What’s there in a plan?

So there you are! You have come across a great business opportunity and have decided to get started. You are excited, and if possible, you want to start from tomorrow. But wait! You are driving too fast, and may be heading for a crash! 

Without a proper business plan, your ride may be as rough as a runaway roller-coaster, that is heading for a free-fall.
Just as a building project needs a blue print plan; your business also needs a plan…even if it is a small business.

The importance of a well laid out business plan cannot be stressed much, before you really dig into it..

“How do I plan and set targets, if I don’t have the faintest of hint what I am going to get out of it and within what timeframe?”..is what you may ask.

Right you are. But your business, should have a proper groundwork to start with. Drawing up a plan is a must to convert the potential of a business into success..
Remember, in any business nothing will happen overnight but you can be rest assured that the businesses that begins with a plan reach their goals quicker than the others.
A proper plan will even make your potential investors feel comfortable about your Company before they invest.

To define it, a Business Plan is the foundation, or rather a springboard, towards the establishment and growth of a new business. It is also an essential tool for companies who intend to raise capital by floating shares. You need to design and prepare such plan professionally that caters the need of investors.

The best plan is the one that reflects your business through the investor’s eye and answers all the concerns of a potential investor.

Reasons for a business plan

Let me tell you that the reasons for compiling a plan will vary from situation to situation:

·          If it is a new business you need a plan to clearly evaluate every aspect of the business and show how it will succeed.

·          If you are acquiring an existing set up you will need to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the business to determine whether it’s within your capacity to make it a success, and draw your plan accordingly.

·          If you are already into a running venture and need extra finance for its expansion, your plan should be tailor-made for your potential investors.

·          If you are applying for one of the many grants available, get your plan in that way.

Some tips

·         Plan your business in your own style, in a way, that meets your needs as well as of your customers.

·         The entire business plan should have your ideas in the focus.

·         When you compile a business plan it should have a

ü  Cover page,

ü  A list of contents,

ü  Background information,

ü  Descriptions and range of the products, and services being offered, the market plan, the managerial hierarchy, business operations, financial plan, and then…

ü  A well-written conclusion.

Hope, you got the catch…the intention of your business plan should ideally point at the strategies, goals, and resources of your business.

Look before you leap

·      Even a football team is not taken into a game without a “game plan”, though it’s only a game. So when you venture out into something as important to its future existence as an e-business initiative, a clear-cut “game plan” or strategy is very very vital. But, recent surveys show that almost 60 percent of the enterprises doing e-business do not have a clearly articulated and well-documented e-business plan.

·         Here, a business plan need not have to be elaborate, just well thought out. If you remember what the Cheshire cat told Alice in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s in Wonderland, “If you don’t know where you are going, it doesn’t matter which way you go.”

·         Your e-business strategy is your road map to a successful implementation of your project. Just hosting of a site is not enough; it must be strategically positioned in order to make your investment pay off. If you don’t do it right, someone else will… that’s how business goes.

E-Business is a lot more than a web site

·         It’s not very uncommon for companies to mix up their corporate websites as their e-business strategy. The web site should be thought of as an enabling technology and not a business plan in itself.

·         You must have visited the web site of a company that you have always respected, and found it disappointing and your experience there left a lot to be desired. A poorly thought-out web site can quickly turn off customers that have taken years to attract and nurture. So why do so many companies pay so little attention to getting it right? Think it through…it’s all because, a proper plan was lacking, while the website was being developed.

To be there, from here

·         No need to panic, it is time you do your business and think about your possible e-business strategies. If your customers and suppliers are in the development stages of e-business application systems, you cannot be left in the dark when they are themselves looking for compatible customers and suppliers. This is the time you plan, instead of when you are required to take your business elsewhere. By beginning the strategic planning early, you can plan to implement systems in smaller more manageable paths. Smaller & manageable steps also ensure more flexibility & adjustability to newer technologies and ideas.

·         To remain in the race you need to decide upon the ways and means of purchases and sales of your products and services in an online environment. You might as well begin the business planning process right now, before it is an emergency.

·         So, to start out a successful e-business initiative, first make it sure that your project tallies with your long-range business plans and goals… and you have a business to run. 

·         Yes, you can always seek help. But remember, before you hire a wizard to develop a whiz-bang web site, you need the direction, which can be rendered only by a well thought out e-business strategy.

 

“I bet I could have saved on many of the ninety-hour weeks that I’ve invested in over the years, had I been more systematic in managing time!”
…Have you ever heard anyone uttering this? I will be surprised if you haven’t.

Do you feel the need to be more organized? At the end of a tiring, hectic day do you sit and wonder why you haven’t accomplished much?

Any business without an effective and well thought out time management planning is just like around the world in 80 years, flying in a jet!!
Time management skills are especially important for small entrepreneurs who often find themselves performing many different tasks in a single day.

Time Management- A Myth???

No matter how organized we are, there are always only 24 hours in a day, you can’t change that. So, it’s all about managing ourselves and what we do with the time that we have.

To start with:

Get Aggressive about Managing Time!
Time and money are both very important in business. Yet, many business people tend to give a lot more specific thought only about managing their finance and leave time to take care of it. The time management of most entrepreneurs doesn’t go much further to questions like “What am I going to do today?” or “What should I do next?”
But the fact is like finance, proper forecast, control & budget is also necessary when it comes to spending business time

Find out where you’re wasting time.
You could fall prey to time-stealers that eat into the time you could have used much more productively. Find out your time-bandits! Do you spend too much time net surfing, reading email, or making personal calls? Checkout your daily schedule file so that you can form an accurate picture of what you actually do.

Create goals.
Remember, the focus has to be on changing your behaviors, and not time. A good way to start is by getting rid of your personal time-wasters. For one week, for example, set a target of not taking personal calls while you’re working.

Implement a time management plan.
You can take this as an extension of time management tip # 3. The objective is to change your behaviors over time to reach whatever target you’ve set for yourself, it can be increasing your productivity or decreasing your stress. So you need to not only set your specific goals, but also track them over time to see whether you’re accomplishing them.

To keep you cool & collected here are some more leads for you.

Use time management tools.
Let a software program such as Outlook, remind you of events, appointments and meetings in advance, making your time management easier.

Prioritize ruthlessly.
Your day should start with a time management session prioritizing the tasks for that day and setting your performance benchmark. As for instance, if you have 20 tasks for a given day, how many of them do you truly need to accomplish? Jot down your tasks in your personal notebook, cellular phone, digital diary, wherever you may find comfortable. Get everything that you need to concern yourself physically in an email in-box, a notebook you take with you, a little tape recorder, etc. Don’t try and remember everything! So, start the day correctly.

Learn to delegate and/or outsource.
Allow other people to bear some of your load. You are now in an era of outsourcing. Identify the non-core functions of your business bulk those out.

Get in the habit of setting time limits for tasks.
Reading and answering emails can consume your whole day if you let it. Allot a specific time, say of 1:30 hours in a business day to see and answer your mails. Have 2 specific time of the day, one in the morning, one in the evening to check and reply mails. Turn off your mail-alert; that tends to make you open and read mails whenever they arrive.

Be sure your systems are organized.
Is hell of a time being wasted looking for files on your computer? You need to organize your file management system. Is your filing system slowing you down? Redo it, so it’s organized to the point that you can quickly get what you need.

Don’t waste time waiting.
From client meetings to personal appointments, it’s impossible to avoid waiting for someone or something. But you need not have to just sit there and fiddle with your thumbs. Always take just a blank pad of paper that you can use to plan your next marketing drive. Technology makes it easy to work wherever you are, but I found it slaving to be “always connected and wired!. The classic pen & paper are useful for me anyway.

While in a meeting
While you are in a meeting with your members of staff, keep it brief, in no case that should extend an hour, if you really don’t want your staff to yawn over your face. Don’t discuss non-pressing items in a meeting that always pushes off the priorities. Best of all; hold meetings standing, rather than sitting, that way you will all arrive at quick decisions.

Narrow Your Focus!
This is very crucial to avoid distractions… fewer priorities you focus on at once, the more productive you will be. After you have your major time priorities for the year established, you should allocate them by week or by month.

Process
Process tasks systematically. Start from the top of the in-box, pick up each item and ask yourself “is there an action I need to take about this item?” If there is no action you need to take, either throw the thing away, file it for reference, or make a note on your “Someday/Maybe” list. If you feel you can take action in any of the listed tasks in two minutes or less, do it now! If not, decide what that next action is, and enter it on your “Next Action” list.
Now, you have to get out from under the daily grind and find time to grow your business

The Rolling Stones sang, “time is on my side, yes it is.”
If you own and run a small business, this probably isn’t your theme song.