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Archive for June, 2011

Creating a business plan is important if you are planning to start a business, particularly a home-based venture. Marketing Services . The Internet has made it easier for people with limited resources or funding to start a home-based business. However, many home-based businesses do not succeed because it often lacks the necessary business tools and ideas needed to make the whole venture succeed.

A home business, although it is based at home, is still a business, and must be treated as such in order to reach its goals. In many cases, a home based business is more difficult to run than a traditional type of business which is based in another location, because there is often conflicting time and interests between work and home life.

In the case of a home business or any small commercial venture, most people think that making a business plan is just an unnecessary waste of time and effort since the business owner already knows what their plans are and what path they will take.

Even for business people who are not interested in obtaining a loan or a grant, a business plan can help in organizing their business and keep them focused on their goals. WordPress Host . This document can help in tracking their actions and make sure that they are following the path initially set out.

In creating a business plan, make sure you know the following:

• The service or products you are going to provide or sell;
• The need that the business would fill;
• The target client-base or audience;
• The possible competitors, and how your offering would be different from theirs;
• The way you will market or promote your business;
• The costs of setting up and running the business;
• The financial resources (both existing and potential) that will be used in the business; and
• Your short-term and long-term goals for the business.

Business planning is important to start and grow a successful enterprise. Business plans are first and foremost a business tool and are based on sound business concepts. Even for owners of home or small businesses, it is important to have a plan to guide their businesses' daily activities. The plan does not have to include complicated details or should be followed to its smallest feature, but it should specify your target audience and the business techniques you will use attract and hold customers and increase sales.

The business plan should also have a description of your product, its use, and how customers are going to benefit from it. A good business plan is short but informative. Online Social Networking . Knowing the target audience for the product or service you will offer means that you would have to learn their place in society and design a suitable way to promote your product.

The business plan should also clarify your goals and objectives. This way, business activities which had little to do your company's goals and objectives can be avoided. These goals and objectives also should be realistic and achievable for your company and your customers.

There are many challenges involved in setting up a business, even if they are small. Think of creating a business plan as a tool to help you achieve success in your business, and not as an additional challenge that must be faced.

Free Resources http://www.businessplandirectory.net/

A plan for your small business is useful if you want to focus yourself and get an overall picture of what you have to do in order to build your enterprise. On top of that, a good business plan is an absolute must if you want to convince institutions or individuals to loan money or invest in your business. Wifi Access . One way to organize your business plan is to compose it like an informative news article, explaining the "who," "what," "when," "why, and "how" of your business.

Write about your background and previous experience in your field. Tell about your notable accomplishments, and about your partners and staff. Marketing Services . If your company has been in business for some time now, then write about your "track record." Explain what your company has already accomplished and give an idea of how it stands in relation to competitors in your particular field of business.

What are you producing or what are you going to produce? What are your products or services? What kind of revenue will these activities be bringing in or what is the expected range of revenue once the products are launched? Answer these questions giving a complete picture of the principal activity that you are engaged in or will be engaged in during the timeline of this business plan.

If you have a new start-up business, this section of the plan will allow you to explain the steps that are needed to set-up your business and make it fully operational. How much time do you need? When will the business be up and running? If you are have an already existing business, it is useful to place somewhere in the plan a list of targets that you want to achieve and give approximate dates as to when these targets can be reached.

Where are you located? Do you work at home or do you have business premises? If you have a business location such as a store or factory, then explain about the size and capacity of this establishment. What is the business climate like in your area? Are there significant competitors and what are your prospects of competing in this market? Answer these questions as best you can and give yourself and would-be investors a clear picture of where your business is situated geographically and with relation to your overall market.

Explain why your particular enterprise, product or service is needed. What can your add to the already existing area of business that your are entering? What need are you going to fill? The answers to these questions are particularly important for investors looking for opportunities in emerging businesses and emerging markets.

Your sales and marketing plan should be outlined in this section. Link Trade . Explain how you intend to establish your product or service and what steps you will take to create or expand your customer base. How will you finance the start-up and/or expansion of your business? Explain the source of your funds whether you have existing loans or liabilities. How much money do you need to raise in order to get realize your overall plan for the launching or expansion of your business? Explain how you are going to translate your business idea into a living reality.

Take a look at your planned business or your existing business from the perspective that has been outlined in this article, and write a concise business plan. It will help to bring clarity to your operations and convince investors and lenders to participate in your enterprise.

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Remember when you were a kid and your allowance was just never enough for all the hockey cards or bubble gum that you wanted?  So like any normal kid, you came up with creative ways to make more money.  Maybe you tried selling an old broken toy to your little brother, or perhaps you decided to take on a venture like the iconic lemonade stand.  Perhaps, you would try poaching supplies from the kitchen, only to be run off by a parent.  Or maybe, you had a more organized approach.  Maybe some of you knew you would have to have a plan before the parents would let us get into something so involved.  You would make a list of what was needed, what you would charge per serving and how you split up the money.  It would have been your first business plan - albeit a little undeveloped.

No matter the size, age or purpose of a business - it needs a plan.  Even if you started your business years ago with the intention of just running it out of your garage, you still need a plan.  So what is a business plan, aside from a list of supplies and prices?  It is a formal statement of goals for your business, the reasons they are attainable and a plan for reaching them.  Some business plans are hundreds of pages long, others begin as notes on a scrap piece of paper.  No matter how it begins, the end result will bring your business closer to success.  Below is an outline of the main components to your business plan.

Executive Summary

The executive summary summarizes your business plan.  The most important component of it is your mission statement.  It will sum up the purpose of your business, what you will tell your clients to make them understand what it is you do.  The executive summary will not contain any technical language, highlighting the most important components of the business and how you plan to make it succeed.  Basically, if your reader does not wish to go over every detail of the entire plan at that particular time, they will be able to read the executive summary and still have a good grasp of your venture.  If  you are drawing up a plan for an existing business, include how many years in operation, the existing legal and financial structures.  The document will make recommendations on how you plan to meet your goals, but the step by step details will be in the body of the business plan.  If there are multiple sections in your business plan, the executive summary will summarize them.  If you are seeking financial assistance, this where you would sum up your needs, the reasons you need the money and how you plan to pay it back.  The document will end with a conclusion summarizing the overall executive summary.  The executive summary should be located at the front of your business plan, but it is best to write it after you have written the rest of the plan first.  When all the research is done and you have thought about every little detail of the past, present and future of your venture, the executive summary will be much easier to write.

Business Description

Here is where you describe your business in more detail.  Some very small businesses do not include this section because the information is already adequately listed in the executive summary.  For mid to large ventures, this section is very important as it gives the reader a much clearer idea of the day to day operations.  If you are an existing business, list the details on your corporate structure, the size of your work force, key product lines, physical locations of assets (such as real estate and large equipment) and the annual sales figures.  If you are a brand new business, your business description will be more simple.  List employees you expect to hire, projected sales figures, the products you expect to push the most revenue, location of facilities (where you plan to do business), at what stage of development you   are in and your corporate structure (if you have one).  The management team is also outlined in this section, as well as their responsibilities.

For larger more comprehensive ventures, there will be sections on business environment analysis, industry background and competitor analysis.  These are very important issues to cover, especially when asking for financial assistance.  Any one defect in the above assessments could mean the failure of the venture, so be realistic in your research and conclusions.  For smaller businesses, old or new, these sections may not need to be covered at all.  If you feel they are relevant to your plan but do not require their own section, simply include them with the business description portion of the business plan.

The business description will probably be the first and easiest part of the business plan to write.  It is a great way to begin, as it gets you thinking about all the details you may not have considered before.  If we continued to use the lemonade stand as our example business for drawing up a business plan, then the business description would probably be very simple.  We would describe whose house our table would be in front of, if a parent was supervising the operations and what we have already done in preparation to open.  In part two of this series, we will look at the core of our business and how to document it.