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Your Roadmap For Success

Running a business without a well-defined strategic plan is like an astronaut trying to chart a successful voyage to the moon without the right vehicle or tools.

Any successful experienced entrepreneur can tell you that having a well-thought-out game plan is very valuable as it can highly improve your success rate. Your business plan plays a key role in providing guidance for your start up or assisting an existing business owner navigate through questions like how to make money through their ventures, setting realistic expectations on when they can expect a return on their investment, and ultimately when and what that return might look like.

Internal Versus External

In short, the business plan sets forth the roadmap for a sound approach to making money with your products and or services along with helping you focus and communicate your vision to others. Generally speaking, there are two basic categories of business plans: an internal (owner’s business plan, and an external business plan. What is the difference you may ask? The intended audience; whereas an internal plan requires less information as it is meant to drive the focus of the owner(s) and may be very informal, an external business plan is meant usually for outside parties either banks or investors and typically requires a full background of details. Deciding on which business plan type to pursue depends on your intended purpose. Need help? We can guide you.

Lean Versus Standard

You can also categorize business plans by scope — how deep they go into the subject matter. A lean business plan provides the highlights (maybe 10 pages total), while a standard business plan provides the whole picture (maybe 40 pages total). The trait is often linked to the audience: Most external plans fall into the standard realm, while internal plans can be lean or standard, depending on a company’s needs.

Lean plans can help you track your progress. They forego background and detailed descriptions, instead focusing on deadlines, budgeting, cash flow, strategy and tactics for implementing strategy and achieving goals. Standard plans provide a comprehensive view of a company and can help you score funding, flesh out strategy details and prepare for the unknown.

The Company Overview is simply a short statement that summarizes your company. Key components include: a short history of the company (including past achievements, if appropriate), descriptions of your products/services, along with the market you intend to serve (i.e. your target market). This can also include your legal company type, date formed, ownership structure, pricing strategy, along with how you intend to become profitable through your business. You may also decide to include any other important details, such as new products or services you plan to launch within the next 6-12 months. The level of detail required will depend primarily on the intended purpose. An investor’s business plan may likely also require resumes, highlighting the relevant background and experience of all owners and other key members. You will also want to identify any current existing customers, orders, or key industry alliances within your pipeline. This will help establish potential consideration from investors.

The Competitive Analysis section of your business plan is dedicated in helping you recognize and evaluate your competitors. You can decide to start your market analysis by defining the market in terms of size, structure, growth prospects, trends, and sales potential. You should also consider market saturation substitutes and complementary goods and services and evaluate the state of any relevant technologies. The next step is to make a list of your major competitors and how you stand out (and better!) choice for your customers. We also recommend creating a SWOT Analyses (explained below) for your major and direct competitors, focusing on their strengths and weaknesses, while looking for opportunities on how you can leverage those weaknesses to your advantage. Turning their disadvantages into your advantages!

A very very important component of any business plan is identifying your target market - what do we mean? Who are your prospective customers which are most likely to buy your products / services, and who you should invest your marketing efforts towards. 

Here is a list of questions which can assist you with narrowing down your target market:

• What problems do my prospective customers have and how do my products and/or services solve them?
• Which market segments do my prospective clients fall into?
• Are my target customers primarily male or female?
• What are the age groups?
• Where do they live? Is geography a major factor that can limit growth for any reason?
• What do they do for a living and how much do they earn per year?
• What other characteristics of their lives matter? (e.g. married, single, parents, business owners, entities etc.)
• Ask yourself are my products / services to be considered a necessity or a luxury item?

Once you’ve been able to narrow down your market focus to select groups of clients, you will need to identify the best game plan to reach them. Your specific products / services and customer demographics may determine the best strategy, but generally speaking, you should aim to come up with at least five to six different marketing techniques to use over the next year, when should you plan on implementing them, along with forecasting what results you expect. Some common marketing strategies include billboards, radio and television advertisements, magazines, direct mail, email, SEO, social media etc. Now, make sure to keep in mind the cost and preparation required in order to launch each of your marketing efforts and keep them up to date. We recommend considering branding strategy and marketing message as well. What is your elevator pitch? (i.e. explain how your products or services solve their problem or need.)

We highly recommend to take time to carefully plan out key financial components, such as: your pricing schedule, profit model, projected revenue, and expenses for the upcoming year (both fixed and variable costs.) Make sure to be realistic with your numbers and consider a wide range of outcomes including the best-case scenarios, along with the less favorable performances. If you are projecting more expenses than revenue for the year and beyond, you should consider where the funding will come from to pay for those overhead expenses. This will also the perfect time to help identify your needs if any for financing.

Create a list of people and services who you will need to hire to jumpstart your business plan. Include their positions, responsibilities, along with estimated costs. Make sure to also list any necessary capital purchases for software, equipment, vehicles, inventory, along with the costs. Make sure to include these planned cash expenses in your budget.

What is a SWOT Analysis? A strategic planning tool used to provide a blueprint and keep in focus key factors in the business plan and operating environment with the goal of improving the results of business operations. The acronym stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. This tool when properly used will help you to collect and analyze both internal and external conditions that affect your organization. Primarily used by management to help make the best well-informed business decisions by maintaining these key factors in the forefront of all decision-making.

• Strengths help business owners identify where the business may have advantages over the industry or competitors. Some common strengths may include a strong brand, strong balance sheet, existing relationships, knowledge, unique technology, etc.
• Weaknesses these areas where the business may be at a disadvantage in comparison to competitors or in general. These areas once identified need to improve to remain competitive: a weak brand, higher-than-average turnover, high levels of debt, an inadequate supply chain, or lack of capital, lack of staff etc.. 
• Opportunities identify favorable factors within the operating environment of your organization which may include: major industry or regulatory changes, shifting market trends or attitudes, new products, struggling competitors, etc.
• Threats are factors that can cause potential harm to your organization especially if you rely on the sale of products. For example, supply chain issues are a threat to production, distribution and consumption.

Please keep in mind even if you have a good solid business plan, your company can still fail, especially if you do not stick to the plan! Having strong leadership with focus on the plan is always a good strategy. Even when following the plan, if you had poor assumptions going into your projections, you can be caught with cash flow shortages and out of control budgets. Markets and the economy can also change. Without flexibility built in to your business plan, you may be unable to pivot to a new course as needed.

Please take into consideration every business is unique and many factors along with key considerations may not fit right into any of the categories. 

We are a minority-owned business specializing in helping clients’ from all backgrounds grow their business and achieve optimal results. Contact us for a free consulation today! Find out how to improve your organization’s sales, operations and communications! Call Today 312-725-3011 or Email Sales@ondemandsalesforce.com