Tags |
|
|
Links |
|
|
Actual for You - Small Business Secret #3: Seven Documents All Small Businesses Must Have to Be Successful
Those who take action to relentlessly pursue their heart’s desire, often end up achieving that which they seek. Time and time again we have seen this happen.Entrepreneurs who achieve significant business successes are often those who persisted in the face of daunting challenges and setbacks, till they achieved their objective.Those who failed were inevitably the ones who lacked the will or “mental/emotional stamina” to keep fighting till they got what they wanted.As so many successful entrepreneurs have pointed out time and time again, it is NOT possible for an entrepreneur to fail - s/he can only give up. This is because for as long as s/he keeps trying to succeed, making needed adjustments to his/her plan based on recorded failures, success will eventually be achieved.Having faith in onesel
The key advantage of your operations plan is that if at any time you lose a staff member, you can use the operations plan to teach your new staff members the tasks that they need to complete each day.
Doc 5. Sales Plan
The Sales Plan outlines how sales will be undertaken on a day to day basis. How you will be selling your products and services, who your target markets are, your approach techniques to new clients, any clients that you need to contact on a day-to-day basis and w
Singapore’s Changi Airport has been rated #1 in the world so many times the trophy cabinet is bulging.They’ve hit #1 in efficiency, speed, shopping, security, safety and ease of use.But the category called ‘courtesy and friendliness’ has eluded Changi Airport’s capture. This is not surprising, perhaps, given that the local culture has grown in a city known more for ‘trading and exchanging’ than ‘providing gracious warmth and hospitality’.Now the airport is facing this challenge head-on. The depth and magnitude of commitment are impressive: a brand new ‘service promise’ with high impact launch program for 7,000 staff, customized full-day training for 3,000 frontline staff members, monthly courtesy awards, customer feedback kiosks, service improvement contests, mystery traveler audits, constant remind
Let me explain …
Doc 1. Business Plan
The Business plan, which is what most accountants, lawyers and business coaches will say is the only document that you need is the first document you must complete. I certainly do disagree totally that this is the only document you need, because the actual roll of this document is to summarize the other six mandatory documents that you must have.
The size of your Business Plan document will vary depending on the size of your business that you are either buying or building. Your business plan should contain details on how your business will be run, how you will finance the business, what sort of profit you will make, how you will advertise and market your business, what your exit strategy will be from your business, what form you business will take, where it will be located etc.
If you are going to be buying a Business rather than starting up a new one from scratch, always ask the previous owner to see their business plan. This will give you a good insight into the inner workings of the business and how it got to where it is. One thing to note though, always make sure that regardless of whether you are buying an existing business or building your own, that you create your own business plan so you have a clear understanding of where you are going with this business.
Doc 2. Business Model
A Business Model is usually built using tools like Microsoft Excel or Microsoft Access. The model allows you to apply various scenarios to your business model to see what sort of outcome will occur. This is a fantastic tool for running scenarios and seeing what the outcome would be if certain conditions might occur, like your truck broke down or what would happen to your profit if a certain piece of machinery broke down for a period of time.
The Business Model is also very useful when dealing with organizations like banks or finance institutions. If your business model can show what impacts various factors might have on your business and that you can still survive, then the banks and finance institutions are more likely to give you the money you need.
Doc 3. Marketing Plan
The Marketing Plan document sets out how you are going to market your business. It includes information on the brochures you are going to use, the types of adverts you may use, the frequency of the campaign, the medium you will be using and so forth. The marketing plan provides an in depth look at how you will be marketing your business. Your marketing plan should represent 12 months of operations, that is, you should have developed all of your marketing strategies so that they flow on and build on each previous marketing campaign over a 12 month period.
Doc 4. Operations Plan
Your operations plan is designed to define exactly how your business is to be run. The operations plan should include how to do every task in your organization, checklists on what needs to be done every day, week, month and year. Essentially the Operations Plan defines how your business actually works.
The key advantage of your operations plan is that if at any time you lose a staff member, you can use the operations plan to teach your new staff members the tasks that they need to complete each day.
Doc 5. Sales Plan
The Sales Plan outlines how sales will be undertaken on a day to day basis. How you will be selling your products and services, who your target markets are, your approach techniques to new clients, any clients that you need to contact on a day-to-day basis and wh
There are many different ways to increase your traffic on the web. Just as there are get rich quick schemes, there are get traffic quick schemes. These can backfire on you just like any other shortcut to results.As part of your overall strategy, it is possible to create a plan that will get your steadily increasing traffic, increasing visibility and results. The more employees you have that use a computer the better.Here are the key elements to getting your employees to create some Internet Buzz for you.# 1 – PrepareThe first key is to create a clear document on what your employees can and cannot say about the company. What is the vision that you want to make public? What is unique about the organization? What stories can they tell? Collect examples of good and bad posts from empl
If you are going to be buying a Business rather than starting up a new one from scratch, always ask the previous owner to see their business plan. This will give you a good insight into the inner workings of the business and how it got to where it is. One thing to note though, always make sure that regardless of whether you are buying an existing business or building your own, that you create your own business plan so you have a clear understanding of where you are going with this business.
Doc 2. Business Model
A Business Model is usually built using tools like Microsoft Excel or Microsoft Access. The model allows you to apply various scenarios to your business model to see what sort of outcome will occur. This is a fantastic tool for running scenarios and seeing what the outcome would be if certain conditions might occur, like your truck broke down or what would happen to your profit if a certain piece of machinery broke down for a period of time.
The Business Model is also very useful when dealing with organizations like banks or finance institutions. If your business model can show what impacts various factors might have on your business and that you can still survive, then the banks and finance institutions are more likely to give you the money you need.
Doc 3. Marketing Plan
The Marketing Plan document sets out how you are going to market your business. It includes information on the brochures you are going to use, the types of adverts you may use, the frequency of the campaign, the medium you will be using and so forth. The marketing plan provides an in depth look at how you will be marketing your business. Your marketing plan should represent 12 months of operations, that is, you should have developed all of your marketing strategies so that they flow on and build on each previous marketing campaign over a 12 month period.
Doc 4. Operations Plan
Your operations plan is designed to define exactly how your business is to be run. The operations plan should include how to do every task in your organization, checklists on what needs to be done every day, week, month and year. Essentially the Operations Plan defines how your business actually works.
The key advantage of your operations plan is that if at any time you lose a staff member, you can use the operations plan to teach your new staff members the tasks that they need to complete each day.
Doc 5. Sales Plan
The Sales Plan outlines how sales will be undertaken on a day to day basis. How you will be selling your products and services, who your target markets are, your approach techniques to new clients, any clients that you need to contact on a day-to-day basis and w
A good small business to start from home should represent a balance between your income potential, personal interests, and cash available for investment.If you have limited funds available for startup costs, or do not have a background in business management or startups, I highly recommend you explore the multi-level marketing business opportunities first.I like to take a no-holds-barred approach to business. That means when I see an opportunity, and decide it offers a low risk and high payoff potential, I jump in. I've been burned a few times in my over-zealousness, but an occasional failure is part of the game. Over the years I've learned you either play the game, and accept the risks (it helps to understand the risks going in), or you don't play. In my opinion, life is too short to waste time on the sid
Doc 2. Business Model
A Business Model is usually built using tools like Microsoft Excel or Microsoft Access. The model allows you to apply various scenarios to your business model to see what sort of outcome will occur. This is a fantastic tool for running scenarios and seeing what the outcome would be if certain conditions might occur, like your truck broke down or what would happen to your profit if a certain piece of machinery broke down for a period of time.
The Business Model is also very useful when dealing with organizations like banks or finance institutions. If your business model can show what impacts various factors might have on your business and that you can still survive, then the banks and finance institutions are more likely to give you the money you need.
Doc 3. Marketing Plan
The Marketing Plan document sets out how you are going to market your business. It includes information on the brochures you are going to use, the types of adverts you may use, the frequency of the campaign, the medium you will be using and so forth. The marketing plan provides an in depth look at how you will be marketing your business. Your marketing plan should represent 12 months of operations, that is, you should have developed all of your marketing strategies so that they flow on and build on each previous marketing campaign over a 12 month period.
Doc 4. Operations Plan
Your operations plan is designed to define exactly how your business is to be run. The operations plan should include how to do every task in your organization, checklists on what needs to be done every day, week, month and year. Essentially the Operations Plan defines how your business actually works.
The key advantage of your operations plan is that if at any time you lose a staff member, you can use the operations plan to teach your new staff members the tasks that they need to complete each day.
Doc 5. Sales Plan
The Sales Plan outlines how sales will be undertaken on a day to day basis. How you will be selling your products and services, who your target markets are, your approach techniques to new clients, any clients that you need to contact on a day-to-day basis and w
In the franchising industry many service firms can excel by collecting national accounts, which have outlets in many states. Each franchisee can help with the over all multi-state National Corporate Account. Only one problem; many franchising companies purposely choose not to do business in certain states such as WA, CA, MD, NY and IL.When discussing this recently with one academic professor he advised a strategy might be to do what many bootleggers did in the past by putting bars just over the borders of prohibition states. Interesting indeed and his comments about cross border services from one franchise registration state to another is worthy. For instance MI, IN, KY are notification states and not issues. IL is a tough nut to crack.Indeed you could run units from a cross border state HQ'ered franchisee
Doc 3. Marketing Plan
The Marketing Plan document sets out how you are going to market your business. It includes information on the brochures you are going to use, the types of adverts you may use, the frequency of the campaign, the medium you will be using and so forth. The marketing plan provides an in depth look at how you will be marketing your business. Your marketing plan should represent 12 months of operations, that is, you should have developed all of your marketing strategies so that they flow on and build on each previous marketing campaign over a 12 month period.
Doc 4. Operations Plan
Your operations plan is designed to define exactly how your business is to be run. The operations plan should include how to do every task in your organization, checklists on what needs to be done every day, week, month and year. Essentially the Operations Plan defines how your business actually works.
The key advantage of your operations plan is that if at any time you lose a staff member, you can use the operations plan to teach your new staff members the tasks that they need to complete each day.
Doc 5. Sales Plan
The Sales Plan outlines how sales will be undertaken on a day to day basis. How you will be selling your products and services, who your target markets are, your approach techniques to new clients, any clients that you need to contact on a day-to-day basis and w
A lot of people are constantly thinking about starting their own business. A large majority of these people will choose mail order because of its intrinsic advantages. Newcomers to the mail order industry normally ask the same types of questions. Who can help us? Someone, somewhere has to help a newcomer in mail order to become successful. It's inevitable! A lot of people think only large businesses can succeed in mail order. This is just one of the many misconceptions newcomers have toward the mail order industry. Another misconception is that mail order is a rip-off world - which is entirely untrue! Some of the best products and services are obtained through the mail! The general public entering mail order for the first time cannot understand how the concept works. They are
The key advantage of your operations plan is that if at any time you lose a staff member, you can use the operations plan to teach your new staff members the tasks that they need to complete each day.
Doc 5. Sales Plan
The Sales Plan outlines how sales will be undertaken on a day to day basis. How you will be selling your products and services, who your target markets are, your approach techniques to new clients, any clients that you need to contact on a day-to-day basis and what your contact processes are. More so it should define what step-by-step process you follow to convert a prospect into a customer.
The Sales Plan should use flow charts and should also include any letters or marketing material that should be used for a particular sales process.
Doc 6. HR Plan
The HR Plan, sets out the Human Resource structure of your organization. It should include information such as position descriptions, who each person reports to, who they are responsible for, what tasks they are responsible for and any special duties they might have to do during the year.
The HR Plan should also have information in it such as Job Advertisement Templates, approved Position Descriptions and templates, Hourly Rates, Acceptable Work Practices and so forth. The HR Plan sets down how your staff must engage at work and what you define as being acceptable workplace behaviors in your workplace.
Doc 7. Style Manual
The Organizations Style manual sets out how you are going to present yourself to your customers. The style manual includes information on your logos, your business cards, the colors your business will use for its logos, banner layouts, how to place newspaper adverts and what colors must be used, what fonts must be used in Letters or Faxes. The style manual will also set out what information will go onto your business cards, where the logo will sit and what information must be contained.
The Organizations Style manual sets out how you are going to present yourself to the public and what standards you will use. If you have never seen a Style Manual before simply go to any large corporation's website and type in 'Style Manual' and you will generally find one available for review.
After 10 years in small business and a number of small businesses under my belt, the one thing I have learned is that if you do not have these 7 Plans and Documents done prior to creating or building your business, then they will never get done. The simple fact is that small business is incredibly demanding on the small business owner and once the business is up and going, it is highly unusual the owner will ever get the time to go back and create them. Without each and every one of these documents your business will lack focus on what you want to achieve and that is why 70% of all small businesses around the world fail in the first 12 months.
To finish off, I would like to take a moment to summarize the seven documents all small business owners should have before contemplating a small business…
1. Business Plan
2. Business Model
3. Marketing Plan
4. Operations Plan
5. Sales Plan
6. HR Plan
7. Style Manual
HTTP = HTML link (for blogs, profiles,phorums):
<a href="http://www.actual4u.com/article/41611/actual4u-Small-Business-Secret-3-Seven-Documents-All-Small-Businesses-Must-Have-to-Be-Successful.html">Small Business Secret #3: Seven Documents All Small Businesses Must Have to Be Successful</a>
BB link (for phorums):
[url=http://www.actual4u.com/article/41611/actual4u-Small-Business-Secret-3-Seven-Documents-All-Small-Businesses-Must-Have-to-Be-Successful.html]Small Business Secret #3: Seven Documents All Small Businesses Must Have to Be Successful[/url]
Related Articles:
Silver Bullets to Getting Consumers to Remember Your Brand
The Harder You Work, the Harder You May Fall?
Bookmark it:
|