Many business owners think they can just hang their shingle and people will come. More than ever, having a strategic plan is important. Your business plan needs to include a marketing plan, an operations plan, and a financial plan. Each needs to broken down.
Marketing: PR, Advertising, Branding, and Sales.
Operations: Supply Chain (Vendor/Suppliers, as well as Distribution), Work Flow, Management, Administration
Financial: Accounting, Inventory Management, Cash Flow, Forecasting, Business Goals
Do you have a written plan for each of these? Perhaps the best place to start is in reverse order:
Financial Planning: where are you today (Balance Sheet)? where were you last year (Tax documentation and P&L)? where do you want to be in 2010? Most importantly, what needs to happen in order to achieve these goals by year end?
Operations: What systems do you have in place? How can you either outsource or integrate technologies to make you more efficient and productive? What can you do to improve cashflow and distribution?
Marketing: What is the most cost-effective way for you to generate more sales, improve customer retention, increase referral business, and expand distribution of products and services?
Start here:
What do you want?
When do you want it?
What are you willing to do?
What are you willing to sacrifice?
How will you measure, monitor, adjust, and control the outcome?
Start working smarter, rather than harder. Don't blame the economy for poor sales, as many companies are thriving and having record-breaking quarters of growth. Don't stand by and wait for the economy to change...change yourself.
Be better!
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