1. Your Business Plan: Roadmap To Success
Presented by:
Linnea Blair, Advisors On Target
February 1, 2012

2. Did You Plan Your Entry Into Business?
Before starting your business did you:
Do research?
Set out your goals?
Or was it based on:
Back-of-an-envelope calculations?
Without benchmarks or time frames?

3. Why Did You Go Into Business?
Usual reasons are:
Independence - being your own boss
Higher income prospects
A better lifestyle with more free time
The personal satisfaction of taking on a challenge
Building a future for your family

4. Have You Achieved Your Goals?
Is the reality more like:
Working long hours
Stress
Risks
Less family time
No vacations
Full responsibility
Taxes
Bureaucracy
Bad debts
Constant minor emergencies

5. Is Your Business Running You?
Are you working IN the business, or ON it?
Negatives are a constant feature
Your business is out of control
You don’t have time to look at the bigger picture

6. Take Control Through Business Planning
Developing a Business Plan will develop your business management knowledge.
You will become a better manager
You will improve your chances of business success

7. If You Only Walk Long Enough...
Deciding on which way to go (using a strategy) depends on knowing where you want to get to (having goals)
Without a goal there is no plan for getting anywhere – you’re just doing a long walk (maybe in circles)

8. What We’ll Cover Today What’s in a business plan
Why every business needs a business plan
How a business plan allows you to manage
Using the plan to set and achieve business goals
Monitoring progress towards goals
How to prepare a business plan
How to use a business plan

9. What’s In A Business Plan
Typical content (chapters) in a business plan:
Executive Summary
Industry Analysis
Market Analysis
Competitive Analysis
Marketing Plan
Management Plan
Operating Plan
Financial Plan
Appendices And Exhibits

10. Don’t Only Start Ups Need A Business Plan?
A good business plan is your most important management tool
It’s an essential for both start ups AND ongoing businesses

11. Why Every Business Needs A Business Plan
Surviving competition and growing your business, requires that you be a good manager
Managing involves having clear objectives, understanding the market, managing your money properly, as well as producing quality products or services
Developing a business plan gives you the information you need to MANAGE your business

12. How A Business Plan Works
Describes your current situation - where you are now
Describes how you see the business some time in the future - where you want to get to
Describes your strategies for how you are going to get there
Sets specific goals to be reached by particular dates so you can track your progress as you go

13. Business Profile – Where You Are Now
Provides a big picture view of the business
Focuses on how good your business idea is or how saleable a product you actually have

14. Where You Are Now – Reality Check
Being forced to focus on issues provides a reality check for your business

15. Where Do You Want To Get To – Setting Goals
The profile section of the plan includes information on where you want to get to in the form of some specific goals
These goals are really important because they will determine your whole business strategy
Goals need to be based on a good grip on reality

16. How Do You Get There – Strategies
Develop strategies (tactics) to make the goals a reality
This is where some really hard thinking is necessary
May need more than one strategy per goal

17. How Do You Get There - Milestones
A strategy is made up of a number of discrete steps
These steps are called milestones because as you get each one done you have reached another milestone towards implementing the strategy

18. Modeling Strategies
The same objective might be reached in a number of ways
Each way (strategy) will require different inputs and involve different costs
Developing a business plan will bring these issues to light and provide the opportunity to model out the consequences of choosing a particular strategy

19. Strategy - Marketing And Sales
For your business to be successful and profitable you must have a clear understanding of your customers, your product strengths and the competition
The market analysis section of a business plan examines all these things
Knowing them you can develop a detailed explanation of your sales strategy, pricing plan, proposed advertising and promotion activities, and the product or service's benefits that then becomes your marketing plan

20. Strategy - Finances
The Finance section of the plan includes a description of your detailed financial statements, a financial statement analysis and your funding requirements
Also includes projections that set forth the projected timing of revenues and expenses to show whether and how the business will meet its obligations to vendors and others who provide the business with goods or services
Projections can be tied directly to planned operational results

21. Monitoring Progress ‘If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it’
Monitoring means setting up a process to measure the actual outcomes of your actions against the results you had planned on happening
This takes discipline but is an essential ingredient to a successful business planning process

22. Monitoring Milestones
Each of those milestones you decided on should have a timeline attached – a ‘to be completed by’ date
An open ended milestone isn’t worth writing down
Milestones may be scheduled to happen in a sequence or in parallel
By setting dates you can gauge your progress and compare your projections to actual accomplishments
If a date is reached and the milestone isn’t ready then you know it and can revise the plan

23. Monitoring Revenue - Actual vs Planned Results
Set financial goals and budgets and regularly monitor for deviations between actual and planned results
These provide clues that you can use to tweak or fine tune certain elements of the plan
Monitoring Revenue - Actual vs Planned Results
The second thing you need to monitor is the financial results of your activities. These issues can only be picked up if you have set financial goals and budgets and are regularly monitoring for deviations between actual and planned results. It’s these that will provide clues that you can use to tweak or fine tune certain elements of the plan. For example, if sales consistently outperform your projections, you might amend the plan to set more aggressive goals. On the other hand, you might want to take certain steps to take advantage of any additional cash flow, such as retiring debt early or investing in a new piece of equipment.
That's why a good business plan has definite targets associated with a timetable for achievement. It's a lot easier to know how you're doing if you started out with solid expectations about what needs to be achieved by when. Wait until the end of the year and it may be too late to recoup the situation.

24. Managing Business Performance
Stop operating according to the ‘savings jar’ approach
Amount of money left over isn’t a good indicator of business viability
Only tracking how preset milestones are being reached, or not, will alert you to developing opportunities and threats

25. What Else Is A Business Plan Good For
Your business plan is your business’ resume and operates in the same way as a personal resume – it details your qualifications and experience to bolster the confidence of others in your capabilities, or rather those of your business, how well it is doing and what it could be capable of doing
It can come in useful for:
Negotiating supplier arrangements
Arranging finance

26. Preparing A Business Plan
Every business needs a unique plan but the basic elements are the same in all business plans and so is the basic process to create one
That process doesn’t have to be complicated and the plan needn’t be a very big document
Requires commitment to putting in the time and effort necessary to collecting the data that and thinking through your strategies
You must be objective, critical and focused when doing it
The more effort taken to collect data and formulate plans, the more beneficial and effective the business plan will be

27. How To Do It
The basic business planning process involves these basic steps:
Obtain an accurate financial and physical outline of the business that objectively describes the current health of your business
Describe in more detail the strengths and weaknesses of your business
Set out your personal and business goals for both the short and long term
Put in place the ‘to do’ action list which indicates when different activities need to be started and finished
You may need some assistance, like your CPA or business advisor
Provide financial data
Good for putting giving reality check

28. Business Plans Need To Be Used
A business plan is only useful if you use it
Make yours a “living” document

29. Planning Is A Process
Circumstances change so a business plan needs regular review
Typical triggers for review:
Beginning of new financial period
You need financing, or additional financing
You have developed/are thinking of developing a new product/introducing a new service
Significant change in the market (e.g. shifting customer tastes, altered regulations)
Change in the scale of your business (taking on extra team or a partner)

30. Conclusion
While the preparation of a business plan may not guarantee success…without one you are taking a journey with only a vague destination in mind and without a road map on how to get there
A well developed plan that documents the ‘wheres’, ‘hows’ and ‘whys’ of your business will focus and direct your activity in harnessing all the necessary resources to achieve success

31. Your Business Plan – Roadmap to Success Webinar Series
4 Wednesdays in Feb-March - 4 In-Depth Classes on Creating a Business Plan for your business!
Feb 22 – Your Business Plan: Your Business Model
Feb 29 – Your Business Plan: Your Financial Plan
Mar 7 – Your Business Plan: Your Marketplace
Mar 14 – Your Business Plan: Executive Summary – plus Q&A Session
Sign up today: advisorsontarget.com/events/business-plan-classes
Investment is just $147 for all 4 sessions if you sign up by Feb 15th. ($197 after) All classes are recorded so you can view and listen later

32. Connect with me online
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33. Contact me for more information about growing a sustainable business!
Advisors On Target
Business Coaching & Marketing Consulting
Linnea Blair
Office:
Web: AdvisorsOnTarget.com
Twitter: AdvisorOnTarget
Facebook: facebook.com/AdvisorsOnTarget
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/linneablair