Best Guidelines for Business Plan. The very first step to having a business is writing a good business plan. No matter the kind of business you have in mind, these are the following strategies that will guide you in knowing how to write a good business plan. Lets begin!
Opening a Business. How to get started.
These are all the components that are required in an exclusive business plan. A good business plan should not be so long. it should carry about 6 pages maximum. The most important thing is the content it provides. We have carefully aligned the guidelines for business plan in point form below. Do not skip any point as the 2nd is as important as the 1st
Opening a Business. How to get started.
1. Feasibility Studies:
A feasibility study is an analysis that considers all of a project’s relevant factors including economic, technical, legal, and scheduling considerations to ascertain the likelihood of completing the project successfully. Feasibility has to do with the strategic location/position of your business and it incorporates your potential target customers. it’s very imperative to find out how, when, how, who and where to set up your business depending on the type of business and the target consumers or customers. Feasibility studies is very important as it is the very first step to setting up a successful business. Therefore, it should not be underestimated.
2. Choose a Niche and Narrow it down
- Google can afford to be in the business of just about everything but you, as a newly self-employed person, won’t have that kind of global reach (at least, not at first!). That’s why it’s important to pick a specific niche.
- Consider these questions: What will your area of focus be? What will your product or service solve? What kind of knowledge and experience do you already have that you could parlay into a business?
- Once you have the answer, narrow it down even more: get as specific as possible about what you plan to do. Rather than limiting your options, being specific gives you more options because you can focus on addressing one slice of the market vey, very well rather than spreading yourself thin trying to do it all. And the more specific you can get about your niche, the better off you’ll be as you identify your target market and build out your advertising and marketing.
3. Set your goals so you have a blueprint for success (Mission & Vision)
You’re about to pour considerable effort into being self-employed, so how will you measure whether the time you’re putting in is actually paying off? Ask yourself what you are going to do (mission) and how you intend to achieve it and the impact it will create to the beneficiaries (vision). How will you know whether to keep going, and whether to pivot in a new direction or to call it quits?
Here’s the thing about being self-employed: you not only have to offer a marketable product or service, but attract those first customers (who aren’t your family and friends), explain what you do in a coherent and compelling way, market it all effectively, and transform all your time, effort, and energy into an income. Becoming self-employed and then just “seeing how it goes” is not a plan you can actually work with. Instead, set specific goals and refer to them often. Consider this: how many items/services do you plan to sell in the first year? How will you generate those sales? Which marketing strategies could you try? How will you position your product? What will you do if you don’t sell? All these questions are waiting for you out in the real world. Take the time to consider the answers before you have to face them. Once you figure out the kind of product or service you will be dealing with and how you intend to go about it, then you are good to go.
4. Choose a Suitable Name for your Business
When choosing a name for your business, take into consideration the kind of product or service you are going to be selling out and the name of the business should be able to reflect the business in itself. For example, if you want to open a cosmetics shop, let the designated name of your business be related to cosmetics; Silver cosmetics shop, Bright Cosmetics etc.
Also, the name of your business should be captivating enough to attract the target customers. while being captivating, it should be short, straight to the point and simple to pronounce. Also calve out a satisfying Business Description to ease your customers in quickly knowing what your product is all about and the beneficial functions it has which will to enable them purchase it.
5. Make Financial Projections
Financial projections simply imply an estimated capital set aside to kick start a business. This is the most difficult part of a business place. Most people will have everything in order but for the lack of capital to begin. At this point a lot of care is to be taken in drafting an estimated cost list of all the necessary accessories that would be required for the business. We strongly recommend that you write a detailed list of all you will need with their estimated prices at the side and calculate in the end to get a total financial projection. In case it’s a small business, you may want to list just a few compulsory things that are needed to kick start on a small scale while improving with time. This takes us to the next important point.
Project for employees: Don’t forget to project for employees whom you will eventually recruit when the business goes operational in the long run.
6. Define your Target Market
- Who are the people you will serve with your product or service? This is where a lot of self-employed people go wrong: they’ll say something like, “Well, I will serve anyone who would benefit from a product/service like mine!” That’s not a helpful answer, because it doesn’t give you any actionable insight into your target market.
- Being successfully self-employed isn’t about putting your business out there and then waiting to see who it attracts. It’s about building a very specific solution for a very specific set of people.
- So who are they? If you say “women between the ages of 25-35,” that may feel specific but is actually very broad. Dig deeper. What do they care about? Are they stay-at-home moms who want a little free time to themselves? Are they women pursuing a new career after taking time off? The more specific you can be, the better you can serve this market.
7. Market your Business
How do you plan to get the word out about your business so that you not only attract your first few customers, but wave after wave of new ones? Marketing your business is an ongoing process, and there are many ways to do it. Advertising through social media and creating awareness through public announcement is the best way to kick start your marketing strategy.
8. Make connections and build your visibility
- Every business is built on connections: you not only need a great product or service, but customers who are willing to pay you for it! And you not only need customers, but people in the community, people in your network, and people in the wider world who can support you and help you along your journey.
- We suggest getting out there and making as many connections as possible with potential customers but also with potential mentors, other self-employed people, and the greater community. The more visible you are, the more people you’ll be able to attract to your business. .
9. Take Note of the Administrative Details
How will you structure your business—as a sole proprietorship or as an LLC? How will you register it in your state? Do you need any particular licenses or permits? Because there are so many administrative steps to take care of when you become self-employed and set up your own business, we’ve written about how to handle the process from start to finish.
Conclusion
Most people will start up a business today and will not be able to maintain it tomorrow because of lack of planning. Take time to plan your thing to avoid it from crashing before it even stands. Worthy of note is fact that, structuring a business is not just based on short-term but on how it grows and make profits in the long-run. Therefore, structure your business in the long-term to avoid break down in the course of the journey.
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