SELLING YOU ON YOUR BUSINESS You’ve probably heard it said that a business plan is a selling ... While it is very true that your business plan will be an ... aid to you in selling your bu
SELLING YOU ON YOUR BUSINESS You’ve probably heard it said that a business plan is a selling document. While it is very true that your business plan will be an invaluable aid to you in selling your business to others,
Although the above case study could be considered a worst case scenario, it is fairly representative of the types of problems companies encounter when they have no sales and marketing plan. YOUR BUSINESS PLAN CAN SUBSTANTIALLY REDUCE BUSINESS RISK A business plan that is truly a working document can substantially reduce business risk for your company. Day to day decisions should be run through the filter of your business plan to determine what fits and what doesn’t. Your plan can validate issues that fit within it, and should be altered when necessary to allow for new opportunities that may stretch the parameters of the plan but support your overall goals. The result is that you will make “strategic” decisions rather than pursuing costly whims or suffering under an “idea of the day” mentality. In addition to pro forma financial elements, the business plan foundation is cemented with solid sales and marketing elements to guide you toward more revenues and higher profit. It should identify routes to market for your optimum sweet spot, and show you when to hire key personnel, and who to hire, saving you from costly hiring mistakes. GETTING STARTED: ANALYZE YOUR BUSINESS PLAN TO BECOME MORE COMPETITIVE The first step in becoming more competitive is to perform a complete, objective analysis of your business plan. It will be extremely difficult for you to view your business dispassionately and perform an objective assessment. For this reason, you will probably want to look at contracting with outside professionals to perform your assessment. These industry experts have decades of corporate experience in building successful sales and marketing strategies to help them understand your challenges and how to address them. An outside consultant can provide you with a comprehensive analysis that culminates in a gap analysis and steps to address the holes in your overall business plan. Once you have this assessment and know where the gaps are, you can begin to build a plan that will enable your company to effectively win against any and all competitors, big or small. You can either perform the steps to execute the plan internally, or hire outside expertise to perform those functions that you don’t have the knowledge and experience to perform. This straightforward and easy to implement process will get your company on the fast track to more sales. KEY BUSINESS PLAN ELEMENTS Key elements of your working business plan include the following: · Executive Summary: vision, mission, company objectives, keys to success · Company Overview: focus, current product/service description, future products/services, positioning of products/services, business concept, current situation, key success factors · Organization: stakeholders, board members, employees, strategic advisors · Operations: key personnel, organizational structure, human resources plan, product/service delivery, customer service/support, facilities · Market analysis: the overall market, anticipated changes in the market, market segments, target market and customers, customer characteristics, needs, and buying decisions · Competitive analysis: key competitive capabilities, key competitive weaknesses, competitive evaluation of products/services, industry overview, nature of the competition, changes in the industry, primary competitors, competitive products/services, opportunities, threats and risks · Sales and Marketing Plan: go to market strategy, competitive overview, sales tactics, marketing plan, channel plan, advertising plan, promotions/incentives, publicity, trade shows, partnerships and alliances · Financial Overview: short and long term views of the company’s situation/needs, assumptions and comments, starting balance sheet, profit-and-loss projection, cash flow projection, balance sheet projection, ratios and analyses YOUR BUSINESS PLAN IS A WORK IN PROGRESS If you created a business plan when you started your business but have not taken the time to update it over the months and years, you are not much better off than if you’d never created one. Business plans are meant to be working documents, and will become stale and useless if they aren’t updated. As stated before, a business plan is a selling document. It sells your business and its executives to potential backers of your business, from bankers to investors to partners to employees. Early stage companies need effective business plans to attract investors. All companies need an effective plan to guide the business. Companies that lack effective and updated business plans often suffer from unrealized revenues, lost opportunities, significant competitive losses, reactive hiring decisions, and poor profit and loss financial performance. Rather than being a working document that guides your business, an unrealized business plan can become a nagging item on your strategic “to do” list. Ideally, you should maintain a workable business plan to determine where the company needs to go, warn of possible roadblocks, develop contingencies, and keep the business on track to reach planned goals. LET YOUR BUSINESS PLAN WORK FOR YOU Sales and Marketing Pros can guide you through the process of revising or developing your overall business plan. SMP’s Opportunity Maximizer Workshop performs a full-scale assessment of your business plan, including your sales and marketing infrastructure. The workshop provides you with a gap analysis and steps to close the identified gaps. SMP also offers part or full time Advisory Services from executive level business professionals, sales and marketing experts, business writers, and a full array of document, graphic, and website support; allowing you to just pick up the phone and request help as you need it. SMP is ready to work with you and your team to package your business so that it embraces the future. With creative planning and packaging, you will win the in marketplace, at both the investor and the customer levels. Contact Bob Decker at 952-955-1200 or via email at bdecker@salesandmarketingpros.com for more information.
Attract Investors and Key Employees
How to Attract ... and Key ... YOU MUST PACKAGE YOUR ... have come a long way on your path to ... your business goals and dreams. You had a great idea for a product or serviSuccess Tip : Making Your Business Look BIGGER to Your Customers
IT’S EASIER THAN YOU THINK NOT TO LOOK SMALL! Certain things will make your company look and feel small to ... and ... By avoiding these easy to fix traps, you can go a long way in making