Plan Archives - Page 8 of 10 - BOLLYWOOD SURKHIYAN

How To Create a Yearly Business Plan And Achieve Your Goals

As entrepreneurs, most of us have prepared a well-thought out business plan. It is essential if you are looking for any sort of financial assistance when starting up and will keep you focused while building your business. Having a plan to follow will also increase your chances of success. However, a few years into your business, is your original business plan still relevant? Probably not.

A yearly plan for an established business is an essential organizational tool if:

* you’re looking to grow your business

* there is a lot of activity going on in your business every day and you tend to bumble-bee, jumping from “flower to flower” not knowing where to focus your time

* you don’t have a clear plan and consider different options every day

While there are many templates and varieties of business plans available on the web, your yearly plan does not need to go into as much depth as your original. Here are the 5 main areas you will need to cover when planning for the year ahead:

1. Where are you now? List the services that you are providing, the products that you are selling, the number of hours you work in your business, and the number of hours you work on your business.

2. What are your goals? List the goals you wish to attain. We all have a financial goal so write your specific money goal for the year and the top 2 or 3 priorities that will get you there.

3. How are you going to get there? Work backwards from your financial goal and identify the steps necessary to achieve it. For example, if your goal is to make $75,000 for the year, how many clients do you need, how many products do you need to sell, how many workshops do you need to conduct and what do you need to charge for these things? Break these goals down monthly and then weekly and tweak until you have reached a realistic and attainable financial goal and plan that sync.

4. When are you going to do what’s needed to achieve your goals? Take your monthly and weekly goals to create your action plan. This will determine the number of clients you will work with and when, what products and programs you will create, how many you need to sell and when etc. The action plan can be transferred over to your weekly schedule.

5. Who do I need help from to achieve my goals? List what tasks you can no longer continue to handle. Consider outsourcing things like your accounting to a bookkeeper and your technical and administrative tasks to a Virtual Assistant to free up your time for the profit generating tasks.

Going through this process helps you to identify your intentions and forces you to paint a realistic big picture plan for the year. Each small step taking you towards your bigger goal. This strategy may be the one business activity that helps your business to grow more than any other.

Marketing Strategy Plan: Key Ingredients Of A SWOT Analysis

In every marketing strategy plan, the first step in determining your current position in the market is through a comprehensive SWOT analysis. This helps you identify and improve your Strengths and Weakness while focusing on the external Opportunities and Threats that may positively or negatively affect your company.

1. Strengths

In a SWOT analysis, Strengths are considered part of the internal factors favorable to your marketing strategy plan. This basically covers areas regarding your competencies, assets, income generation, and other intangibles like customer support and positive public image and reputation, good admin – employees relationship, and camaraderie in the work place. When you define your strengths, it must reflect the present situation and have a clear plan on how you will be able to maintain and nurture it so these factors will always be the driving force of your company.

2. Weaknesses

Weaknesses can be derived both from internal and external factors. These are usually the areas in your operation that may have a negative impact on your marketing strategy plan. The purpose of creating a list of your weaknesses is so you can adjust your strategies to include improvements in these areas. Among the common weaknesses of companies are where your operation is losing money, lack of experience, skills, and or resources among others. Weaknesses can also account for a bad reputation, significant decline in the levels of trust among consumers, or simply due to the absence of any strength.

3. Opportunities

Opportunities are basically external factors that offer potential benefits for your business. When creating a marketing strategy plan, having a good grasp of the opportunities is highly beneficial. This enables you to take advantage of various factors that may have positive effects on your endeavors such as the current economic condition, cultural climate, market volume, economic demand, etc. When you know your opportunities, you can also see the actual needs of your target market that are not being met. In essence, these opportunities are actually your future strengths and must be prioritized.

4. Threats

Although threats are usually viewed as an external condition that may impede your marketing strategy plans, they can also be viewed internally. Threats can be an unstable economic condition, cultural differences, unfriendly social conditions, significant changes in political stability, new industry regulations and legislation, and the current position of your competitor. Internally, threats are often found in the workplace such as the unstable admin – employee relationship and other related conditions. As opposed to Opportunities, Threats in essence are your company’s future weaknesses and must be addressed as soon as possible.

With the help of a SWOT analysis, you can analyze your business internally against your various resources, financial standing, support, etc. When you look at various external factors, you can examine various areas of the economy, political stability, industrial regulations, demographic, social, competitions, and technology that may have a direct impact on your business.

Business Plan For a Beauty Salon – Cash Flow Decisions

Creating a business plan for your beauty salon presents the perfect opportunity for you to create a functioning cash flow statement (sometimes called the statement of cash flows). This will allow you to make key decisions about cash flow going forward.

Creating the Cash Flow Statement

It is highly recommended to start with an Excel template or financial model example of some kind for your salon’s cash flow statement. It need not be an model specifically tailored towards a beauty salon, but should be for a similar business (i.e., one that makes revenues through services and product sales, pays rent for a location, etc) so that minimal customization is required. Starting with a template can save a great deal of time in the creation of the statement.

Three Sections of a Cash Flow Statement

This will describe cash inflows and outflows in three areas: operating activities, investing activities, and financing activities.

Operating activities include cash brought in from customers in the form of sales and cash paid out for operating expenses. This will generally represent the highest inflows and outflows on the cash flow statement and should result in a positive number each month for a profitable company.

Investing activities do not mean the company’s purchase of stocks or bonds (although this kind of rare activity would be included here). They are generally activities where the salon invests in itself. Whenever a capital purchase of an asset is made (equipment, leasehold improvements to the salon, furniture, etc.) the payments made will represent a cash outflow. If these assets are ever sold off, the money brought in will represent a cash inflow here. Generally, a functioning company will have negative cash flow in the investing area.

Financing activities are related to the funding of the company by investors and lenders. When funders put money into the company in the form of equity or debt capital, this represents a cash inflow here. When dividends are paid out, shares are bought back from equity investors, or lenders are paid back their loan principal, financing shows cash outflows. Note that paying interest on loans represents an operating activity in the United States.

Cash Reserves

By seeing how low the ending cash balance each quarter, month, or week drops to, you can determine what size cash reserves the company will need. Make sure that cash reserves cover all negative balances as well as at least thousands of dollars more as a cushion to prepare for cost overruns or revenue shortfalls.

How To Prepare A Business Plan That Guarantees Big Profits

It is always said “If you Fail to Plan, you Plan to Fail”

Success in business comes as a result of planning. You have to have a detailed, written plan that shows what the ultimate goal is, the reason for the goal, and each milestone that must be passed in order to reach your goal.

A business plan is written definition of, and operational plan for achieving your goal. You need a complete but success tool in order to define your basic product, income objectives and specific operating procedures. YOU HAVE TO HAVE A BUSINESS PLAN to attract investors, obtain financing and hold onto the confidence of your creditors, particularly in times of cash flow shortages–in this instance, the amount of money you have on hand compared with the expenses that must be met.

Aside from an overall directional policy for the production, sales effort and profit goals of your product–your basic “travel guide” to business success–the most important purpose your business plan will serve, will be the basis or foundation of any financial proposals you submit. Many entrepreneurs are under the mistaken impression that a business plan is the same as a financial proposal, or that a financial proposal constitutes a business plan. This is just a misunderstanding of the uses of these two separate and different business success aids.

The business plan is a long range “map” to guide your business to the goal you’ve set for it. The plan details the what, why, where, how and when, of your business–the success planning of your company.

Your financial proposal is a request for money based upon your business plan–your business history and objectives.

Understand the differences. They are closely related, but they are not interchangeable.

Writing and putting together a “winning” business plan takes study, research and time, so don’t try to do it all in just one or two days.

The easiest way to start with a loose leaf notebook, plenty of paper, pencils, pencil sharpener, and several erasers. Once you get your mind “in gear” and begin thinking about your business plan, “10,000 thoughts and ideas per minute” will begin racing through your mind…So, it’s a good idea when you aren’t actually working on your business plan, to carry a pocket notebook and jot down those business ideas as they come to you–ideas for sales promotion, recruiting distributors, and any other thoughts on how to operate and/or build your business.

Later, when you’re actually working on your business plan, you can take out this “idea notebook” evaluate your ideas, rework them, refine them, and integrate them into the overall “big picture” of your business plan.

The best business plans for even the smallest businesses run 25 to 30 pages or more, so you’ll need to “title” each page and arrange the different aspects of your business plan into “chapters.” The format should pretty much run as follows:

Title Page Statement of Purpose Table of Contents Business Description Market Analysis Competition Business Location Management Current Financial Records Explanation of Plans For Growth Projected Profit & Loss/Operating Figures Explanation of Financing for Growth Documentation Summary of Business & Outlook for The Future Listing of Business & personal References

This is a logical organization of the information every business plan should cover. I’ll explain each of these chapters titles in greater detail, but first, let me elaborate upon the reasons for proper organization of your business plan.

Having a set of “questions to answer” about your business forces you to take an objective and critical look at your ideas. Putting it all down on paper allows you to change, erase and refine everything to function in the manner of a smoothly oiled machine. You’ll be able to spot weakness and strengthen them before they develop into major problems. Overall, you’ll be developing an operating manual for your business–a valuable tool which will keep your business on track, and guide you in the profitable management of your business.

Because it’s your idea, and your business, it’s very important that YOU do the planning. This is YOUR business plan, so YOU develop it, and put it all down on paper just the way YOU want it to read. Seek out the advice of other people; talk with, listen to, and observe, other people running similar businesses; enlist the advice of your accountant and attorney–but at the bottom line, don’t ever forget it has to be YOUR BUSINESS PLAN!

Remember too, that statistics show the greatest causes of business failure to be poor management and lack of planning–without a plan by which to operate, no one can manage; and without a direction in which to aim its efforts, no business can attain any real success.

On the very first page, which is the title page, put down the name of your business-ABC ACTION–with your business address underneath. Now, skip a couple of lines, and write it all in capital letters: PRINCIPAL OWNER–followed by your name if you’re the principal owner. On your finished report, you would want to center this information on the page, with the words “principal owner” off-set to the left about five spaces.

Examples: ABC ACTION 1234 SW 5th Ave. Anywhere, USA 00000

PRINCIPAL OWNER: Your Name

That’s all you’ll have on this page except the page number -1-

Following your title page is the page for your statement purpose. This should be a simple statement of your primary business function, such as: We are a service business engaged in the business of selling business success manuals and other information by mail.

The title of the page should be in all capital letters across the top of the page, centered on your final draft–skip a few lines and write the statement of purpose. This should be direct, clear and short–never more than (2) sentences in length.

Then you should skip a few lines, and from the left hand margin of the paper, write out a sub-heading in all capital letters, such as: EXPLANATION OF PURPOSE.

From, and within this sub-heading you can briefly explain your statement of purpose, such as: Our surveys have found most entrepreneurs to be “sadly” lacking in basic information that will enable them to achieve success. This market is estimated at more than a 100 million persons, with at least half of these people actively “searching” for sources that provide the kind of information they want, and need.

With our business, advertising and publishing experience, it is our goal to capture at least half of this market of information seekers, with our publication. MONEY MAKING MAGIC! Our market research indicates we can achieve this goal and realize a profit of $1,000,000 per year within the next 5 years…

The above example is generally the way you should write your “explanation of purpose,” and in subtle definition, why you need an explanation. Point to remember: Keep it short. Very few business purpose explanations justify more than a half page long.

Next comes your table of contents page. Don’t really worry about this until you’ve got the entire plan completed and ready for final typing. It’s a good idea though, to list the subject (chapter titles) as I have, and then check off each one as you complete that part of your plan.

By having a list of the points you want to cover, you’ll also be able to skip around and work on each phase of your business plan as an idea or the interest in organizing that particular phase, stimulates you. In other words, you won’t have to make your thinking or your planning conform to the chronological order of the “chapters” of your business plan–another reason for the loose leaf notebook.

In describing your business, it’s best to begin where your statement purpose leaves off. Describe your product, the production process, who has responsibility for what, and most importantly, what makes your product or service unique–what gives it an edge in your market. You can briefly summarize your business beginnings, present position and potential for future success, as well.

Next, describe the buyers you’re trying to reach–why they need and want or will buy your product–and the results of any tests or surveys you may have conducted. Once you’ve defined your market, go on to explain how you intend to reach that market–how you’ll these prospects to your product or service and induce them to buy. You might want to break this chapter down into sections such as..publicity and promotions, advertising plans, direct sales force, and dealer/distributor programs. Each section would then be an outline of your plans and policies.

Moving into the next chapter on competition, identify who your competitors are–their weakness and strong points–explain how you intend to capitalize on those weaknesses and match or better the strong points. Talk to as many of your “indirect” competitors as possible–those operating in different cities and states.

One of the easiest ways of gathering a lot of useful information about your competitors is by developing a series of survey questions and sending these questionnaires out to each of them. Later on, you might want to compile the answers to these questionnaires into some form of directory or report on this type of business.

It’s also advisable to contact the trade associations and publications serving your proposed type of business. For information on trade associations and specific trade publications, visit your public library, and after explaining what you want ask for the librarian’s help.

The chapter on management should be an elaboration on the people operating the business. Those people that actually run the business, their job, titles, duties, responsibilities and background resume’s. It’s important that you “paint” a strong picture of your top management people because the people coming to work for you or investing in your business, will be “investing in these people” as much as your product ideas. Individual tenacity, mature judgement under fire, and innovative problem-solving have “won over” more people than all the AAA Credit Ratings and astronomical sales figures put together.

People becoming involved with any new venture want to know that the person in charge–the guy running the business knows what he’s doing, will not lose his cool when problems arise, and has what it takes to make money for all of them> After showing the “muscle” of this person, go on to outline the other key positions within your business; who the persons are you’ve selected to handle those jobs and the sources as well as availability of any help you might need.

If you’ve been in business of any kind scale, the next chapter is a picture of your financial status–a review of your operating costs and income from the business to date. Generally, this is a listing of your profit & loss statements for the six months, plus copies of your business income tax records for each of the previous three years the business has been an entity.

The chapter on the explanation of your plans for the future growth of your business is just that–an explanation of how you plan to keep your business growing–a detailed guide of what you’re going to do, and how you’re going to increase your profits. These plans should show your goals for the coming year, two years, and three years. By breaking your objectives down into annual milestones, your plan will be accepted as more realistic and be more understandable as a part of your ultimate success.

Following this explanation, you’ll need to itemize the projected cost and income figures of your three year plan. I’ll take a lot of research, an undoubtedly a good deal of erasing, but it’s very important that you list these figures based upon thorough investigation. You may have to adjust some of your plans downward, but once you’ve got these two chapters on paper, your whole business plan will fall into line and begin to make sense. You’ll have a precise “map” of where you’re headed, how much it’s going to cost, when you can expect to start making money, and how much.

Now that you know where you’re going, how much it’s going to cost and how long it’s going to be before you begin to recoup your investment, you’re ready to talk about how and where you’re going to get the money to finance your journey. Unless you’re independently wealthy, you’ll want to use this chapter to list the possibilities and alternatives. Make a list of friends you can approach, and perhaps induce to put up some money as silent partners. Make a list of those people you might be able to sell as stockholders in your company–in many cases you can sell up to $300,000 worth of stock on a “private issue” basis without filing papers with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Check with a corporate or tax attorney in your area for more details. Make a list of relatives and friends that might help you with an outright loan to furnish money for the development of your business.

Then search out and make a list of venture capital organizations. Visit the Small Business Administration office in your area–pick up the loan application papers they have–read them, study them, and even fill them out on a preliminary basis–and finally, check the costs, determine which business publications would be best to advertise in, if you were to advertise for a partner or investor, and write an ad you’d want to use if you did decide to advertise for monetary help.

With listing of all the options available to your needs, all that’s left is the arranging of these options in the order you would want to use them when the time come to ask for money. When you’re researching these money sources, you’ll save time by noting the “contact” deal with when you want money, and whenever possible, by developing a working relationship with these people.

If your documentation section, you should have a credit report on yourself. Use the Yellow Pages or check at the credit department in your bank for the nearest credit reporting office. When you get your credit report, look it over and take whatever steps are necessary to eliminate any negative comments. Once these have been taken care of, ask for a revised copy of your report and include a copy of that in your business plan.

If you own any patents or copyrights, include copies of these. Any licenses to use someone else’s patent or copyright should also be included. If you own the distribution, wholesale or exclusive sales rights to a product, include copies of this documentation. You should also include copies of any leases, special agreements or other legal papers that might be pertinent to your business.

In conclusion, write out a brief, overall summary of your business- when the business was started, the purpose of the business, what makes your business different, how you’re going to gain a profitable share of the market, and your expected success during the coming 5 years..

The last page of your business plan is a “courtesy page” listing the names, addresses and phone numbers of personal and business references–persons who have known you closely for the past five years or longer–and companies or firms you’ve had business or credit dealings with during the past five years.

And, that’s it–your complete business plan. Before you send it out for formal typing, read it over once a day for a week or ten days. Take care of any changes or corrections, and then have it reviewed by an attorney and then, an accountant. It would also be a good idea to have it reviewed by a business consultant serving the business community to which your business will be related. After these reviews, and any last-minute changes you want to make, I’ll be ready for formal typing.

Type and print the entire plan on ordinary white bond paper. Make sure you proof-read it against the original. Check for any corrections and typographical errors–then one more time–read it through for clarity and the perfection you want of it.

Now you’re ready to have it printed and published for whatever use you have planned for it–distribution amongst your partners or stockholders as the business plan for putting together a winning financial proposal, or as a business operating manual.

Take it to a quality printer in your area, and have three copies printed. Don’t settle for photo-copying..Have it printed!

Photo-copying leaves a slight film on the paper, and will detract from the overall professionalism of your business plan, when presented to someone you’re trying to impress. So, after going to all this work to put together properly, go all the way and have it duplicated properly.

Next, stop by a stationery store, variety store or even a dime store, and pick up an ordinary, inexpensive bind-in theme cover for each copy of your business plan. Have the holes punched in the pages of your business report to fit these binders and then slip each copy into a binder of its own.

Now, you can relax, take a break and feel good about yourself..You have a complete and detailed business plan with which to operate a successful business of your own. A plan you can use as a basis for any financing proposal you may want to submit..And a precise road-map for the attainment of real success…

You just complete one of the important steps to fulfill of all your dreams of success.

The Tea Room Business Plan – The Internet, Ecommerce and Affiliate Programs

What is E-Commerce?

E-commerce is the sale of products and services over the Internet. It is the fastest growing segment of our economy. It allows even the smallest business to reach a global audience with its product or message with minimal cost.

o Currently, there are more than 250 million people using the Internet internationally.

o Sixty-nine percent of the online population has made at least one purchase in the last 90 days. By 2007, two-thirds of U.S. households will be online shopping.

o According to the January 2005 Trend/Forecasting report of The Dilenschneider Group, in the U.S. alone, the 2004 holiday season online shopping jumped by more than 25% from 2003. And in 2005 it jumped another 25%.

o The average income of Internet households is over $66,790, making the Internet user a very attractive customer for you to target.

Is an E-Commerce website right for your tea room business?

Much depends on the nature of your tea room business model.

A website doesn’t need to exist solely to sell products online. It could supplement the revenue of your already established tea room. If you sell a unique product, such as loose leaf tea, you might find success reaching others around the country that do not have access to these products in their own towns.

The Internet provides a global audience of potential customers and it never closes. Information about your tea room can be easily added to the website and updated as required. Your customers will have access to information about your business 24 hours a day. You can add pictures and video. In addition, your customer will even be able to buy from you 24 hours a day and learn your best hours of operation of your tea room.

Tea Room Tip:

Promote your website address everywhere including your stationery, sales forms, brochures, leave behinds and advertisements.

The internet has opened the world to small companies and tea rooms are no exception. Owners of tea rooms should consider the revenue opportunities presented by having a web site on the internet that promotes the tea room business and provides product sales opportunities with only a small investment.

With the introduction of new and cost effective tools to develop web sites, the tea room can be advertised and promoted to a larger audience. The web site helps put forth the mission statement and message of the tea room visually and in an effective manner. One company that develops websites for the small business is Go Daddy.com at http://www.godaddy.com/gdshop/default.asp

E-Commerce and Affiliate Programs

Opportunities for sale of loose leaf tea are particularly attractive when combined with effective web based e-commerce through affiliate programs. For the tea room this can be a source of additional revenue with a very small investment. All that is required is a website, links to the tea supplier and an internet promotion plan.

Generally, loose leaf tea e-commerce sites list tea and tea ware offerings as well as information about tea and other value added benefits. Some have retail and wholesale features (ideal for tea rooms) as well as value added features.

Chose a recognized quality and feature rich e-commerce site that specializes in selling and supporting loose leaf tea products to tea rooms. Deal with a site that allows the direct purchase of tea in tins, bulk tea, teaware, tea club memberships, gift cards and other tea related items. The site should also encourage feedback on products so the highest quality can be maintained.

Affiliate programs afford a small entrepreneur the ability to leverage the website of the tea manufacturer through their own affiliate site. Through this technique the affiliate can minimize their investment and maximize their return on product sales. An affiliate relationship is established by agreement between the affiliate and the manufacturer whereby each party benefits.

There is more to an affiliate relationship than a simple agreement however. The affiliate must be provided with marketing support, account feedback and prompt payment of earned commissions. Most good affiliate programs share a number of characteristics:

o Real-time reporting statistics

o Real-time email alerts upon each sale

o Payment on a consistent monthly basis for initial and repeat orders

o High price-point products that are easy to sell and allow for substantial affiliate commissions

o A comprehensive package of rich content articles and banner advertising that the affiliate can reprint and use for marketing

Of special note for marketing support is the availability of banner ads that are high quality and effective. These are particularly useful affiliate marketing tools.

How to Write an Online Digital Internet Marketing Business Plan

It’s common for businesses embarking in internet marketing and social media to think they need to build their strategies around technology and not look at audience needs first. Every business needs an integrated marketing plan. Sometimes businesses see digital planning as a separate thing but ideally your online marketing plan should be integrated with wider business objectives so it is part of an overall marketing plan.

There are two models that provide a framework for writing an integrated digital marketing plan. The first is called SOSTAC® planning model developed by PR Smith. In plain English this approach means breaking your plan down into six parts: –

S stands for Situation Analysis – which means where are we now?
O stands for Objectives which means where do we want to go?
S stands for Strategy which summarises how we are going to get there
T stands for Tactics which are the details of strategy
A is for Action or implementation – putting the plan to work.
C is for Control which means measurement, monitoring, reviewing, updating and modifying.

You can use the SOSTAC® planning model to build a digital marketing template to fit your business needs and customer profiles.

The second model that’s useful for mapping out a social media marketing plan is Forrester’s POST method. The POST method helps define your social media goals, plan and prioritise your actions. By thinking this through you can create a clear purpose and vision, as well as implementing goals, strategies and tools that will help you to reach the people you are looking to connect with online. The POST method in a nutshell looks at:

People – Start by looking at your customer’s social behaviours and attitudes. Who do you want to attract on sites like Facebook and Twitter?
Objectives – Next decide on your social technology goals. Do you want to build relationships or, create brand awareness or improve customer service?
Strategy – What strategies do you plan to carry out and what is your priority? Determine how your goals will change the way you interact with customers through twitter, a blog, LinkedIn or Facebook page
Technologies – which ones will you use? Pick the most right technologies that will meet your goals you don’t have to use them all!

These methods will ensure your integrated digital marketing plan put audiences and customers first, identifying their needs and developing a plan with the right mix of online and offline channels to build strong relationships,drive leads and generate traffic to your website.

How to Write a Business Plan Funding Proposal

You have a great idea for starting a new business or expanding your current one. You’ve thought through all the issues and created a roadmap for success. Now all you need is the funding to put your dreams into action. But how are you going to secure that funding? You can’t just stroll into a bank or sit down at a committee meeting and hand them your notes and spreadsheets. You need to write a business proposal to lay out your plans and request the funds.

You’re an entrepreneur, you think, not a writer! You’ve never written more than a business letter and a meeting agenda. Don’t worry. It doesn’t need to be an intimidating process, because there is a basic structure to every business proposal. Here are the four parts, in order: simply 1) introduce yourself; 2) show that you understand your customers/clients and their needs; 3) describe how your goods and services meet those needs and present your expected expenses and profits; and 4) persuade the bank or committee that you have integrity and can be trusted with the money.

You don’t need to start out with blank pages, either. You can speed up the proposal writing process by using pre-designed templates and samples, along with simple automation software.

The length of your proposal will vary depending on the complexity of the project you are proposing and how much funding you require. It is obviously easier to describe an expansion plan and present financial data for an existing business than it will be to describe how you will get a new business up and running. Your proposal might be only ten pages long, or it might need to include dozens of pages.

The secret to creating a successful funding proposal is to show a need or desire on the part of your prospective clients/customers, and then to show how you will meet that need and profit from providing the solution. When requesting funding, you also need to keep in mind the needs of the bank or funding committee. Put yourself in the other party’s shoes. What does your prospective funder need or want? What are their concerns? How have you gathered this information? What sort of information about your business experience and financial know-how will the funding institution want from you before handing you money? Lending institutions and grant committees want to understand your background and your plan to determine if your business is likely to succeed. A bank or investor will also want to see your plan for paying them back.

Start your business plan funding proposal by introducing yourself and the proposal with a Cover Letter and Title Page. Your Cover Letter should be brief: simply explain who you are, include all relevant contact information, and print the letter on your company letterhead. The Title Page should simply introduce your proposal and the specific project you are proposing. Some examples might be “Business Plan for New Panne Bella Italian Bakery,” “Proposed Expansion of Grayle’s Hardware Store,” or “Funding Proposal for New Downtown Art School.”

After the introduction section comes the section where you talk about your clients or customers: the people who want or need your goods or services. Here you will include topics that demonstrate your understanding of the business market. Depending on the complexity of the project you are proposing, you may or may not need to start off with a detailed summary (called an Executive Summary or a Client Summary). In this section, describe the market need that you intend to fill, and provide statistics and data to back up your assertions. You need to impress the proposal readers with your market knowledge. This is not yet the place where you talk about your goods or services. This section is all about proving a need or desire for your business.

After the market-centered section comes the section where you explain how your goods or services will provide solutions to the needs you described. You’ll add pages with titles like Products, Services Provided, Benefits, Price List, Services Cost Summary and so forth—include all the topics you need to describe exactly what you intend to provide and how much it will cost. Depending on the sort of business you are requesting funding for, you may also need to include descriptions of Facilities, Equipment, and Personnel that you need for your proposed project.

At each step in this section, you will need to describe expected expenditures and returns. Depending on whether you are requesting funding for an existing business or asking for money to launch a new enterprise, you will need to prove your case by including pages with titles like Funding Request, Income Projection, Breakeven Analysis, Project Budget, Annual Budget, Cost Management, Cash Flow Analysis, and Return on Investment. Also make sure to include a Repayment Plan to show the bank or investor how they will be paid back and potentially profit from funding your business.

After you’ve described what you are proposing to do and how much it will cost comes the final section, where you provide information about your company and your financial history. If you’re already running a business, you’ll need to provide a financial overview of that business, including pages such as a Profit and Loss Statement. Your goal is to conclude your proposal by convincing the prospective client that you can be trusted to deliver the goods or services you have described, succeed in your business, and pay back the funding. In this section, you’ll add pages like About Us / Company History, Awards, Testimonials, References, Qualifications, Capabilities, Our Clients, Experience, and so on. Include everything you need to convince the bank or funding committee that you know what you’re talking about and can do what you’ve promised.

After the proposal is written, take some time to make sure the pages look good, too. You might consider adding color and graphics by incorporating your company logo, selecting custom bullet points and fonts, or adding colored page borders. Don’t go overboard, though—keep the overall tone business-like.

Be sure to carefully proofread and spell-check all the pages. If your proposal seems sloppy, the reader may conclude that you are not professional and don’t pay attention to details. Recruit a proofreader who is not familiar with your proposal to do the final proof, because it’s nearly impossible to spot errors in your own work. Keep in mind that spell check cannot catch words that are correctly spelled but misused.

Save your proposal as a PDF file or print it, and then deliver it. If the bank or funding committee has specific rules, obey them to the letter. It’s common to email PDF files nowadays, but a hand-delivered printed proposal may impress the money-lenders more. If you have a lot of competition for limited funds in your area, put your best effort into the proposal and delivery.

You can see that each business plan funding proposal will include different pages because each must describe the market need, how the proposed project will meet that need, and why the management is credible and can be trusted with the funding.

But you can also see that all business plan funding proposals follow a similar format and structure. And remember that you don’t need to start from scratch—you can find templates for all the pages mentioned in this article in a proposal kit. A kit of templates will contain instructions and provide examples of information to include on each page. A proposal kit will also contain a variety of sample funding requests. Starting off with a proposal template kit with sample business plan proposals will give you a big head start on creating your own winning business funding proposal.

No Worries With a Free Online Business Plan

Online businesses have now become the alternative way to put up a dream business. Besides the fact that you can have a wide array of market, it may perhaps be cheaper than putting up an offline store. An online business can be very rewarding to those who are willing. However, not all have a preference for it. An online business can be most liberating most especially for a person who has a vision, but vision and good ideas alone does not sum up to a successful online business. Like any other business, the planning needs to be impeccable. So before you start, plan well. There are many free online business plan templates which you can use to start with.

What exactly is the importance of a business plan? A great businessman or entrepreneur does not only rely on intuition or that gut feeling that his offered product or service will hit the market right away. It is not always the case. Having a business alone is a risk, to be plan-less is taking the risk further. An online business needs discipline, intelligence and focus. Do you know why a to-do-list works before going on daily routines? That to-do-list is not an indication of obsessive-compulsiveness but a strategy to help you prioritize and focus by following an outline of what things should be done at the end of the day. Same goes with a business structure. A well thought out plan should provide and help you ways to implement your vision in the real consumer life.

If you are an avid internet browser, you can get so many free online plans for business and tips. It is designed to help you explain further the idea or vision you have for your business venture. The best thing you can get out of it is that planning facilities helps you to look at all corners like the best and the worst, the right way versus the wrong way, the pros and cons of doing one thing than the other. Moreover, part of creating one is researching your market, the behavior of your market, how to penetrate the appropriate market for your product, and lastly the strategy on how you will market and make that sale, in short a feasibility study. This is a business plan in a nutshell. Creating one can be a daunting task but in the end it is you who will benefit from all this.

Some people go on with their online business doing without a business plan afterwards getting baffled why their business is not taking off or worse, causing more expense than profit. This is not a smart move. With the variety of free online business plan information in the internet, there should be no excuse as being unable to make one. The quality of your business plan will also help you project your expenses and how much profit you will make out of all your efforts. Thus, before creating your website and begin selling, think and plan.

Stimulus Plan – Bailouts and Your Business

(Note: This article has nothing to do with politics – it is about Your Business.)

Politicians are working on the Economic Bailout and on spending, when it’s all over, about $3.5 Trillion on it. Yes, that’s $3,500,000,000,000.00. They’ve already allocated $700 Billion and just added another $800 Billion to it. Then, later on, will come the housing bailout – probably a similar amount. Then they’ll find some other places to put even more money. Don’t expect to have it finally end in 2010 at less than $3.5 Trillion.

Add to that amount the fact that not all of the monies will be spent on economic stimulating projects. Oh, no. Give politicians a license to spend money without fear of reprisal and they will not, can not, control themselves. They will find many projects in their jurisdictions that can be a benefit to their political interests (read, get re-elected) – and they will fund those projects. Some of those projects will be beneficial to society and America as a whole, but most will not. They will, however, all benefit the politicians and their pals.

I’m not complaining. Just stating what has happened in the past and is continuing to happen right now. We cannot create a new class of citizens – the “Professional Politician” class – and expect them to act in someone else’s best interest. We all act in our best interest and so do they. So, I’m not complaining.

And, I’m not in favor of any one politician or political party over any other politician or political party. They are all “Politicians” and I dis-like and dis-trust all of them – not any particular one of them but all of them as a whole.

Additionally, “we” have allowed this problem to get so big that – unfortunately – the government has to step in – because they can print new money that appears to be needed to dig us out. I am NOT in favor of big government or big spending by the government, but we cannot let the situation get much worse.

I know, there are a lot of folks who say that we should just let the marketplace correct itself. I would normally be in favor of that – in fact, I would normally profess that to any and all who would listen! But the circumstances right now require a change in attitude and a change in action – as much as I dislike it and even though it is going to cost us and our kids and grandkids for the next 50+ years.

The most recent Politicians’ plan includes spending over $800,000,000,000! President Obama has stated that he wants to create 4,000,000 jobs. If we assume that the entire $800,000,000,000 would be used for projects that would create new jobs (like it’s supposed to do and like the Politicians are professing that it does) – that would mean it is costing you and me, and our kids and grandkids, $200,000 for EACH of the 4 million new jobs.

According to the TV news, the average wage earner in America makes $26,000 per year. Add the payroll taxes and benefits to that amount and the average cost to a business for each employee is about $35,000.

To create 4 million jobs at $35,000 each would cost $140,000,000,000 per year. “Just” $140 Billion. That means that the $800 Billion in new spending could pay for those 4 million jobs for 3 years AND leave $380 Billion for the politicians to find other “needed” places for. That’s a No B.S. Plan. Not perfect, but it would alter the economy immediately.

That would put the economy back on track! The newly created jobs would include benefits (so universal health care would becomes less urgent and give time to create a slightly better program) and payroll taxes (so the government would then have a whole lot more operating capital).

Now, as to what these new 4,000,000 employees would be doing, how about having them work for you and me – work in our businesses. Could your business grow and thrive if you had one new employee whose salary, benefits and taxes were paid for by the “government”? Could your business produce more, sell more, perform more services with another employee? I know mine could! Would you then be more profitable. Would you not have to layoff anyone else. Would these 4,000,000 additional consumers be purchasing your products or services?

However, not all of these 4,000,000 new employees would be working for small and mid-sized businesses though. Nope. Some of them would have to work for the government to screen applicants, categorize and classify them as to what jobs they could actually perform, train or re-train unskilled or under-skilled applicants and get them ready for us to hire. More of them would be needed to work for the government to screen employers as to #1) what they actually needed in their one new employee, and #2) would that new job really produce a benefit to society – after all it’s “government” money, isn’t it?

This plan could actually be something that Politicians could work with and pass into legislation. Why? Simply because it would give every single one of them the ability, the right, the responsibility to create brand new jobs in their districts. Yes, this would meet their need to propagate more Patronage jobs.

The government would win.

The Politicians would win.

The qualified unemployed citizen would win. (Oops, what about the illegal or undocumented aliens – another place for the Politicians to “win”.)

The small businesses and their owners and other staff members would win – businesses could now stay in business, do more business, make more profits and not have to lay off any more employees.

The banks would win – no more (or, at least, a lot fewer) foreclosures.

The retailers would win – folks would have money to buy things with.

The investors would win – discretionary income (from both the new jobs and from the profits made by the businesses where they spend their paychecks) has to be placed somewhere.

Homeowners would win – with paychecks coming in they could then make their house payments.

America could be back “UP” and growing again.

OR, we could just get in line behind the current plans and the current mentality and let all of our Politicians lead us down the road to __________________. (You fill in the blank.) Maybe, just maybe, we ought to contact our own elected officials, the Politicians who are representing us (at least that’s what we elected them for – to represent US) and let them know we are watching them.

Our new President is sitting in a place where he has the opportunity to become the greatest president in our history. He is facing seemingly insurmountable problems and threats. My desire is for him to succeed beyond anybody’s imagination. (Maybe even save us from our elected officials?????????)

My hat is off to him. He recognizes that the “old stuff” isn’t working and doesn’t work. He recognizes the need to change some things that just plain need to be changed. And, he is Doing something about them. I applaud him. I applaud his efforts. I am encouraged by his intelligence and his “street-smarts”. Since I have always been prone to trying new things, I really appreciate his doing the same.

Let’s get back to Your Business and my business. The government is NOT going to bail you out. Or me either. We have to do it ourselves.

How? What steps are needed to help us survive and thrive in the 2009 economy?

It seems to me that the first thing that we need is a slightly different – and for some of us a radically different – approach to getting new customers, keeping the one we already have and getting more sales volume from all our customers, both new and old.

We need to follow the example of President Obama and embrace some new ideas and methods.

For example, we need to change our marketing. Placing an ad in the newspaper will not produce any better results today than it did a year ago. Expecting people to walk in or call in just because we have a business won’t work either. Buyers are more sophisticated today that they were just a few month ago. Plus they are scared. So we need to ATTRACT them – like a magnet.

We need a NO B.S. customer attraction PLAN.

We need a No B.S. customer attraction SYSTEM.

We also need better – much better customer service. We need better qualified and/or better trained employees.

We, as business owners, need to step up to the plate, too. We need to do a whole lot better job running our businesses. We need more “How-To” education that really works today. We need to learn what is working today – in our industry and in other industries – so we can incorporate winning techniques into our businesses. That is our Economic Bailout Program!

One way to do that is to contact the local Glazer-Kennedy Insider’s Circle Chapter Director or another local business and marketing coach/consultant. Talk to him/her. See how they can help you. Multiplied tens of thousands of business owners in North America have joined their teaching and mastermind groups and are already growing their businesses, attracting more customers and making more money – right now, even in this economy. You can, too.

The Sky Is NOT Falling. It’s only slipping. But your sky doesn’t even have to slip. It’s your choice.

A Strategic Business Plan, Does Your Company Have One?

Did you know, 9 out of 10 Small Businesses fail within the first year? Unfortunately, companies are not successful by accident. Every company must have systems in place, thus yielding them the most profits, creating a happy staff and customers, and optimizing their status. At the heart of any true company should be a Business Plan.

What plan am I referring to? It’s a plan that every small business owner should take the time to establish. This plan will provide the “what and how” the company is doing at any point in time? It is called a Strategic Business Plan covering your total company operations.

It should be a “written” plan. It would include defining your business mission, goals, objectives, and what strategies you plan to use on achieving your mission, goals & objectives. It would also cover the tactics (systems) of how you’ll conduct your business covering a period of 12 months and less (short-term) and a period of three to five years (long-term). Whether it is a short-term strategic plan or a long term strategic plan it is truly your business road map.

The Strategic Planning process involves the creation of the company Mission Statement, a SWOT (an acronym for its four sub-parts: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) or situational analysis, development of company objectives, which will determine the specific strategies, which are developed by action plans and systems (Money Management: accounting or record keeping, Budget System, Marketing System, Product Development System, Cash Flow Management System, and Customer Service System.

Usually the Strategic Business Plan is followed up with the establishment of an strong money management system (which relates to the accounting, bookkeeping) and also a strong budget system. These are essential to improving the bottom line and complying with government requirements such as taxes.

A great resource for establishing a detailed business plan for all web-based businesses is the Web Business Planner. It’s a wizard based software (fill in answers to specific questions) that will help you to develop and establish in numbers the various systems listed above, plus forecast projections based upon your Strategic Business Plan’s mission, goals, objectives and strategies for each specific product or product line. It is especially recommended for all digital product sellers (your own products or selling affiliate products).

Have you created this essential Strategic Business Plan for your business? It is imperative that you develop a business plan so you can have a concrete tool to organize your business. If you don’t document (write it down) your plan, then you may suffer miss-communication regarding goals, strategies, tactics, and objectives. You could miss out on future business and lose time and money.

Take the time to tackle this important business system and you will set your company up for a successful journey. The Companies that rise to the top and reap the rewards are those that have a Plan in place. Follow their lead and create your plan today.

To Your Success In All That You Do and Dream Of….