A few months ago, I wrote an article about the importance of writing a business plan. My basic message was that for the small business owner, such a plan will greatly increase your chances of success, and to not have one is foolish. I was amazed at the positive feedback I received, as many of you were able to relate with one\u2019s procrastination in writing a business plan. I received one particularly interesting e-mail from Mr. Malcolm Lauder from Boca Raton, who spent many years in a sales management role for an international company. \u201cI read with a lot of interest your article about having a business plan. It was of course, right on the money. I wonder if, however, you might not have a follow up article that makes it easier for the small business owner to actually create a plan!\u201d wrote Lauder, and was even nice enough to include some of his ideas.<\/p>\n
So now that we know the importance of writing a business plan, how exactly do we go about creating one? The following are some paraphrased excerpts of Mr. Lauder\u2019s e-mail: The very idea of a ‘business plan’ is uncomfortable for many, since it is based on future speculation. Entrepreneurs and natural sales people like things that they can get their teeth into. They are good with tactical stuff but have trouble with strategic planning.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s a rather simple technique to help you write such an annual plan \u2013 sort of a \u201cplan for planning:\u201d Answer the following questions: 1. Where do we want to go? 2. How are we going to get there? 3. Who is going to help us get there? 4. How much will it cost? Any business owner can follow that outline. It forces him\/her to answer with simple replies.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s look at each question \u2013
\n1. Where do we want to go? In other words, what is your annual goal, stated simply? Both in revenue (dollar amount) and in number of sales, or number of new accounts?<\/p>\n
2. How are we going to get there? Increase advertising, get better sales and service training, add x-number of salespeople, etc. Get specific here – break your goal into monthly, and weekly \u2018baby\u2019 goals, which are much less intimidating than the big annual one.<\/p>\n
3. Who is going to help us get there? Now the business owner can look at past performance and results and start writing a plan that says: interview and select an ad agency, identify and send people to training, identify and get rid of poor or non-performers and hire a combination of new, young and older, experienced salespeople.<\/p>\n
4. How much will it cost? Now it is a lot easier for you to pull together your budget for the next year. Examine current expenses, cut where results have been disappointing, figure new people costs, etc.<\/p>\n
The important thing about writing this plan is to keep it simple. It\u2019s important that this be a document that you can pull out and review every month, to see if things are on track, or if maybe you should change track altogether if something isn\u2019t working the way you hoped. My thanks to Mr. Malcolm Lauder for contributing to this article. Good luck with your planning!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A few months ago, I wrote an article about the importance of writing a business plan. My basic message was that for the small business owner, such a plan will greatly increase your chances of success, and to not have one is foolish. I was amazed at the positive feedback I received, as many of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-small-business-tips"],"yoast_head":"\n