AC Interpreting

Archive for the ‘Business Plan’ Category

First – stop thinking like a business owner. I know, you might think this is odd. However, the reason most business owners don’t write a business plan is because they are too close to their challenges and can’t decide what they need to do. Stepping out of character will help you see the big picture and the little details so you can focus on what to do.

Since this was written during championship football season, I want you to assume the role of a winning college or professional sports coach. It doesn’t matter if you are a woman or a man for this job. The goal will be the same. You will want to prepare your team to win the championship game by as many points as possible. If you have trouble with football, pick any team sport and the concept will work. The idea is to get into the character of a winning coach to help you create a plan.

Think like 60 Minutes is all You Have

A football game is divided up like a business year. There are four quarters and two minute warnings you must plan for. You will need plays and actions for kicking things off, receiving special team opportunities and think offense and defense to win.

Understand You and Your Opponent

Winning coaches invest time to research opponents and you need to determine both your strengths and weaknesses. If you don’t take time for this, you will get clobbered by the other teams. Use this research and analysis to formulate your complete game strategies and special plays.

Plan For Special Plays

Every team will need specials plays to kick off, receive, punt, and defend the red zone and two minute warning. These are special opportunities you have in the year from new equipment, vendor specials, trade shows or open houses you can plan for.

The Offensive Game Plays

You will need a list of offensive running and passing plays to execute during the game. These are easy to think about and you must plan for them.

Action plans to start a new business relationship and move forward. Actions to build a stronger customer base. Actions to generate referrals for new clients from existing ones. Open house and networking actions you will execute for new business.
The Defensive Plays

You will need a list of defensive plays that protect your accounts and seize opportunities. These could include a blitz or a pass rush that capitalizes on an opportunity.

Action plans that develop satisfied clients and builds strong relationships. Surveys that will help determine if you have new opportunities or lost business. Monitor and track competitive actions that may impact your current business. If you can, have contingency plans for injuries, bad calls and penalties in the game.

I hope you see the advantage of planning from a different perspective to make your sales plan fun and much easier to write. Your business plan doesn’t have to be 20 pages long. You need a single sheet that covers the actions you will take to win the game in your business. When you finish writing your business plan, it should be on a 12 month calendar with goals and objectives for each quarter.

A complete game plan makes it easier to adjust actions during the game and in your case, the business year so you can motivate your team throughout the year. If you need help with your plan, I suggest you take time to watch a championship game. Think of it as research. You will be done with your sales plan sooner than you think and it will be fun.

There are many excellent businesses which can provide a very good living for smart business owners and entrepreneurs, but given the right location a hotel business can be one of the best.

Before swinging the doors of the hotel open, however, it is important to sit down and work out a solid and professional hotel business plan.

Using Your Hotel Business To Provide A Guideline For Success

Having such a hotel business plan in place can provide an important guideline for the success of the business, as well as providing much needed information to potential lenders, investors and business partners.

In fact, the hotel business plan is one of the first documents many of these would be investors will want to see.

Savvy investors will want to carefully review the information contained in the hotel business plan and use it to make an informed decision about the prospects of the business.

Elements To Include In Your Business Plan

There are a number of elements any well written hotel business plan must contain, including the name of the business, the location of the new business, how many employees the business plans to hire and the timeline for building, stocking and opening the business.

Detailing What Is Going On In Your Local Market

In addition there are a number of elements that will be unique to the hotel business plan, including information on local attractions that draw visitors to a particular area.

In order for a hotel business to succeed, it is important that the area in which it operates be growing and thriving, and that there be sufficient business and leisure travel to justify the addition of more hotel rooms.

Thus it is important that the hotel business plan contain information on the number of existing hotels in the area, including as much information on vacancy rates as possible.

It is important as well for the hotel business plan to include information on what will make the new property different, and how it will successfully compete in a crowded marketplace.

Listing Your Plan To Attract And Keep Good Employees

It is also important for the hotel business plan to include information on how the owners of the business plan to attract and retain qualified hotel staff.

The turnover rates for maids, housekeepers and front desk personnel at hotels is notoriously high, and potential investors will want to see that the business owner has considered this problem and thoroughly addressed it.

It is important for the hotel business plan to include at least a few paragraphs relating to the attraction and retention of qualified hotel staff members.

Some people who are launching a business question the value of writing a business plan. Entrepreneurs tend to be action oriented, so it’s not surprising that many feel that the time spent writing a plan is time that could be spent in more tangibly beneficial activities like marketing or product development.

Writing a business plan causes you to think strategically about all angles of your business. Business is competitive, and it’s wise to take every advantage possible to grow your business. Here’s how you can benefit from writing a great plan:

1. Writing a plan for your business may give you confidence and help you to fully commit to pursuing your business.

Once you have it all on paper, you’ll have a clearer picture of the steps you will take to achieve you goals. That feeling can provide powerful motivation through the challenges of building your business.

2. A business plan is necessary if you are seeking funding from outside sources.

If you intend to approach anyone for funding for your business, they will likely ask to see your plan; it sells your potential backers on the idea that your business has the potential to make a reasonable profit.

3. The in-depth research and planning required to write a plan can help you to discover valuable information about your business and industry.

You may find the business is not quite what you had expected and change your focus, or you may find great opportunities that you would otherwise not have discovered.

4. A business plan provides you with valuable information.

Writing your plan forces you to think through your business in great detail. It helps you to understand issues that may not be apparent at a first glance.

You will most likely spend your own time and money backing your business. Why would your standards of proof that your business is viable be any different than the standards required by outside backers? That is, it’s wise to require yourself to do a detailed analysis of the feasibility of your business before you commit substantial time and money into its development.

5. Writing a detailed plan for your business forces you to assess your competitors.

You will see their strengths and weaknesses, assess where you fit in the market and determine how you will compete with others in your industry.

6. Writing a good plan requires you to put your goals in writing.

You’ll be able to refer to it regularly to see where you are heading, what you have achieved, what targets you missed and areas that have room for improvement. It gives you a reference point for targeting goals and assessing achievement and can be a very useful tool to help you to stay on track.

7. A business plan allows you to identify potential problems and deal with them proactively.

You can avoid being surprised by issues that you can foresee with a little bit of smart planning.

Sometimes you need to slow down in order to speed up. The time you invest to write a good business plan is time spent analyzing your industry, determining required resources, assessing your competition, establishing the focus and goals of your business and developing strategies for meeting those goals. You’ll be developing a road map that can guide you in making well informed business decisions.

Looking for a car wash business plan geared towards success? Check out the key points discussed below.

Every plan must detail the services offered and study the market dynamics to formulate a distinctive business strategy. Generally a car wash business plan covers three services: exterior car washing, interior cleaning, and detailing. Most of the businesses in this industry try to compete on the price factor. So beat them by offering high quality service at a reasonable rate. This entails not only hiring the best employees but also, keeping them happy to maintain an impeccable customer service. Because this industry is considered a seasonal business it is imperative to employ additional temporary and part-time help over the weekends and busy summer months.

A clever business strategy would be to target customers who will come back as repeat users and those that use the facility frequently in the typical lean times (weekdays and winter months).

The car wash business plan must include an in-depth competitor analysis since this business is rife with small competitors. Everyone, from the local children looking for some extra cash, to rival concerns, and the automatic car wash machines pose potential threats to the success of your business. Therefore, you must target the quality-conscious individuals who value their car enough to be willing to pay the price for a good wash.

The sales and marketing for this plan will be on a one-to-one basis. Advertising costs will be more or less zero and you will rely heavily on the word-of-mouth advertising in the immediate community.

One of the key drivers for success will be the creation of a system that ensures fast and efficient service. This will guarantee that the costs stay at a minimum, in relation to the amount of time spent on each vehicle.

Overall, the mission of the car wash business plan is to be known as the premier car wash service for luxury car owners.

Ideas can start anywhere. This can happen when a person is driving or when one is just sitting down and noticing something that nobody has thought of. Given that opportunities don’t happen very often and being the first counts, the individual can begin to put it on paper and work on the details.

If the person wants to start up a business but does not have enough money to make it happen, then that individual should look out for investors. In order for these people to be interested in this dream, a business plan must be drawn up before it can go any further.

Investors read a lot of business plans monthly and since it is hard to decide on which to accept, one should make sure that the document stands out by making it simple and brief for these people to understand.

It must have something concrete that will show how successful it can be compared to other proposals. This must have projections and figures that people can read. It must have a model explaining in detail how revenue will soon pour in.

Another thing that must be present in the business plan is the marketing aspect of the project. How will this reach the market? What steps will be taken should it not work out in the beginning? Will distributors be able to sell it? Who will benefit from this product? What is the gender and age group will this cater to?

It should also have a sales plan. It should explain how this product will be distributed. Will it be done directly or through another source? How much will it cost to make such a product? What is the manpower needed to make the operation work?

Should the person have a variety of products in store for the business, one can already determine and claim that a certain product will be the core line of the venture. This will be the key that will lead the growth in sales.

Since it all boils down to money, the document must show how much is needed for this to work in the first year of operation. It is best to show these in phases so the investors can see at point how the business is dong and where the money for this project be used. Most importantly, how long before the investment will pay off.

Investors may not have the time to read one’s business plan even if this has been mailed weeks before the scheduled presentation. To overcome this, one should put it in slides so that a visual presentation similar to the one on paper can be viewed by these people. The summary of the business plan should state clearly what the person wants to happen.

Simplicity is the best way for people to understand the business plan. By putting down important details that these expect to find, there is no doubt that investors will want to put out money and make the person’s dream a reality.

One should remember that some of the most successful businesses today started with humble beginnings. Some started out with practically nothing but through patience and hard work, the sacrifices have paid off.

If the individual has a dream, one should make it happen. If the person doesn’t, perhaps in time someone else will.

If you have a great idea for a profitable business, it can seem tempting to just jump right in and begin earning money. However, this is generally not the way to go. In addition to creativity and perseverance, becoming a successful entrepreneur requires patience. There are many small but highly important details that you will need to arrange before you even open for your first day of operations.

Before you make much progress, you will need to develop a solid and detailed plan for your future endeavor. This is an important step whether you will be financing your own project or looking for investors. The idea that a plan is primarily useful for impressing potential supporters is a false one; knowing where you are going and how you will handle potential problems is a vital step of any kind of risky and expensive undertaking.

The Contents

A well written plan will cover many different kinds of information, including:

The product or service you will be providing, how it will operate and/or be manufactured, who your target demographic will be, and your preliminary market research All of your sources of financing, including loans, private funds, and investors Your proposed business structure – what kind of company it will be (corporation, sole proprietorship, limited liability, etc), who will manage it, how many employees you will begin with, how major decisions will be made, etc Your projected three-year earnings and expenses, including the supporting evidence and mathematics you performed to reach this conclusion A list of your anticipated expenses – employees, building materials, office rent, any fees or permits you will need, etc Any official documents related to your endeavor, including zoning permits, building leases or purchase agreements, contracts with suppliers, any patents or trademarks you will be using, tax-related documents, etc Any potential problems you may encounter within your first few years, and how you plan to handle these challenges Your ideas for marketing the product – how and where it will be advertised, etc As you can see, putting this kind of file together is not easy. However, the rewards are definitely worth the benefits of having such a clear-cut and understandable strategy worked out ahead of time. If you encounter any disputes with partners or within the company, come across certain roadblocks, need to reassure investors, or simply have questions about your current and future success, this is the document to which you will turn.

For more information about business law, contact Iowa business attorneys LaMarca & Landry.