how you plan to be successful

4. Company Description

In this section you want to cover what your company has to offer to the market place.

Describe the strengths of your company and how these strengths give your company an edge over your competitors examining the following areas:

-Management and organization structure -Product and service value streams -New technologies adopted by your business -Operations capabilities -Marketing capabilities -Financial and personnel resources

5. Company Strategy

This element describes the strategies your company plans to adopt for major parts of your business that will include:

-Marketing strategy to promote and expand you business -New product and service development strategy -Operations strategy for improved speed, quality and cost reduction -Employee development strategy to meet new business needs -Financial strategies to prepare your business for new opportunities

You should describe how your business strategies will impact the future outcome of your business and you should also present alternative courses of action should the business climate change.

6. Financial Overview

The company financial review consists of both financial statements describing the “current state” and your “future state” financial predictions that are backed by the previous strategies and assumptions that you made in your plan.

The basic financial statements for the “current state” and “future state” are the same which include:

-Income Statements -Balance Sheets -Cash-flow Statements

The income statements should break down the financial numbers associated with each product or service value stream to make it clear where the income is generated and how it is being spent across your product and service lines.

The numbers for the future state are predictions that are based on what may happen. So, ensure that you link those predictions to your assumptions.

7. Tactical Plan

The tactical plan lays out how you intend to execute your business plan.

It should identify:

-Major activity steps -Who is responsible for which 1ff8 activities -The planned completion time frames to complete the plan -The resources you need

It should also identify how resources such as equipment, facilities, personnel and training are to be acquired if the current state does not satisfy the future state requirements.

You should include with your tactical plan:

-A brief description of the planning organizational structure -The frequency for reviewing -The execution process for addressing the activities of the plan -The measures necessary to ensure adequate feedback is available to monitor progress against planned goals and objectives.

How long should your plan be?

No more that 20 pages written in specific, but brief language.

Just Do It

Do not wait until the bank or some investor asks you to generate a business plan. Do it now with whatever data and information you have. It is easy to get bogged down in the details of constructing a business plan. Yes, your predictions and assumptions need to be accurate, but not to the extent that you are overwhelmed with “analysis paralysis” that prevents you from taking the actions necessary to get moving.

The accuracy of your business plan does not need to be absolutely perfect if you establish regular reviews of your plan against the current business environment. The more frequent those reviews the greater the accuracy of your plan will become with time as you make constant adjustments where they are necessary.

In order for your business plan to be successful, it should be a “living, dynamic” document that forms the direction for every activity performed by the employees within your organization. Organizations that go through an annual planning process, but then discard their plans in some cabinet until the following year are no better off than if they ran their business by “shoot from the hip” reactionary strategies. Your business plan will become more sophisticated, more accurate and generate improved results the more frequently you go through the planning process.

The very motions of performing the process will force you to ask yourself the important questions that govern your market and business.

New ideas will spring from these discussions and over time the process will become second nature and part of the “culture” of running your business.

Author: Les W Ross

Newsletter registration: http://www.highlanderllcconsulting.com/Newsletter.htm

Follow Les on Twitter: http://twitter.com/BusinesMechanic

Ultimate Guide To Postcard Marketing

If your photography business is well established already then it may hurt you more than help you to make a complete overhaul of your brand with a custom brand identity. In this case it is better to make small incremental changes over time so your customer base isn’t confused. … If you can say with complete confidence that your business plan is established because of your past experience then you may be ready now for a large investment in a custom brand identity.

Choosing a Mobile Phone Plan for Your Business

Staying in touch with your business is very important in our modern world. Therefore, a good mobile phone plan is absolutely critical. With the multitude of varying mobile phones and plans available to you and your company.

Business Recovery Plan

Right now turn your attention to the sales plan when you have one. The saying is success breeds success,and that is never truer than in a small business turnaround. Choosing the Type of Company bankruptcy.  

Technorati Tags: business plan, how to start a company, own your own business, start a business

Tags: business plan, how to start a company, own your own business, start a business

Business Financial Success

Business Financial Success Comes With Proper Planning

Unless you happen to be planning to establish a charitable, non-profit organization of some type, the main reason why you may be interested in starting a business is to make a living or build wealth from the endeavor. For many people, the desire to “be your own boss” and escape from the shackles of traditional employment is part of the motivation, but the bottom line usually comes down to wanting some form of business financial success so that you are not living from paycheck to paycheck.

One of the most important things that you will do in your quest to enjoy business related financial success is to have a clear, detailed, and realistic business plan that will lay out a map for your progress in your new business. A well-done business plan will include financial projections, working capital management objectives, cash flows analysis, industry and competition analysis, a profile to target customers or a specific audience, and an outline of organizational and asset management ideas.

One of the common errors that a lot of new business people make, which contributes greatly to the high failure rate of new businesses, is not having a clear and complete picture of the marketplace in which they plan to compete. Spending some advance time in analyzing the industry and collecting enough pertinent information will give the entrepreneur a much better idea of what is needed in order to forge business financial success in a given field.

In most cases, when someone is looking to start a new business, they will need some type of start up, working capital to see them through until the business starts to make enough money to be self-sustaining, as well as to be able to pay out salaries. Because a new business has no track record of any kind and no net assets or financial statements to submit for a loan, the only business financial information that the lenders will be able to evaluate is the entrepreneur’s personal credit and total assets.

Even if you have excellent credit and current assets that you can borrow against in order to take out a loan to get your business started, a loan officer will still require a detailed business plan from you. Without a thorough business plan, your aspirations are nothing more than wishful thinking and your loan application won’t get very far in the process.

The lenders will want you to prove to them that you have a knowledgeable understanding of the industry you wish to enter, as well as sufficient management knowledge to be able to successfully take your business from inception, through the growth phases and into stability.

When an entrepreneur is heavily engaged in establishing and growing their own business, there is no doubt that it becomes a very personal endeavor. But often this perspective is just “too close” to be able to make important decisions that can lead to business financial success. However, when someone has taken the time to research and map out a clear and detailed business plan, this can help to overcome the challenges.

Author: Mike Selvon

Technorati Tags: Business Financial Plan, Business Financial Success, business plan

Tags: Business Financial Plan, Business Financial Success, business plan

Writing A Business Plan

Writing A Business Plan What Makes A Good One

Writing a business plan can be a lot of hard work or it can be great fun. An effective plan can help your company to greatness. A poor one can lead you out of business. No plan is like asking to fail before you even start.

Not every business needs a 200 page bound business plan. However every business needs to have some idea of where they want to go and how they are going to get there. This article covers some key insights into writing a business plan that get your business to where you want to be.

The first stage of any plan is ANALYSIS. You need to take a very objective look at a number of factors that may impact your business. There are many factors to consider but the two major ones are competition and your operating environment.

Let’s look first at competition. Every business has competition, even if you think your product or service is unique. How is this? Well it’s quite simple really, people have choices to make. The most fundamental choice they make in most cases is whether to buy what you offer or but something else. For example I could buy a game console or I could buy groceries instead. Customers only have so much money available so you first task is to ask yourself what is my competition like and can I beat them? The more you understand your competition the more you can develop your business strategy of being different and outperforming them.

Now let’s look at operating environment. This is understanding what factors around your area of operation are likely to affect your business performance. For some companies this includes looking around the World in other cases it’s just your local neighbourhood. You need to ask questions such as:

How is the economy going?
What is consumer confidence like?
Where is technology heading in my industry?

After answering all the questions you need to decide how these might negatively or positively influence your performance.

Now you know more about your competition and operating environment it’s time to set some OBJECTIVES. This is what you want to achieve in the period your business plan covers. It is said that good objectives are SMART. That is specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and targeted. Here’s an example of a SMART objective for a hypothetical business.

‘By the end of this year we will have increased sales of product X by 7.5% over the previous year.’

You can see how clear this objective is. It is much easier to achieve high performance with clear objectives.

Now you need to outline your STRATEGY. How are you going to reach you objective(s)? This is where your marketing plan often comes in as it helps describe the programs you will run to achieve your desired objective(s). To continue the example above our strategy may be to gain distribution for our product in one new major retail chain.

To make your strategy work you must then allocate appropriate RESOURCES. Certain things will need to be provided to reach your goal. This could be dollars, people, equipment, etc. Your plan must have included the resources you are allocating and why you believe this is adequate to get the result.

Every business plans also has some PROJECTIONS. This is your basic financials that you plan will deliver. Are you expecting a profit or loss? How much?

Lastly you need to allow for CONTINGENCIES. Things change all the time and your plan needs to consider these possibilities in advance. A good way to do this is to ask What if?

What if a new competitor enters our market?
What if a distributor delists our product?
What if interest rates rise?

Your analysis should give you some idea of likely contingencies. It saves a lot of stress if you have some documented ideas for dealing with them before they become a big problem.

Writing a business plan is never perfect, the plan is on paper and you’re operating in the real world. However a good plan can really guide you in the right direction. Take time to put real thought into preparing your plan an above all make sure you USE YOUR PLAN!

By: William Siebler

One Mann’s Opinion: Setting Up Your Strategic Plan

Setting Up Your Strategic Plan. Teamwork is so important that it is virtually impossible for you to reach the heights of your capabilities or make the money that you want without becoming very good at it. Brian Tracy Yesterday, I mentioned the dreaded business … to grow your business, you need to understand your customers and potential customers. What makes people do what they do? What makes one message resonate while another fails to cut through?

Interview: Part II: Barry Diller: ‘The Business Model For Content …

The ‘lack of a business model’ was nuts. Business model, in this case, makes no sense. There are only a couple of ways to pay for content. Either advertisers or you can charge in macro or micro subscription payments. Within that, we do think we are … I don’t know,” he’s saying one of two things: 1) He has no business plan and this is a vanity project, or 2) he has a business plan, but thinks he can intimidate this journalist…

Marketing Plan For Small Business – One Page Marketing Plan …

Do you have a Marketing Plan for your business? Less than 5% of the Small Business owners I talk to have a Marketing Plan and if they do take the time write one. … What you need is a simple, easy and practical Marketing Plan which is why I create the One Page Marketing Plan. Good news is I am practically giving it away. Grab your copy of the One Page Marketing Plan here.

PlanMagic Business Blog » 20 ways to stretch your marketing budget

Encourage them to spread the good word about your company. One finance company discovered that their cleaning lady’s husband had a passion for large motor cruisers. So she frequently went to shows and the like with him. … Our product line of business plan, financial plan, marketing plan and media plan software enables you to plan better and faster. We continue to set the standards in business plan automation, business plan…

Writing a Creative Brief : Bizzia – Business News and Commentary …

Writing a creative brief can help you plan your advertising by helping you to focus and providing a good basis for your ad (or other collateral). It should provide your basic purpose for the ad, list some supporting information, … that you’ll go through a few of these before you hit the right one. But don’t be afraid to write something down so you have a goal in mind when you create your ad. It’ll keep you from trying to do too many things in one …

Technorati Tags: a good business plan, business plan, business plan forms, how to prepare a business plan, Online Business Plans

Tags: a good business plan, business plan, business plan forms, how to prepare a business plan, Online Business Plans

Your Business Plan

You have a great idea for a new product or service, or perhaps you’ve been running a business out of your home. You are ready to take the next step by seeking investors or expanding or incorporating. Before you can begin, you need a business plan.

A business plan is a road map. It is not an ironclad contract. A good business plan will give you a framework for success as you move ahead, and will also provide documentation for third parties including lenders and investors. A business plan shows where you want to be in one year, two years, five years. It is a place where you can preview challenges and forecast growth.

What are the main elements of a business plan? There are two: the narrative, which is the story of your business, and the financials, which are the numbers. Both are equally important.

Let’s walk through a typical business plan. It is divided into sections or chapters, like a book.

1. Executive Summary. Here is where you quickly sketch why your business is necessary and what its activities will be. Briefly describe your service or product, the expected market, and the ownership and management of the business.

2. Objectives. In this section you describe more specifically your goals for your business and how you plan to reach them. Outline the structure of your business, set benchmarks and deadlines, and provide sales goals.

3. Mission Statement. This is the underlying rationale for the business and how it benefits your community. It can be one sentence or a paragraph.

4. Action Plan for Success. Here you expand upon the strategies you intend to use to reach your goals. This section includes specific elements. If you intend to manufacture a product, for example, you would outline the manufacturing process, the location, expected suppliers, and the mechanism for distribution and sales.

5. Time Line. This is typically a reference table showing dates and milestones to be reached. Your business plan will include much of the same information in both narrative and table form.

6. Company Summary and Ownership. The plan provides specific information on the company’s ownership and capitalizationwhere your money is coming from.

7. Company Location. The physical location of your offices and other facilities.

8. Products Summary. This is a more detailed description of your products or services. Include support services such as warranties and customer service.

9. Cost and Method of Production. Provide a more detailed description of how you plan to create your product or service and what the costs are.

10. Market Analysis. Chances are you are entering a market that is already established. You need to demonstrate knowledge of your competition and where your company will be positioned. Are you a budget or luxury provider? Is your product hi-tech or artisan?

11. Market Segment. What demographic are you targeting? What market share do you hope to capture?

12. Marketing and Promotion. Describe how you plan to reach your target market. Provide goals and a time line for reaching those goals.

13. Revenue Strategy. Detail how your company plans to generate income. This may not be as simple as it sounds, especially for an Internet company. Provide annual income goals.

14. Sales Strategy. Describe the process of entering the market and making sales. This is similar to the revenue strategy but with a focus on the customer transaction.

15. Management Summary. Provide names and qualifications of all key personnel. This information will be of great interest to investors.

16. Management and Staff Plan. Describe how your company will grow during the next five years and your staffing expectations. Include costs.

17. Financial Plans. This section includes a set of detailed tables or spreadsheets encompassing the next three to five years. They include annual budgets, a profit and loss projection, and projected cash flows. Any significant financial element must be included. These tables are the bottom-line standards to which the company’s performance will be judged in the years to come. They should be adjusted on a regular basis in order to remain relevant.

A well-written business plan will both provide you with a road map to the future and serve as a powerful sales tool when partnering with investors.

By: Thomas A. Hauck

7 Points Agenda For Business Success | Nigerian Entrepreneur

Creating a plan for your personal and business success cannot be over emphasized. If you fail to conscious make a good plan of how you intend to succeed in life, then you have just unconsciously planned to fail in life. …

Success of Business.

A unique and decent business card reflects the overall image of a company. Business card software allows you to create your own impressive business card with a host of professionally designed business card templates, … The success of any business depends upon a proper planning. A business plan should be a living roadmap to success, not just a one-time document. For accurate business planning one needs to take business…

5 Ways to Increase Your Motivation for Web Success

Increase your motivation for web success in 5 steps. Small business internet marketing tips on success. … Schedule that task wherever it is you schedule your appointments (I’m a big fan of the Google Calendar). Until you write it down and set a time to do it, your decisions won’t be decisions but things you put on the back burner. Also, when you set a deadline and stick to it, it helps you plan what you are going to take care of ..

Starting Your Own Business Without A Degree : Desktop Scripts

Starting a business without a degree is a difficult task, and in order to achieve success, you need to have a lot of patience. So, before you start your business, find out whether your intended product or service falls into an existing … -Create a proper business plan: You should prepare a formal working business plan. This will enable you to prioritize your work in a systematic manner and analyze your business tactics. A business plan…

PlanMagic Business Blog » 20 ways to stretch your marketing budget

Other companies who have the same customer base as you, but sell different products, are often willing to share the cost of a direct mailing. 15) Supplying business success. Your own suppliers can be a valuable source of business. … Our product line of business plan, financial plan, marketing plan and media plan software enables you to plan better and faster. We continue to set the standards in business plan automation,

Technorati Tags: business plan, bussiness plans, complete business plan, mini business plan, personal business plan, simple business plan, successful business plan

Tags: business plan, bussiness plans, complete business plan, mini business plan, personal business plan, simple business plan, successful business plan

Business Plan Financial

Business Plan Financial Projections

Business plan financial projections seem daunting because they are so uncertain. This very uncertainty, however, is what makes preparing them easy because you can’t possibly be right. You can’t predict the future. None of us can. All you can be is competent in the way you prepare your business plan projections.

Before you finalize your business plan this year, consider these six caveats to preparing your business plan financial projections:

1. Don’t offer pull-out-of-the-air, ‘conservative’ guesstimates about getting some percentage of the overall market demand or year-over-year growth.

It is a mistake to assume that business investors will appreciate your being conservative with your business plan financial projections in the early years of your business. Don’t think for a Wall Street minute that presenting ‘conservative’ business plan financial projections indicates ‘realism’ to prospective business investors. Business investors invest for one reason: to earn a return on their money. How long the money is invested influences the amount of the return earned. Let’s say a business investor wants to triple an investment. Well, if that investment triples in 3 years, the return is 44%. If it triples in five years, the return is 25%. Adding just two years to the investment period nearly halves the return! Now do you see why time is so important to a business investor? Here are a few other examples: let’s say a business investor wants to:

Make 5 times an investment in 3 years = 71% return

Make 5 times an investment in 5 years = 38% return

Make 7 times an investment in 3 years = 91% return

Make 7 times an investment in 5 years = 48% return

Make 10 times an investment in 3 years = 115% return

Make 10 times an investment in 5 years = 59% return

So, while you may find it attractive to figure out how to make ‘just a living’ until the business venture proves itself, you now understand why business investors want sales and earnings to grow absolutely as fast as possible, without being deceived, in your business plan financial projections. On the whole, business investors are risk averse only to the extent that they don’t want to lose their money or tie it up in a low return investment. Typically when you make the claim that your business plan financial projections are ‘conservative’, it usually just means that you have no idea how and why you’ll achieve a certain level of sales within a certain time frame. Interesting, these kinds of estimates, provided that you’ve done some good thinking about market segments and overall demand, often turn out to be too low. Remember, it’s just as bad to underestimate your sales, as it is to overestimate them.

2. Avoid calculating costs as a straight percentage of revenues. Sure it’s easier to do things this way, especially with Excel and other business plan financial projection software. Costs are real, however. You need to know what they are very specifically. If you’ve done your homework in developing your business plan, then you should already have this information, or at least the basis of it. Just estimate and calculate your costs on a product-by-product basis. With these warnings in mind, use the following steps to develop your business plan financial projections:

Think about what percentage of the overall market share your competitors already own. Assume that they will continue their present trends in growth. (Note: some competitors may
already be trending down and losing market share.) Temper your market share estimates with some discussion of how your entry into the market will affect these trends. Then, estimate the percent of total, potential demand that remains available to you.

Now, based on the limitations of your operations plans, calculate how much of this remaining available demand you can achieve. This is a very simple calculation. Start with your overall productive unit capacity and factor it by the expected yield of sellable product, then multiply these unit sales by their respective selling prices and voila, you have the revenue numbers for your business plan financial projections.Let’s take an example.

Your research indicates that 2 out of every 10 females age 23 to 55 will under go some type of non-invasive cosmetic treatment in your area. Your research also shows that this number is expected to grow 20% each year over the next 5 years. There are 40,000 females in your target market. You identified four competitors in your target market. These four competitors currently handle on average 6 procedures a day. You plan to start a non-invasive cosmetic treatment center that uses the most advanced technology and is thus capable of performing an average of 7 procedures a day. Using this data you calculate the following statistics about your market and market potential:

Total market 40,000 females x 20% = 8,000 procedures per year

4 competitors x 6 procedures x 250 days = 6,000 procedures per year

Available procedures: 8,000 less 6,000 = 2,000 per year

Your productive capacity: 7 procedures a day x 250 days = 1,750 or 21.875% of the total market. The average selling price for a procedure is $400. Thus, the revenue for the first year in your business plan financial projection would be 1,750 procedures times $400 or $700,000.

Now, let’s say you’re were projecting 2,200 procedures per year. This would mean that you would have to alter your operating plan to be able to perform 2,200 procedures. You would also have to demonstrate how you would capture an additional 200 procedures from your competitors. Granted this is an over simplified example, but it should give you a feel for how this process works.

Regarding price, in most cases you should have a clear idea of how to price your product or service. There are usually other, similar products or services out on the market. Unless your competitive advantage is a cost reduction and/or unless price is a critical basis of competition, just estimate the value of your improvement and add it on to the average price currently offered in the marketplace. In order to make this estimate, you’ll have to be talking to potential users. Find out what they pay now. Find out how they feel about the current price. Ask them if they’d be willing to pay more and how much more. If you ask enough people, you’ll get a general idea.

3. Never determine price on the basis of a margin you think is attractive.

The market will pay you only for the value you deliver, which is determined by the consumer paying the final price. It’s easy to make the mistake of thinking that a 20%, 40% or even a 60% margin is great. Never considering that if the product or service you’re offering provides a real advantage. If you do this, you may be grossly underestimating the price you can get in the marketplace and underestimating your business plan financial projections. Consumers don’t think in terms of margins. They could care less about what you ought, ‘reasonably’, to get for your product. That’s why you must find out the most that they’ll pay. This is the value of your product or service. Come up with some reasonable basis for determining this real value. Keep in mind the obvious: If the consumer’s value on the final product or service is less than your cost plus a reasonable profit to keep your business growing, you’re in trouble. Your business model will not be sustainable and your business plan financial projections useless.

Now calculate the costs of manufacturing and distributing your product. These costs flow directly from your revenues estimates and operations plan. How much will it cost to purchase what equipment and materials, hire what personnel, engage in what selling efforts, pay what accountants and lawyers, rent what kind of space and so forth, to achieve the revenues you’re showing in your business plan financial projections. You must be very specific. Project your costs over time. Keep them tied to the units you need to sell to achieve the revenues in your business plan financial projections.

Obviously, costs and revenues work hand in hand.

4. Keep your fixed cost low.

Keep in mind that none of these revenues and the cost estimates are going to be perfectly accurate, which means the amount of profit or cash available to pay ‘fixed’ cost isn’t going to be accurate either. As a result, you can lose your shirt trying to pay for equipment, a receptionist, or other activities that don’t contribute to the sole objective of making sales. Wherever possible, rent space, rent time on equipment, answer your own phones, etc. To the extent that you keep costs variable in your business plan financial projections, you can cut back when sales are slower than expected. It’s the worst situation to have a big, well-furnished office with an expensive secretary who needs the job, when the money isn’t coming in. High fixed costs in your business plan financial projections also send the wrong message to investors that you know more about the ‘form’ of doing business than about actually making money.Now pull all your numbers together to prepare the financial statements that summarize your business plan financial projections. You need three basic statements: cash flow analysis, income statements, and balance sheets. All of these come directly from the above calculations. Your cash flow analysis indicates when and what amounts of capital infusion you’ll need to start and sustain your business plan. Make your income and balance sheet projections on the assumption that you’ll get the capital. For the first year or two of your business plan financial projections, present each of these statements on at least a quarterly basis. Monthly is best. I suggest doing a 24- or 36-month projection depending on your growth plans and changes in the industry that you foresee. Follow these monthly or quarterly projections with annual projections till you cover a span of 5 years.

Finally, run through some ‘what-if’ scenarios or sensitivity analysis. Though you business plan financial projections should be based on your best, and best-supported estimates of costs and revenues, you know you can’t be 100% right. That’s why it’s important to identify those elements or assumptions of your business plan financial projections that you feel are most uncertain. Write out the nature of the uncertainty and the range you think the estimates will fluctuate up or down. Then change the estimates accordingly and re-run all your statements. Pay close attention to how your business plan financial projections, especially cash flows, change when you change each assumption. This will help you determine how much ‘cushion’ you have available and, if business isn’t going according to plan, at what point cash will become an issue.

5. Do not simply assume that costs and revenues may be ‘off’, up or down, by some percentage.

Again, I know that Excel makes it easy to do this. For all the same reasoning as above, stay focused on the assumptions and details that make up your business plan financial projections. It’s the details you need to examine for their sensitivity and their impact on the bottom line. You only need to alter those specific items that you’re most uncertain about. If it’s revenues that you’re worried about, is it the price, the volume, or both that concerns you most? How big a swing in the estimate are you worried about, in what direction and why? If it’s your cost projections that are keeping you awake at night, which cost elements and why? Things like rents and labor costs can be determined fairly accurately. But maybe you’re unsure about materials or labor availability or how efficiently you can produce your products or provide your services. Maybe you’ll have to pay extra to ensure their availability. This kind of thinking forms the basis for running ‘what-if’ or sensitivity analysis on your business plan financial projections. 6.Do not include every possible business plan financial projection scenario in your business plan.

Both you and your investors need to know what aspects of the business plan financial projections are most uncertain, represent the most risk, in what direction, why, and how they affect the bottom line. Having hundreds of alternative scenarios to sort through is like a man with two watches showing two different times… he never knows what time it is. Lots of alternative business plan financial projections also indicate that you’re not too sure about anything. This is an impossible way to communicate with business investors, manage your business, or make important decisions. It’s much more effective to identify the risky areas of your plan, tell why and how they impact the bottom line and what actions you plan to take if they occur. This helps you and your business investors stay focused on the high impact areas and to think clearly about whether other factors should be considered as well. It also lends more credibility to your talents and increases the likelihood of your plan’s success.

Finish this discussion with a summary of the critical aspects of your plan and related contingency plans. If you’ve followed all these steps, then you can figure out what you’ll do if your actual performance turns out to be different than your business plan financial projections. Remember, you’re purpose is to demonstrate to business investors that you’re competent; worrying about protecting their investment and running a business, not just flying by the seat of your pants.

Author: Michael Elia

Tips for Your Business Plan Financial Projections

education, Lifestyle, Financial Tips, Shopping, Electronics, Money Saving, mortagages.

Federally Funded Small Business Financial Port in a Storm

A business also needs to demonstrate — via quarterly cash flow projections — its ability to meet current and future debt obligations, including future repayment of the ARC Loan.

Business Plan Projections

We are at the end of our series on Business Plans. Can you believe it? The Projections section could be included in your Financial Plan, but it could also stand-alone as its own section.

Technorati Tags: business plan, business plan financial, Business Plan Financial Projections

Tags: business plan, business plan financial, Business Plan Financial Projections

Purpose and Objectives

Business Plan Purpose and Objectives

A detailed description of a new or existing business, including the company’s product or service, marketing plan, financial statements and projections and management principles, require a plan to be implemented. A document that spells out a company’s expected course of action for a specified period usually includes a detailed listing and analysis of risks and uncertainties. For the small business, it should examine the proposed products, the market, the industry, the management policies, the marketing policies, production needs and financial needs. Frequently, it is used as a prospectus for potential investors and lenders.

Think of it as a production line. What’s go in the start are raw materials and unfinished assemblies. Here, the raw materials include:

-Talent and initiative from employees

-Capital -Market position

-The company’s creditworthiness

-The firm’s earning capacity

-Assessment of changes in the marketplace.

It should have four major aspects:

- Its contribution to purpose and objectives

- Its primacy among the manager’s tasks

- Its pervasiveness

- The efficiency of resulting plans.

The Contribution of Planning to Purpose and Objectives: Every plan and all its supporting plans should contribute to the accomplishment of the purpose and objectives of the enterprise.

The Primacy of Planning Manager must plan in such a way that it leads to proper organizing, staffing, leading and controlling which support the accomplishment of enterprise objectives. Planning and controlling are inseparable. Any attempt to control without a plan is meaningless, since there is no way for people to tell whether they are going where they want to go. Plans thus furnish the standards of control.

The Pervasiveness of Planning: Planning is a function of all managers, which vary with each manager’s authority and with the nature of the policies and plans assigned by superiors. If managers are not allowed to a certain degree of discretion and planning responsibility, they are not truly managers.

The Efficiency of Plans: The effectiveness of plan refers to its contribution to the purpose and objectives. Plan is efficient if it achieves its purpose at a reasonable cost, when cost is measured not only in terms of time or money or production but also in the degree of individual and group satisfaction.

Procedures: Procedures are plans that establish a required method of handling future activities. They are chronological sequences of required actions. They are guides to action rather than to thinking and they detail the exact manner in which certain activities must be accomplished.

Rules: Rules are unlike procedures in that they guide action without specifying a time sequence. In fact, a procedure might be looked upon as a sequence of rules. Rule may be a part of procedure.

Programs: Programs are a complex of goals, policies, procedures, rules, task assignments, steps to be taken, resources to be employed and other elements necessary to carry out a given course of action; further supported by budgets.

Budgets: Budget is a statement of expected results expressed in numerical terms. Financial operating budget is often called a “profit plan”. This budget can be expressed in financial terms, in terms of labor- hours, units of product or machine hours or in any other numerically measurable term.

Steps in Planning: Being aware of opportunities, a manager should take a preliminary look at possible future opportunities and see them clearly and completely know where they stand in light of their strengths and weaknesses, understand what problems they wish to solve, and why and know what they expect to gain. Planning requires a realistic diagnosis of the opportunity situation.

Establishing objectives: This is to be done for the long term as well as for the short term. Objectives specify the expected results and indicate the end points of what is to be done, where the primary emphasis is to be placed and what is to be accomplished by the network of strategies, policies, procedures, rules, budgets and programs. Objectives form a hierarchy.

Developing premises: There are assumptions about the environment in which the plan is to be carried out. It is important for all managers involved in planning to agree on the premises. Forecasting is important in premising: what kind of markets will there be? What volume of sales? What prices? What products? What technical developments? What costs? What wage rates? What tax rates and policies? What new plans? How will expansion be financed? What are the long-term trends? Because the future is so complex, it would not be profitable or realistic to make assumption about every detail of the future environment of a plan.

Determining alternative courses: The more common problem is not finding alternatives but reducing the number of alternatives so that the most promising may be analyzed. The planner must usually make a preliminary examination to discover the most fruitful possibilities.

Evaluating alternative courses: From the various alternatives available proper evaluation should be done which may involve ash flow.

Selecting a course: The best alternative should be selected.

Numbering plans by budgeting Final step is giving them meaning by converting them into budgets. The overall budgets of an enterprise represent the sum total of income and expenses, with resultant profit or surplus and the budgets of major balance sheet items such as cash and capital expenditures.

Author: Michael Russell

Plan your business projects for success

First thing to decide and clearly state in a project plan is the goals and objectives of the project, both from company’s and client’s perspective, like what needs to be done and in how much time? Plan should be practical enough to facilitate the process of implementation. Primary purpose of project planning is to eliminate complications, not to create them.

Business Plan Competition 2009

Ottawa Youth is designed to be used by youth, who are interested in starting their own business or who currently own and run their own business.

Business Plan for a start-up business

This is one of the simplest and the most effective business plan modules I have worked with. I would heavily recommend creating a thorough business plan and.

Technorati Tags: business plan, Business Plan Competition, financial statements, Marketing Plan

Tags: business plan, Business Plan Competition, financial statements, Marketing Plan

Ecommerce Business Plan

The Ecommerce Business Plan is a plan of action. An action plan dedicated to the needs of the customers. Make sure your Ecommerce Business Plans meet these needs.

This is where the online business venture begins.The ecommerce business plan is a plan of action, without which nothing of real value can ever be achieved. The ecommerce business plan will cover a number of features from the design of the web site to the fulfillment service methods; each of these features should be the best available with a heavy bias towards the customer. The product, around which the whole ecommerce business plan will revolve, will have to fulfill certain criteria in order to make the online venture a success.

These are:

Homogeneity – the product, though obtained from different suppliers/sources will have to be of a homogenous quality and dimensions. Whether it is a mobile set or a book the item should be favorably comparable to the ones that are bought elsewhere. 

Ability to ship the product – before you launch your online venture you should find out whether the product can be shipped easily. This is will a daunting task if the product is bulky or very fragile. If the customer cannot get the product quickly and in tact, you will loose repeat customers and word of mouth advertising.

Cost of delivery – in similar manner heavier items will cost more to deliver to the door step than lightweight items. The cost of delivery is an important factor that decides the customer uses when deciding whether or not to buy an item. Hence, keep this cost as low as possible.

Cost of the product – many customers are attracted to the online shopping because they get many of their favorite products at a much lower cost than in the real- shops. You need to keep the cost at least 10 percent less than what is available in the brick-and-mortar market.

Availability – do you plan to have a good stock of the product that you propose to sell or do you have a good tie-up with some supplier(s) which can provide you with the product on the spot. If the product is not available easily to the customer – after the payment is processed – you will have a very unhappy customer.

Target market – think whether you need to address the needs of a certain age group, geographical area, or it is to be available for all people, all over the world.

Payment options – what type of payment options you are offering will greatly influence the sale of your product.

All these and more will have to be taken care of right at the beginning; at the stage where the ecommerce business plan is completed.

By:Kerry Ng

Small Business Workbook on How to Start and Structure a Business …

Wilmington, DE (PRESS RELEASE – June 9, 2009) — Starting a small business with a focus and plan of action are the purpose of a business plan. SCORE Counselors. … Entrepreneurs can get the latest information on how to launch a Web site, attract visitors, and avoid e-commerce mistakes. SCORE CEO Ken Yancey says, “How to Really Start Your Own Business provides valuable information that can help start-up entrepreneurs achieve their business goals…

Thinking Made Easy: Market Communication Plan for the Sunny …

Competition is an important factor to consider before entering a business. Companies should have successful competitive strategies to be able attract, retain and grow customers. However, before the company can plan and execute these strategies, ….. The Internet is changing the way we do business, whether it’s finding new streams of revenue, acquiring new customers, or managing a business supply chain. E-commerce removes the geographical separation …

R Padayachie: Internet Solutions Internetix Business Conference

This ISAD Plan is informed by the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Plan of action and the development challenges facing the country. What the department has been undertaking in the last few years, as the lead agency in government for ICT developments, has been to establish a policy … The main purpose of this Act was to provide for e-commerce but it also included sections on e-government, the need for an e-strategy and strategies to meet universal access . …..

Online Business Strategy & Marketing

Online Business, eCommerce Strategy and Marketing Blog, Webtarget, web target. … the website’s requirements in terms of functionality and design which both should support the performance objectives. Once the performance driven website is under production, organizations should then focus on their marketing plan (online and offline). And here again, performance should be the decision making compass in order to maximize return on investment and conversions.

.

Adsense – A Quick Start Action Plan – web Admin first Step

These concise quick study marketing plans are designed to jump start your online business venture. Each action plan will focus on one marketing strategy and will explain the basics of the strategy; the advantages of choosing that strategy; and a reality check to … In one of the most ingenious moves in business history, Google has broken out of the mold of “web search engine model” and has emerged as a phenomenal force in the world of e-commerce…

Technorati Tags: Business Marketing Plans, business plan, business plan internet, Business Plan Service, ecommerce, Small Business Marketing, startup business plan

Tags: Business Marketing Plans, business plan, business plan internet, Business Plan Service, ecommerce, Small Business Marketing, startup business plan

Self Storage Business Plan

Are you planning to venture into the field of self storage business? If yes, then firstly you should develop a self storage business plan. This will ensure that you’ve a business plan at hand to carve a niche for yourself in present competitive market. A proper business plan is also important, if you want to raise funds from banks and other financial institutions for starting a storage unit. Only, if your business plan is great and persuasive, will you be able to get a loan.

Some things that you should think while writing the business plan are given below.

Study The Market Trend

The first step while developing the business plan is to learn the trends of the market. This will provide you a thought about the types of storage services in demand, the services that are offered by victorious self storage, the favored locations for warehouses, the key consumers of self storage etc. All this would assist you to know the requirements and demands of the consumers and also the secret behind the success of some reputed self storage facilities.

Decide What Kind Of Self Storage You Want To Setup

You should make a decision what kind of self storage facility you desire to start. Also list all the facilities you would incorporate in your storage. You should keep in mind that your storage facility should be such as to give tough competition to your competitors.

Estimation Of Resources

While developing the business plan, you should keep the tiny details in mind. Depending upon the kind of the storage facility you wish to develop, you should chalk out all the resources that would be obligatory for setting up the facility. for instance if you’re planning to buy a property to setup your self storage business, then you should prepare a plan like which property to buy and the construction plan of the self storage.

Management Strategy

You should also build up a management plan for your self storage services. This should contain how you’ll operate your storage, how many people you’ll rent to run your storehouse, what will be the salaries of the hired manpower etc. This will also contain the value and marketing strategies like at what price you’ll provide various services to your consumers, how you’ll market your services, the amount of market share you wish to detain and so on.

Funds

Depending on your business plan you should locate out the total of funds that you would need for executing your plan. You should build up the complete plan of lifting the funds. For this, you should list down all the resources from where you can raise the funds.

In brief, a self storage business plan offers an general idea of your assignment that is how you mean to hand out your consumers, how much you require to invest, how you’ll make your business victorious etc. This general idea gives a thought about your business to the lenders, which in turn gives them the confidence to endorse your loan.

By: dreweli1980a

Timeline To A Self Storage Business Plan

For starting a storehouse facility, one needs to devise a proper self storage business plan that includes all the necessary strategies and procedures. 

Significance of a Self Storage Business Plan

It is always a good idea to have a proper self storage business plan to grow or at least sustain your business related to storing and safekeeping. 

Self Storage Business Plan

Self Storage Business Plan. Are you scheduling to endeavor into the field of self storeroom business?

Technorati Tags: business plan, self storage business plan, self storage business plans

Tags: business plan, self storage business plan, self storage business plans

How to Write a Business Plan

 Business plan is a guiding map in order to implement your strategy to taste the success. Sadly, many of us don’t know How to Write a Business Plan and consider it very intimidating and complex task. So, let’s find out how easy it actually is…

Are you thinking of starting a new business? Then you must have come across the term ‘Business Plan’. Chalking out the business plan remains the most important task to achieve the success in the proposed business.

Business Plan
Business planning is about writing a certain result oriented organized and methodical script. You are required to design your plan to obtain your purpose. It is a plan which considers the available resources, identifies the opportunities and problems and manages those resources to get the optimum growth and success. Business plan is not the thing required only for starting business or for getting loans as perceived by most of the people, but it also helps to find out the shortcomings and run the business smoothly.

Although, business plans vary from each other depending on the nature, products and local factors, the general outline is same that includes the main components like Executive Summary, Description of Company, Description of Products or the Services offered, Market Analysis, forecasts and future planning, Business Strategy and its Implementation, information regarding Management staff and sustainable Financial Plan.

Here, you must ensure that your plan should revolve around sound cash flow strategy and its strict implementation before writing down your business plan. You should not mix up profits with cash. Again implementation of your strategy plays a vital role in success of any business. Assigning of the responsibilities in certain time frame and following up those plans can bring in desired results.

Need of Business plan

Business plan is like a road map. Here, you set your targets, identify the areas on which greater stress to be laid on, chalk out the measures to be taken and provide the business the ultimate cash flow and growth.

If you are intended to seek loans to fund your business then most of the financial institutions will ask you for a sound, feasible business plan. As, business plan is a clear refection of your future activities, it plays a very important role in getting you loans.

If you’re seeking investments in business then you require a business plan investment. The potential investors invest in the ideas, the people, their history, the technology the entrepreneur is using, the market analysis, and other local factors. The business plan serves the purpose to define the ideas and all these related factors and explain the concept of business to investors. While working with your partners you require such business plan to define agreements between partners and convey the future vision.

Perhaps, the most important need of business plan is for running the business smoothly. It also serves as one of the most useful tool for communication with your management team. While the daily routine business activities can be quite distracting full of surfacing problems, their solutions, opportunities and commitments, it helps in keeping the business on the right track by reminding our short term and long term goals. A business plan is required to sell a business, or to set a value on a business for tax.

It is high time to realize that this plan is not meant just for start-ups, loans, or investment. Moreover, the business plans are much easier to develop. You simply plan the steps and stages, identify and distinguish preferences, check out for the resources and try to reallocate them to get maximum output and manage the cash flow.

Before writing down a plan, let’s understand what the good plan is.

Good Plan

 1. Try to keep your business plan simple, specific, realistic and complete to implement in much effective way to achieve your targets. While, simplicity enhances the communication process, specific writing can help you to lay stress on particular areas. Realistic approach can result in better success rate and it should conclude all necessary components.

2. The value of any good plan is measured by its contents and not by its length. A sound plan is broken up into meaningful paragraphs using readable bullet points, supported by useful illustrations of products, and business charts and graphs to illustrate important projections.

3. A good business plan sets the concrete goals, assigns tasks to different departments and sets milestones and deadlines for tracking implementation. Normally for every one part of strategy, ten parts of implementation should be there.
4. A good plan regularly reviews its position and alterations are made regularly to meet the changing demands of the business. It should be always practical.

 Types of Business Plans
According to the specific situation and personal need, these plans are known as start up plans (the most common type of business plans), investment plans (designed to attract investment), internal plans or operational plan (as a guiding tool in the course of business for your management team), Growth plan (designed to show your future expansion) etc.

How to write A Standard Business Plan
There are conventional components of a standard business plan. Although the order doesn’t carry any great importance, conclusion of these main constituents can make your business plan appealing and acceptable.

1. Executive Summary – It is the concise summary of your business and though it appears at the top. Try to write it at last when you finished scribing other topics. It’s just a page or two of highlights.

2. Company Description – This contains the detailed pen picture of Legal establishment, history; start-up plans the information about your staff etc.

3. Product or Service – It is the description of the product you are selling. You should lay stress on the customer benefits.

4. Market Analysis – Description about your market trends, the needs of market, your target sector of market, the location of such targeted area, how to reach them, etc. All you have to do is to conduct a comprehensive market survey to conclude the analysis.

5. Strategy and Implementation – Be specific. Include management responsibilities with deadlines and specific budgets. You have to make sure that all these activities carrying out tasks are tracked regularly for results.

6. Web Plan Summary – For e-commerce, include discussion of website, development costs, operations, sales and marketing strategies.

7. Management Team – Describe the organization and the key management team members.

8. Financial Analysis – Make sure to include at the very least your sales forecast, projected Profit and Loss statement, projected business ratios and Cash Flow tables. It is highly recommended to use bar charts and pie charts to illustrate the numbers.

It is quite easy to write a business plan based on these guidelines. Remember, a good Business plan can make all the difference!

 By Jayashree Pakhare

Party Templates « Barclay72’s Blog

Here are some Sample Business Plan Templates created using MS Word to fulfill everyone’s purpose if they wanted to write a Business Plan. A Worthy Business Plan is the one that accurately presents all the pros and cons of starting….

Business Plan and Marketing by williams411 | Pro Freelance Projects

I am in need of a market research and business plan for an online social networking site. The site has new fundamental qualities of an online social networking site. I would like experienced market planning writer to write a market plan …  

How To Write Up A Yearly Business Plan | Internet Business At Home …

It’s important to have a business plan for your business each year so that you can see what your needs are for the coming year and to show yourself…

Write a Great Business Plan

Write a business plan is a burden for businesses and those who start a business. There are many business plan formats are your bank, your advisor, Commerce and Industry and the Internet. For the format fef depends on several factors. …

How To Write A Trading Business Plan

Since this is an pivotal question for many of you, rather than try to give an email reply which wouldn’t do the topic justice, I recently sat down with Scott Beck of the Trader’s Business Plan to discuss the how and..

Technorati Tags: business plan, free sample business plan, how to write a business plan, how to write a business plans, write business plan, writing business plan, writing business plans

Tags: business plan, free sample business plan, how to write a business plan, how to write a business plans, write business plan, writing business plan, writing business plans

How to Write a Small Business Plan Outline

Are you looking to learn more about how to write a small business plan. We may be able to assist you with a generic outline to create a small business plan.

When writing a small business plan it is important to consider the audience you are writing to. It could be other potential partners, investors or involve multiple parties. The first part of the plan must indicate what business venture you are planning on starting. It also must include a good review of management involved in the business and their roles and responsibilities.

The second part of the plan should include the market, the competitors and how you are going to distribute your product or service and the different scenarios you think or have encountered and how you are going to deal with them.

The next part would include the business concept and why this venture is going to work. Do you have some proprietary technology or are you providing a service/product that is not offered in your local area. What makes your business process unique.

Another important part is goals and objectives. How are you mapping out you monthly, yearly goals and targets. These should include strategic goals, site acquisition, resources acquisition goals and timelines.

The next and very essential part of you plan should include financials. What does your 1 year projected cash flow statement look like. What assets do you need to acquire to develop your business. What expenses will you incur, what for and how is that broken down in terms of a timeline.

Author: Daryl Des Marais

Creating the perfect Business Plan — Ideate 

So, after pizza and a few beers, I found myself saying something decidedly un-Heavy Chef – “Guys,” I said sagely, “you need to write a business plan!” Wham – ! There you have it. A business plan.

Phone Tips for Small Business

That’s why it (literally) pays to have a full-on business plan for your phone service that will continue to grow right along with you. Consider the following tips when choosing or upgrading your small business phone system …  

Phone Tips for Small Business

When you’re a small business, the cost of telecommunications can add up quickly. That’s why it (literally) pays to have a full-on business plan for your phone service that will continue to grow right along with you.

New Online Project Management Software – Projecturf

Projecturf was specifically designed to support the project management needs of small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in all industries. The task tracking software allows SMBs to cost-effectively define initiatives and projects, automate processes, … Projecturf’s Start-Up Plan is $29.99 per month – manage up to 15 projects. The Business Plan is $59.99 per month – manage up to 40 projects. The Enterprise Plan is $159.99 per month – manage unlimited projects. …..   

Healthcare Reform Debate Heating Up « Show Me Small Business PAC

… which requires business owners to provide coverage to their employees, then this bill could be devastating to the small business community. And if a government-run healthcare insurance plan is included the taxpayer will be digging … 

Technorati Tags: business plan, business plan example, business plan how to write, business plan samples, how to write a business plan, small business planning, write a business plan, writing business plans

Tags: business plan, business plan example, business plan how to write, business plan samples, how to write a business plan, small business planning, write a business plan, writing business plans