Three Important Points to Include in Your Business Plan

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Business plans are a prelude to success, and failing to create one is a mistake that too many small businesses make. Not only can a great business plan help you achieve success by driving your efforts in a more calculated manner, but it can also help you gain the funding that you need from either banks or investors. Of course, there are as many business plans as there are individuals, and as such many business plans fail to capture all of the key elements they need to help their business succeed. To help you achieve a good business plan that will help you succeed, ensure you include these three points:

Market Analysis

If you do not conduct any market analysis, you are failing yourself as a start-up. You need to know not only who your competitors are, but who your local competitors are, and more importantly what the local consumers are like. If you open up your business in an area that has very few members of your demographic you are doomed to fail from the start. There are two kinds of market analysis you need to conduct as a result. The first is into the industry itself; who are the main players, what technologies do they use, where can you fit into that market, and so on. The second market you must analyze is your customers. Know who they are and what they want so that you can market to them more effectively.

Ensure Your Practice Adheres to Applicable Laws

Every business is subject to laws and regulations, from how they work to how they manage their data. It is important that you include how your company is not only going to excel, but also how it is going to excel within the parameters of the law. With law firms, for instance, Redbrick Solutions offers consultancy to ensure your firm complies with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) if you work with or within the EU. This, in turn, will allow you to offer more security and assurance to your clients as a result.

To ensure your company does comply with the laws that regulate it, you must first ensure you know what those laws are. Contacting a consultancy law firm or hiring a specialist in your industry can help you know the laws that apply to you and teach you how to adhere to them.

Budget

When it comes to creating a business plan, budget should always make an appearance. Without accurately understanding where the money will be coming from and where it is going, you cannot make any guarantees for the success of your business. You need to do cost analysis and prove to either investors or to yourself that you can survive until you get your first few clients in through the door. Either through savings or through money-saving activities like managing the entire business by yourself until you have enough income or notoriety to hire someone else, you need to know how you will pay for your business.

Never underestimate the power of a good business plan. It can help you circumvent easily avoidable challenges and see your business succeed.

Tips For Making Your Business Strategy A Reality

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Creating a business plan takes a lot of time and hard work. Don’t let your efforts go to waste by failing to come up with an approach for executing on your strategy. It’s an entire process that takes careful monitoring and a willingess to recognize when what you’re doing isn’t working.

As the leader of the company, you have to stay patient and understand the best way to go about making your plan a reality. While it’s a lot of pressure on you, how you handle the implementation process of your strategy will depend on if it’s successful or not. Get excited about it because once you figure out how to elevate your company, you’ll have a lot to celebrate.

Get Input as you Create it

It’s too little too late to ask your other colleagues and leadership team what they think of your business strategy after it’s already done. Get their advice and buy in early, before you try to execute on the plan. You not only want to make sure you’ve covered all of the necessary points, but you want high-level people in your company to have your back and offer their support. They’re going to be instrumental in helping you make your business strategy a reality.

Set Realistic Goals & Include Details

Set achievable goals you know are within reach with extra work on your team’s part. For example, if you want to improve business communications with your customers, then find a unique means of communicating with them. While emails are okay for some businesses, moving into business texting can prove more effective and efficient. Not only do customers nowadays prefer texts over phone calls, but it’s also a quick means of booking appointments, canceling meetings or sending a complaint or positive review. For more information on business texting, contact Text Better.

Select Priorities

Your business strategy is going to be long and in depth. Don’t let that stop you from taking control and understanding what this means for you and your team. There’s going to be a lot of work to get done and not enough resources or time to do it. Be smart and prioritize your goals and projects, so you’re focusing on completing what’s most important first. It’s not a good idea to throw your entire plan at your leadership team and expect it all to get done when it’s not humanly possible. Approach it from an organized standpoint, and explain exactly where you want everyone to be focused initially. Put some of the other objectives on the backburner or save them for next year.

Assign Leaders to Specific Objectives

Your business plan isn’t going to go very far if it’s all on your shoulders. You need people to help you out and take ownership of the goals you’ve documented. Play to people’s strengths and assign the responsibilities based on who’s good at particular tasks. Make sure each goal has a leader matched with it and that they’re aware of what’s expected of them. Delegating the work will free up some of your time and allow your business strategy to take off in the right direction.

Track Progress

Don’t propose your business strategy, assign leaders and then forget about it. You need to have consistent follow up and tracking of progress if you want it to be successful. Have regular meetings with your leadership team, document comments, questions and the current status for each goal. Use your discussions as a time to draw your attention to any red flags or see where you may be excelling and will need another goal to replace the current one. This part of the process is all about open dialogue and holding each person accountable for their role.

Be Open to Changes

Your plan isn’t going to work if all you wrote is set in stone. You have to be willing to flex and open to changes others are proposing along the way. It’s nothing personal; it’s business, and if you don’t want to hear it, you risk the proposed strategy falling apart. Remain levelheaded and remind yourself that when you’re writing the business strategy that it could change in the future. Of course, you’ll want reasons why a particular aspect isn’t working or needs to be changed. Always look for the evidence before you perform corrections or make additions.

Communicate to the Entire Company

Although there may be details only appropriate for your eyes, you should plan on sharing the gist of the business strategy with the entire company. This will help your employees better understand how their efforts contribute to the bigger picture. They won’t be agitated when they receive what feels like a random assignment because they’ll know it has to do with the direction the company’s heading. Hold a meeting to dive into the strategy and answer any questions your staff members have.

Listen & Observe

If you want to experience success and make your vision a reality then you have to always be listening and observing. Hear what other people have to say, use their feedback to improve what you’re already doing and monitor progress closely. Your job is never done; it’s continuous and requires your involvement and leadership on a regular basis. Instead of always doing the talking, sit back and take in what ideas are being tossed at you and if you think you can use them. Read between the lines and pick up on what would have been missed opportunities without your attention to detail.

Believe you can bring your goals to life and you’re halfway there. Focus on the details and executing on what needs to get done first. It’s important to have the support of the other leaders in your company if you want to see your strategy become a reality. Continue to work hard and piggyback off of what goes right so that you can do more of that in the future. Remember that it takes a team effort and solid leader if you want to achieve success.

How to make a business plan and actually stick to it

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Whether you are a long-term small business owner or just starting in a complex market, then there’s no time like the present to start penning your latest business plan. However, writing a plan and sticking to it are two very different elements. No matter the size or nature of your business, it’s always good to get something down on paper to help drive your business decisions and check that you have all bases covered. From generating more sales, to getting those ideas off the ground, read on to find out why you should be making a business plan, and more importantly, how simple it is to stick to it.

Check out the competition

Whether you are opening a coffee shop, a new bookstore or even a consultancy, be sure to undertake a full and in-depth market analysis. Now, this doesn’t have to cost you too much – you can do the groundwork yourself if you know what you are looking for. Café owners will want to scope out competitors’ prices, unique selling points and even range of snacks and goodies on offer. Whereas if you are offering higher-end services or products, then you will want to make sure that your range has a serious wow factor. Be sure to include this step in your business plan to ensure that you are fully aware of how you want to direct the future of your company and roll with it – remember, it’s best to do your homework rather than blindly entering an established market.

Get your finances in order

Drawing up a business plan, no matter the size of your business, and actually sticking to it, is going to require having a solid financial base. Getting your application papers in order and lengthy approval times can spell disaster in today’s fast-paced market. However, times are changing. Companies such as Betterfunds offer a range of loans to meet your business requirements. Not to mention, you could be the happy recipient of some much-needed funding in a matter of hours. Having a solid cash income is key to getting your business plan off the ground – don’t cut any corners.

Marketing and sales

Be sure to include marketing and sales as key priorities for your business plan – after all, generating new leads and acquiring new clients is essential to you, and your business, to succeed. If you haven’t already considered it, then make sure to explore how digital marketing can help propel your company into the future. Social media is increasingly becoming essential to the success of companies worldwide, so don’t get left behind and do go digital. Secondly, you will want to check that your marketing and sales teams are working effectively together – just like two spokes in a wheel, these departments are key to helping you gain and keep new business opportunities. Finally, have another look at your business plan. If you’ve stuck to it – congratulations! You are well on the way to business success.

Green Your Business: A Sustainable Vision or Money-Making Fad?

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To be an environmentally-friendly business seems to be the way to go, lately. They say it’s good for both your company and the planet; by encouraging this kind of vision, you’ll show the market your most holistic and educated side, they say – and the market will thank you for it. It’s true that a lot of good will come from a business that’s going both green and paperless at once.

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It’s healthy for the community, the employees, and your company’s finances at the same time, and seems almost too good to be true.

Beware of coloring your company in this new shade, however, if your heart isn’t in the right place – at the end of the day, the market might end up punishing you for putting on a show. We found the steps to success for your business so that both you and the planet can benefit from it without any backlashes.

Saving money or the environment?

Although you probably nibbled at the thought of becoming more eco-friendly when you heard that it’s great for PR, you need to focus on the right aspects of it. This is particularly relevant when communicating the new green vision to your employees; is it a vision of saving money on energy or is it to create a healthier community for your consumers? Your employees needs something to work towards – a mission if you will, and you need to take the lead in creating the right kind of company culture.

Start by encouraging opinions and ideas on how you can go green together. You’re likely to receive various tips, and these should be taken into consideration so that everyone is included in the new vision. Otherwise, you risk looking like these eco-friendly measures are just for show.

Swap the food in the cafeteria for organic versions, make use of any meatless Monday suggestions and use natural cleaning detergents over potentially harmful types. There is a lot you can do to include the entire company and create a vision where everyone feels included.

Set an example

As the leader, you need to be the one to take the first step. Nobody will give you a smile of approval if you preach eco-friendliness but drive to work every day. The same goes for any other behavior in the office; encourage your team to always shut off their computers at the end of the day, make sure no taps are dripping, and welcome further suggestions on other changes you should make.

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It’s great to be able to make a profit out of being eco-friendly – for those willing to invest a bit in the beginning, it’s also a reality. It’s easy to recognize the once doing it for the PR and those who are in it for the right reasons; just keep an eye out for that sour expression when they need to spend money on something they wanted to profit on.

The truth is that we sometimes need to spend a bit to make a difference. Consider replacing your old electronic appliances for newer models that save energy, have a look at a commercial tint for your office windows, and transfer to a cloud-based system to reduce the number of hard copies you produce.

The great news in all of these changes is that it will save you a lot of money in the long-run. Many of our more harmful habits are tied to overconsumption and a general waste of resources; cut down on these, and the resources will stay put. Read more about ways to maximize your business’ profits at Michael Banks or have a look at this excellent article to cut down on the expenses.

Reach out

Your goal is to make a difference in the community, so reach out to other businesses with the same green mindset – you can do more together, you know. Plus, it sends a clear signal to your community that you’re going green for more reasons than financial ones. Sustainable visions that hope to benefit more than just the company’s wallet tends to encourage innovation; by teaming up with similar companies, you drive the innovation further.

Throw events together and find ways of making business more effective in order to save both time and money.

A robust and honest business vision is able to benefit your entire company for many years to come. It works by unifying your employees, investing in their health and happiness, and ensuring that they have a safe and healthy environment to work in. Jump on board the green wagon because everybody else is doing it, and you risk being punished by both your employees and the market you’re in.

Don’t Forget to Connect Customer Service Week with Strategy

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This week, thousands of organizations around the world are recognizing Customer Service Week. It’s encouraging to see companies across all types of industries make an effort to celebrate their commitment to customer satisfaction. However, many leaders are doing their organizations a disservice by not using Customer Service Week to its fullest potential as a platform for employee engagement that fosters a deeper culture of service.

There’s not a single customer service professional I know who wouldn’t agree that employee engagement is critically important to the service a company ultimately delivers to its customers. As reaffirmed in Gartner’s 2015 report, How to Get Your Customer Service Employees to Care About the Customer, research shows “high levels of employee engagement contribute to higher levels of customer satisfaction.” Yet, Customer Service Week – a time so clearly and publicly dedicated to recognizing customer care – is far too often overlooked as a critical opportunity to strengthen an organization’s relationship with and among its employees. It’s often swept aside as a ‘check-the-box’ activity fulfilled by simply giving staff members branded chotskies. Or it might be five days riddled with a host of activities that have been carefully planned but focus more on the fun than the functional. In many cases, Customer Service Week falls flat on strategy.

As you celebrate Customer Service Week at your organization, ask yourself these three questions to help ensure your initiatives are connected with a larger strategy. Use these considerations as a guide … and you may discover enhancements you can make on the fly to make this important week even more meaningful.

Are your planned activities fun and functional?

Of course, Customer Service Week calls for celebration. But the festivities should go beyond being simply fun and simultaneously serve a purpose that benefits the business. This doesn’t mean you have to cut your creativity short or make what should be lighter, enjoyable activities feel like they’re work. It does, however, require dedicated thought about how to make surface-level initiatives more impactful.

For example, consider a ‘Superhero Showcase’ dress-up day – a nod to the heroic feats customer service representatives are known for pulling off. Beyond building camaraderie by having staff members sport their favorite costumes or t-shirts on a designated day, use the opportunity to have each person share how the traits of their assumed characters relate to providing extraordinary service. This sharing will open up a meaningful discussion about what it means to embody service in its various forms and challenge professionals to think beyond traditional notions of customer service.

Do the activities engage other parts of the company?

The importance of service is hardly limited to the customer service department – and Customer Service Week activities shouldn’t be either. There’s no better time to educate others within the organization about how customer service impacts the business, so use this week (and the weeks that follow) to connect with colleagues in other departments.

One way to do this is by providing employees with a “passport” and including an insert with different missions – such as spending time with peers across the organization – that need to be completed. During those visits, employees can learn about each other’s job functions and how they deliver service to their customers, then report back to their respective teams for broader knowledge sharing. Not only does this exposure enhance employees’ perspectives and further their professional development, it also helps to fortify a consistent company-wide culture of service.

What’s next?

The spotlight on customer service recognition during these five days shouldn’t just be a moment in time. Rather, look at it as a jump-start for longer-term or ongoing initiatives for engaging employees and strengthening the service culture. Use this week as a learning opportunity to determine which approaches and tactics were most successful as well as those that weren’t as well-received … and plan for the future from there.

Did the team have a blast with the superheroes? Keep their enthusiasm going by creating a ‘Superhero Shout-out’ bulletin board in a high-traffic area where they can publicly post and share kudos for their colleagues. Were the passports a hit? That’s your cue to organize more frequent peer-to-peer exchanges among different departments.

Regardless of your approach, keep strategy central to your Customer Service Week celebrations to make them count. For more ideas or to learn more about how you can deliver outstanding care to your customers, visit www.staffcom.com.

About the Author

CJ StaffordCJ Stafford is president of Stafford Communications Group Inc., a boutique company with three distinct, yet complementary, lines of business: outsourced call center services, customer care consulting and marketing services. Stafford works with pharmaceutical, healthcare, food, consumer packaged goods and beauty care companies – ensuring their customer service initiatives are aligned to their marketing programs so they intrinsically support each other.