Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Making A Small Business Plan For Financial Success

By Peter Morton


Small business plan One of the most important tasks to carry out when you are planning to launch a brand new small business, is to take time to prepare a fully functional small business plan.

Strategy Formulation is a fundamental process that identifies the critical areas to be addressed and sets the priorities for the business across an agreed strategy period.By focusing on the key areas that are identified as part of this process, the effective manager and business owner ensures laser-like focus in achieving results.The small business plan integrates and aligns all the business activities around these critical areas and ensures that all effort is targeted, contained and understood by everyone in the business.Having a plan is critical. It ensures that the right things get done, within the time frames allotted, and allows for the emergence of new initiatives when the plan is reviewed.

This review period should be in keeping with the rates of change that the business encounters around the factors experienced in both its internal and external environments.Given that this is clearly understood, and that any gaps in capability have been identified, the small business plan is written with seven critical components in mind.Determine Where You Are Now.This is simply a list that identifies and spells out where the business currently finds itself in relation to a particular critical issue. An example might be sales and marketing, for instance. The list, in bullet point form, spells out what is being done, at present, in relation to these activities. All critical issues facing the business should be analyzed, in turn.

The first step to your business plan is knowing exactly how much money it's going to take to start your company. None of this has to be a professionally written up small business plan that costs thousands and thousands of dollars hiring an "expert". Take out a piece of paper and write down your plan. The main thing is that you know exactly how you are going to fulfill your dream of being a successful small business owner.

So what are your opening expenses? Here are some questions you need to answer to find out your estimated dollar amount:How much money does your product or service cost you?,How much money will you charge for your service/product?,How much money do you require to live for two years with no profit coming in from your business (safety precaution)?,How much will it cost for your employees for 2 years?,What are your legal fees?,What are your CPA fees?,How much will getting a physical location cost you (if needed)?

Every business is going to be different so think about anything that you need to spend money on to get it running. The next step you must consider is how are you going to get this start up money. Are you going to go to a bank for a loan? Are you considering finding a partner that can cover the costs with the agreement you can buy out the company later down the road? Do you want to talk with a wealthy family member about your business? Anyway you choose to get the money doesn't matter.

Financial: This is a key section and should clearly demonstrate your total costing's, direct expenses, projected stock holding (if applicable), accounting methods, sales tables and your sales targets and company budget controls.Timetable: When writing your business plan, you will need to focus on 'forward planning'. This will encompass you projecting a timetable of development .where do you see your company in 5 years for example.

Accountabilities and Responsibilities.All the tasks must be assigned to people who take responsibility for getting them completed within the agreed time frames. The successful small business has developed a culture where the taking of personal responsibility for an assigned task is simply a given.

Reporting.All of the objectives and tasks spelled out in a business plan will quite likely have glitches arise as part of the implementation of the plan. Part of a successful business plan roll-out includes keeping a regular, updating reporting mechanism in place, so that potential problems can be addressed and emerging opportunities can be exploited. Therefore, follow-up and reporting must be conducted on a regular basis to ensure the success of the plan.




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