By default, most things worth usually require a lot of work. to run a college education, a rock solid marriage, birth, and a marathon are all examples of things while we try to reach you, we are often asked if we can or should do with all the hard work are needed to continue. As we go further, we can not help but ask - is this really worth it? But in the end, when all is said and done and the smoke is cleared, wediscover that we have accomplished something great, and it was well worth the work.
If you are a business owner, writing a business plan could be one of those great accomplishments that you discover is well worth the work. When writing my plan for Your Task Matters, I constantly wanted to convince myself that I could have a successful business without the hassle of writing a plan. But when it was complete, I realized that writing a plan was undoubtedly one of the wisest investments of time that I could have made for my business. And although writing a good plan requires a commitment, it doesn't have to be hard work. Here are five easy steps that can have you putting a business plan into place quicker than Simon Cowell can reel his next insult on another somehow clueless victim.
Step 1 - Start with a list. There is no point in discouraging or even overwhelming yourself in the beginning with lots of non-functional ideas of what you think a plan should look like. A list is simple and effective. Just write down every thing that you feel would be critical to the success of your business. At this point there are no wrong or right answers, but the more specific your list, the better. We will call these items your objectives. This list should also include details related to your business such as identifying information, services, target market, rates, etc. If you think that something is important to doing good business, write it down. A detailed list of objectives is key and will help you further down the line. If you are not certain about what to include in your list, go on line and look at templates of sample business plans, or do a business success keyword search to give you ideas to help get you started.
Step 2 - Categorize your objectives into identifying groups. This can be done by one of two ways. You can take your list of objectives, group the like items together, and then give each group a category heading. For example, if your list include the following targets: 20 years of experience, limited local competition and high demand for a product, you could not group them under "strengths". The other option that you can classify your goals is a draft table of contents lists all the categories that should be part of the business plan for making his feelings. An example of this approach is that it is a summary that lists the following categories: services, market baseSuccess; SWOT(strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) Analysis, etc., and then place each of your objectives under the appropriate category. If you have objectives that don't seem to fall into any of your categories, create a heading that will properly identify your objective. You don't have to have a lot of categories, just as long as you've captured all of your objectives. Once you've created all of your categories, add additional objectives that you didn't think of before that may be Advantage for the company.
Step 3 - Identify a strategy for implementing each goal on your list. This is probably the most time consuming part of the process for the most part, but also the most important in my opinion. It is so well thought processes, research, and projected some basic analysis. If one of your goals is a first class customer service, so your strategy for its implementation could make phone calls back in 24 hours, or send a thank you card afterevery sale. This step will help you to consider exactly why you chose each objective that you've listed, verify it's criticalness to the success of your business, and then figure out a plan for how you can continually and successfully implement it as a core routine for your business. During this step you may also discover that some of your objectives overlap and can be merged together to save you some work.
Step 4 - List your goals. Identifying your short and long term goals is an excellent tool for evaluating whether or not your current strategies are working, or if you need to re-assess the plan that you have in place. Mapping out your goals by what you would like to have accomplished within 3 months, 6 months, 12 months, 2 years, and 5 years will help you to measure whether your business is on schedule, behind schedule, or ahead of the schedule outlined in your plan.
Step 5 - Format, edit, and tweak. Even if you plan on being the only person to ever view your plan, you should still take the time to format your plan into something presentable. Create a brief overview identifying your business as a sole proprietorship, LLC, etc., along with a description of your vision, mission, and values for your business as a short introduction. Check your spelling, grammar, and punctuation, and underline, highlight, and bullet where necessary. Even though this is the final step, do not be surprised if your plan isn't as complete as you would like. Ideally, at this point you should have what I would call a "growing" plan. It should be a solid foundation for which you can begin to build on, and as your business grows, or heaven forbid, doesn't, you will be able to modify it accordingly.
In closing, I want to reiterate just how critical a business plan can be to the success of your business. Take the time to sow the seeds of knowledge, experience, and resources into a business plan that will reap success for you.
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