How Do I Build A Winning Business Plan? Part 1
"How Do I Build a Winning Business Plan?" Part 1
There are countless ways to plan an entreprenurial business, some with more success than others. With the help of our friends at The Millionaires Academy and Entrepreneurship, we put together this helpful guide with tips for building a winning business plan. There is no one way to do it, but these six steps should be your first step in designing a winning business strategy and turning that strategy into reality!
1. Define the purpose of your company
2. Identify what resources you need
3. Brainstorm potential products
4. Develop a bespoke marketing plan
5. Analyze your competitors
6. Prepare a financial model
When you have created the perfect business plan, it's time to put your feet in the real world. The ground will be far more difficult and every step of the way will require an action plan! The purpose of this article is to provide a framework for managing and scaling your company so you can focus on running your business without having to think about financials every day!
How To Ensure Your Company Is Scaling Well?
It's important that you have a clear idea of how you're going to scale and manage your business over the long term. This includes identifying key metrics that you need to monitor regularly (like sales, income, profit etc.); key milestones (for example, when do you expect to have a product launched?) and hiring the right people - from employees to interns.
What Are The Key Metrics That We Should Be Monitoring?
First and foremost, it's important that you maintain a close eye on the financials of your business. This will involve closely monitoring revenue, costs, profits and expenses on a regular basis. There will be ups and downs - this is normal! It's important that you develop a sense of what normal looks like for your business.
Another metric to monitor closely would be how many customers are using your product(s) or service(s). This is important simply because it helps you gauge the future potential for your company. A key indicator of this would be the number of repeat customers - these are people that come back to your business time and time again.
Be warned though: a steady stream of loyal customers is not necessarily a sign that things are going well with your company! The key here is to carefully monitor these figures because they will help you create an action plan for scaling up.
What Quarters Should We Be Using Indicators?
When you're planning out how (and when!) to scale your business, it's important that you develop quarterly KPIs, or Key Performance Indicators. These indicators will help you define what success looks like for your organization. For example, if you're selling a product or service, you may decide that it's important to monitor the number of sales each month.
How Do We Handle Those Important Milestones?
When you're scaling your company, milestones are key! They're essential because they help to keep everything running smoothly and help define a clear path for what your company is doing/succeeding at.
For example, if you've decided to launch a product by a certain date (like December 31st), it's important that you set this as an objective for yourself. And then proceed to create an action plan for achieving each step of the way! This can include marketing and promotion plans that will help you achieve this goal.
Another important milestone is the development of your first prototype. This will be essential for testing out whether or not the product or service is actually fit for purpose, and will also help identify where you can invest further development time.
How Are We Hiring?
When scaling your company, it's important to consider a number of different aspects when hiring staff. For example, if you're running an eCommerce store, it's possible that you may need two separate staff: one who is responsible for collecting and processing payments from customers and another who's responsible for creating unique product designs each week.
As you're planning your business strategy, you should decide who needs to be hired for your team. And it's important that this process is carefully monitored so that you can stay on track of the number of hires that are made.
How Can We Identify Our Key Competitors?
Key competitors will help you define what success looks like for your company. It's essential that you take some time to analyze the key elements of your business plan and create a SWOT analysis. This can also help identify possible new markets for your products or services!
How Should We Spend Our Resources?
One thing is certain; there are countless ways to run a business. Some may end up with a high level of success and others may end up failing. It's important to carefully evaluate the resources that are required for running a successful business. Consider your budget - exactly where does it say you should be spending your money? For example, if you're considering hiring an intern, it might make sense to hire one in lieu of getting a new staff member as they can work on one task at a time.
This is important because many businesses struggle to find the right people for their team. Sometimes it's better to make a difficult decision about who to keep and who to let go. It's important that you make the right decision for your business because hiring the wrong person can set you back (sometimes, for years).
When Under Financial Pressure, What Should We Do?
When you're running a growing business, it's more than likely that you'll feel under pressure by banks, investors and potential customers. For example, customers may demand lower prices or investors may demand a higher return on their investment.
When under pressure, it's important that you take some time to carefully evaluate your options (while keeping the long-term goal in mind). For example, if you're unable to pay the rent because your sales have dropped, it might be time to look at other sources of income - like getting an additional job or looking for investors that are willing to wait for their return.
What Should We Be Doing To Attract New Customers?
You need to be planning long-term growth strategies for your company! One way of doing this would be by creating a simple customer acquisition strategy.
Conclusion
By following this guide, you'll be able to easily scale your business to a level that will allow you to reach your goals, and map out the best course of action for your company.
How Should We Budget Our Resources?
Many organizations struggle with the issue of how they should spend their revenue. This is because the answer differs from one company to another. For example, if you work for a business that involves handling customers throughout the day - like a taxi firm or plumber - it makes sense that you would spend money on advertising each day.