Staying On Track With a Business Plan

Staying On Track with a Business Plan

How could a business survive without a business plan?
A business plan establishes how the business will run
in the future. A business plan provides a sense of
by outlining the objective and goals that the business
needs to achieve.

Sitting down and writing a business plan takes time and
cannot be rushed. Once you have developed your idea and
concept you need to research it thoroughly. Your local
council office can sometimes help you but you need to do
the majority of the research and investigation yourself.
Legal information and statistics about your industry
sector can sometimes be obtained from your local business
enterprise centre. You will of course need to do your own
research in relation to target markets and your potential
audience to see whether you will be successful in selling
your product or service.

Once the research is complete you will then need to sit
down and start writing the business plan. Your business
is your sole guidebook that will steer your business for
the next 3 to 5 years. As a result it needs to be very
clear and very concise. When you are starting out you
should develop a SWOT analysis to examine and acknowledge
your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to
the business. Brainstorming is the best way to do this.
Because you are yet to attract any customers nor any
profits it is important that your business plan is very
flexible and can adapt to the changing needs of you and
your customers.

When you have finished completing the SWOT analysis,
then you need to think about your business name and register
it. You also need to decide on your vision, your business
goals and mission and then work out how this links into the
business plan and how the business plan will help you
achieve everything your want.

Make sure that you write down all of your ideas because even
the smallest or silliest idea can turn into a success idea
later. It is important to maintain comprehensive records to
ensure a successful business!

Roberto Gerschafte is the owner and webmaster of
Fort Business, a
leading Internet directory for business information. For
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