Posts Tagged ‘Part’

In this series, I discuss the major sections that are typically found in a business plan. I also mention some of the key mistakes to avoid when writing a business plan.

by eschipul

Importance Of Writing Your Business Plan – Part I

Are you an entrepreneur?  Do you have what it takes to start your own business?  Starting a business can be an extremely challenging venture if you aren’t ready for the challenges that will come. It requires organization, persistence, dedication, research, and a commitment to a process.

Part of the organization can be done using excel templates.  If you scour the internet, you will find tons of resources to assist you with this challenge.  One of the most important things that must be done when starting your business is the development of your business plan.  So many people jump into the idea of starting a business without the proper planning required to know how to start their business.  We have all heard the old saying “if you fail to plan, then plan on failing”.  This applies 100% when it comes to starting and successfully running a business!

The business plan may seem intimidating because it may remind us of writing term papers in high school or college.  We all remember how fun those tasks were.  You have to imagine your business plan being the building block of the foundation of your business.  When done properly, your business plan should serve as your guide for actions to take now and in the future regarding your business.

Use your business plan as a management tool to test the feasibility of your business.  Does it make sense on paper?  Can you see the strong and weak areas in your business plan?  If you didn’t take the time to document these areas, you may be surprised by challenges that come up once you start your business.  So write it down and make it happen!

by novas0x2a

3 Top Tips To Utilize As Develop Your Business Plan – Part Ii

Your business plan should be an action guide on how you plan to run your business. It should be written in a concise manner that will enable any banker or investor to completely understand your business concept. Your plan does not have to be 30 pages to get your point across. It can be as short a few pages as long as long as it details your concept and the plan to launch it. Here are three top tips to use as you develop your business plan:

Tip #1: Using Your #1 Free Resource: Your local library

Your library should have resources available to assist you with the development of your business plan. Most libraries have online sites now and many enable you access to valuable research databases if you have a library card. Some libraries even give you access to expensive business plan software as long as you use your library card for access. This alone can save you hundreds of dollars! Depending on the software, they usually have the option to download the template into Excel or Word for editing purposes.

Tip #2: Brainstorming Questions to Ask as you Develop Your Business Plan

As you develop your business plan, ask yourself a few questions:

Who represents your customer base?
Who is your competition?
What products or services do you plan to sell?
Where will you be located?
How will you approach marketing for your business?
When will you start or launch your business?
How will you get financing for your business?
What type of entity will you be?

Answering these questions initially will start the foundation of your business plan. These questions require thought and research and your local library can give you assistance in this area.

Tip #3: Using A Great Development Research Tool: Reference USA

A great resource to use to get information on your type of business would be Reference USA. Access to this database is offered at many libraries as long as you have a library card. This database can answer questions regarding your customer demographics, competition statistics, sales data, etc. You can even use this data when you are developing your marketing portion of your business plan.

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by Wendy Piersall

Local Business Marketing: Double Your Business In 90 Days! | Part 1

As a “Local Business Marketing” Expert I’d like to give you the basic roadmap to achieve optimum results for your new marketing campaign that will literally bring in droves of new prospects and customers to your business.  There are 9 basic steps which we’ll cover.  This article will include a brief overview of steps 1 through 3.  You’ll find the rest of the list in upcoming articles.  We’ll dig in deeper into each of these in the future… but for now, it’s important to have a grasp on the basics.  Here are the steps:

1. Search Engine Research:

It’s important to have a basic knowledge of the “Big 3″ search engines.  Google (by far the largest), Bing and Yahoo.  Each has a unique algorithm (way of doing things) that they never completely describe to their users.  We do know for a fact that unique content and getting other websites to link back to yours is important.  There is literally a list of over 100 bullet points that Google looks for in a website.  Get familiar with Google.  Start searching for your business or a competitors business according to keyword (albany plumber, or baltimore chiropractor) and get a feel for what you may be up against!  Bottom line: understand and get familiar with the search engines.

2. Define Your Ideal Prospect and Customer

Marketing “guru” Gary Halbert asks this question:  If you were going to open a new hamburger stand, what is the one thing you would want most?  Many people say have the “best burgers” or a unique “special sauce”… some even say “a great cook” or “memorable name”.  But Gary’s answer is: “a starving crowd”.  I agree.  You MUST design your marketing campaign to find and target the people who are looking for your service or product.  Without doing this, your marketing life will become much more difficult.  Bottom Line:  Every marketing initiative must be built around finding your particular “starving crowd”.  Who is your customer?

3. Keyword Research

This is the “detective work” of marketing.  Finding the words and phrases that people type into a search engine to find your type of service or business.  Of course, there are always some obvious words.  Unfortunately, unless you’re a very experienced professional, those are also the keywords that are very hard to obtain a favorable rank.  They are very competitive.  The key is to also find all of the varieties of the main keywords that people also search for.  Yes, many people search for “seattle dentist”.  Very competitive.  People also search for “seattle dentist for dentures” as well.  Much less competitive… and since those people are so exact with their search, there’s a good chance they’re looking to “buy”.  There are many automated tools that can help you with this… and literally hundreds of combinations that can bring you business.  This is “targeting your audience” and “finding the starving crowd”.

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