Writing a business plan is the first step to developing a successful and profitable business however once you have it written putting it in a drawer to yellow with age is the last thing you want to do. Your business plan is powerful! It will help guide your every decision and strategy, and your business plan isn’t a commandment set in stone, it’s a plan, which means it changes as your business changes. Your business plan is an ever evolving business tool, and one of your best assets.
Once you’ve created your business plan, it will:
* Guide your decisions based on your company mission and vision
* Help you create marketing strategies to attain your financial and sales goals
* Help you create a budget
* Outline how you’ll track money, incoming and outgoing.
* Provide lenders a financial blueprint for your business
* Gives flow chart of all aspects of your business from marketing to accounting so that all your bases are covered.
* Defines your target market.
* Documents your goals and your plans to attain them.
So knowing your business plan can help you accomplish all this is great but how is a more important question.
How to Use Your Business Plan
Step #1 25% of your time, at a minimum, will be spent planning your business. Your business plan is the foundation for this planning. If it’s comprehensive, it will guide your decisions, outline your goals and help you create strategies to achieve them. So, schedule a planning day each week. If you plan to work 10-12 hours a week then three hours of that time will be planning time, schedule it in and make it happen.
Step #2 When planning make sure to refer to your vision and mission statement to make sure you’re staying on course. If your vision is to become the single biggest online source for chocolate chip cookie recipes then your strategies and decisions should reflect that. If you’re offered an opportunity to partner with a baking website then you’ll need to see if that partnership supports your vision.
Step #3 Use your tracking tools to keep you on target. Your business plan will have a budget in it as well as a financial analysis and cash flow forecast. These are items that you’ll want to maintain and use on a monthly basis so you stay on top of your cash and create optimal cash flow management policies and procedures.  However, tracking tools don’t stop there. You’ll also want to use the tracking tools to analyze traffic to your website and so on.
Step #4 When planning, don’t forget to use your business plan to stay on track with your target audience. You’ve defined it in your plan however, as time goes by and as you track your sales, visits and so on, you may find your target audience changes. Update your business plan to reflect your target audience and make decisions based on that information.
Planning is one of the most important tasks an entrepreneur faces and your business plan is your most effective planning tool. Create a thorough business plan and use it regularly to grow your business.
Thank you for this article. I just wondered if you think that constructing formal business plans might sometimes be an unnecessary distraction from the main core activity? For example, we have just set a boudoir photography company. There are only two of us and we discuss plans and strategies continually in a fluid way. We might update and change them, but we always know that we are essentially working to the same goals and objectives. Do you think there is still merit in formally setting out business plans on paper for such a small company?
Hey! I loved it! I run a small business too, and the biggest problem i see here is that, due to the sudden market changes we have to adjust it. So, is this good or not? Changing something that you worked on and set as solid foundations can’t be that good, i guess…
Thank you on the wonderful article again!
I did my first business plan to suppourt my visa application took me about 200 hours to write. As every figure I put in had to be validated, in case I had to prove my figures to an immigration office
But I learned a lot from doing this plan, how to get your numbers correct, do not just pull the from the sky. we were lucky to get some great information from people who had been in our business and had moved companys, and as we were their customer as well now, the information was free. Another great source was Freedonia