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In starting a small business success is only as close as the next question. The key to starting a small business is to know what questions to ask yourself and those people around you. Starting a small business is no easy task. Starting a small business involves time, sweat and money with a heavy emphasis on the sweat and the time. Well, money is important too. But before we spend the time, the money or incur any sweat we have to ask ourselves and others questions. Starting a small business means we have to be knowledgeable about our new business. This is where the SWOT Analysis and Business Plan come into play.  There are a myriad of questions to ask. There is no golden bullet. There is no one $64,000 question that if we have the answer to will make our small business a huge success. So in starting a small business what types of questions should you ask?

Probably the most asked question I get is, “What do I need as the basics to start a small business?”

The prospects are scary, you are unsure of yourself and you don’t want to fail. Perhaps it is critically important that you succeed. Maybe you’ve left yourself no room to retreat. Relax, it’s all okay.

Do the following:

1. Get an idea of how good your competition is. If you are starting a physical business like a coffee shop or plumbing company, look at the yellow pages and check the better business bureau. Check to see if any of your competitors are on the bureau’s bad list.

If you are starting an online business, do a web search exactly as follows including the quotes: “intitle:”theme of your site” inanchor:”theme of your site” inurl:”theme of your site”. The number shown will show you the number of serious competitors you have on the world wide web.

2. Make sure you have enough capital to keep going for 6 months. The best way to do this is starting part time. This would be fine if you are working online, but not possible for a walk off the street business.

Talk to your bankers about your list of small business ideas. They can offer sound advice. If you are starting a web business, even your banker can’t really help you much because hardly anyone has an online enterprise so they have little information. On the other hand, with an online business, you have virtually no costs and, if you do an affiliate business, you have virtually no risks.

Either way, just make sure you are not following some Pied Piper with a get rich quick scheme. They are all over and they are very good at making you believe they have the secret to instant wealth.

Everything takes time and work.

Can you see now why a few simple inquiries will save you all kinds of grief? If you are not sure, seek information from an expert in your field. Most people are quite happy to help if approached correctly.

Since there is no one $64,000 question, starting a small business can be a daunting task. But do not be so afraid of starting that small business that you never even start to ask the questions. If you are not sure what questions to ask, where to turn to for help or just need a helping hand in starting a small business contact us.

Small Business Plans are very important for a small business. You have to explain your background, qualifications, experience and your capacity to implement the project. A good business plan is absolutely essential to convince the banks and financial institutions to lend you money for the project. Think of Small Business Plans as the blue print for your small business. Any contractor worth his salt will not begin construction until he has both the blueprints and has looked at the blue prints. Small Business Plans are the bedrock of your business. Without the blue print you will not know what to build, and further you will not know how to build the successful small business.

Your business plan should explain who is starting the project. What is the project? When are you starting the project? Why are you starting the project? How are you going about it? The results expected from the project, should also be mentioned.

Your background and qualifications have to be explained in detail. You have to explain what projects you have done before. You should give a detailed explanation of the product or service you are going to launch. And also the competition you might face. If you are already in business, you should also give details of the activities of the company or business. The revenue expected should be mentioned in detail.

If it is new business the details of how you are setting up the business. How long it would take to set it up? Your production and sales targets should also be mentioned. How you are meeting these targets should also be explained.

Where are you going to set up the business? Whether it is a shop or a factory? How are you acquiring the land? The details of construction of the building and the costs involved should be mentioned.

Your marketing plans will have to be explained. Who are your customers and how are you going to reach them should be explained. Whether you are hiring a marketing company to market your product or marketing it on your own has to be explained. If you are planning an expansion, the details of how it would be financed should be mentioned.

You have to do quite a bit of ground work and research before starting any new project. It is always better to have contingency plans to get over any unforeseen problems. I have seen people visualizing various scenarios, and making plans to face them. It is always better to look before you jump.

Small Business Plans lay out the ground work for the Small Business particularly when used in conjunction with the SWOT Analysis . Perhaps your business might be small today but the same thing was said for Apple, Google and Microsoft. While realistically our Small Business Plans will probably not turn into those types of businesses we know that if we do not use Small Business Plans we will not even have a small business. We will have nothing. So use Small Business Plans.  To learn how to use business plans get your FREE HELP HERE.

Never heard of
Milo? It’s a feed for cattle. It has a stalk that is similar to corn but has a large head at the top that is full of the milo. I used to have to weed the Milo fields to make sure that the seed company got pure seeds for its experiments and trials. I would have to wait until the plant was large enough to determine what type of plan it was – corn or milo. That waiting process required patience. Why couldn’t I just go down the row and hoe, hoe, hoe away? Creating a Business Plan for Small Business requires patience too.

So develop some patience. Create that Business Plan and learn from these ten reasons why you should create it:

1. To force you to research and really know your market. What are the most important trends in your industry? What are the greatest threats to your industry? Is the market growing or shrinking? What is the size of the target market for your product/service? Creating the business plan will help you to gain a wider, deeper, and more nuanced understanding of your marketplace.

2. To attract employees and a management team. To attract and retain top quality talent, a business plan is necessary. The business plan inspires employees and management that the idea is sound and that the business is poised to achieve its strategic goals.

3. To plot your course and focus your efforts. The business plan provides a roadmap from which to operate, and to look to for direction in times of doubt. Without a business plan, you may shift your short-term strategies constantly without a view to your long-term milestones.

4. To attract partners. Partners also want to see a business plan, in order to determine whether it is worth partnering with your business. Establishing partnerships often requires time and capital, and companies will be more likely to partner with your venture if they can read a detailed explanation of your company.

5. To position your brand. Creating the business plan helps to define your company’s role in the marketplace. This definition allows you to succinctly describe the business and position the brand to customers, investors, and partners.

6. To judge the success of your business. A formal business plan allows you to compare actual operational results versus the business plan itself. In this way, it allows you to clearly see whether you have achieved your strategic, financing, and operational goals (and why you have or have not).

7. To reposition your business to deal with changing conditions. For example, during difficult economic conditions, if your current sales and operational models aren’t working, you can rewrite your business plan to define, try, and validate new ideas and strategies.

8. To document your marketing plan. How are you going to reach your customers? How will you retain them? What is your advertising budget? What price will you charge? A well-documented marketing plan is essential to the growth of a business.

9. To understand and forecast your company’s staffing needs. After completing your business plan, you will not be surprised when you are suddenly short-handed. Rather, your business plan provides a roadmap for your staffing needs, and thus helps to ensure smoother expansion.

10. To uncover new opportunities. Through the process of brainstorming, white-boarding and creative interviewing, you will likely see your business in a different light. As a result, you will often come up with new ideas for marketing your product/service and running your business.

Now not all of you were raised on the farm, nor are all of you city boys. Growing your own food instills in you dedication, patience and work ethic. Those who are willing to put in the work now, develop the Business Plan for Small Business will reap the harvest down the road. Remember the Little Red Hen? Be like her – use the resources that are available to you and you will be rewarded too.  For your FREE REWARD click here.

Business Plans for Small Business are essential to the well being of your small business. You will benefit immensely from the time you take to create the Business Plan. Consider the bicycle. Perhaps you needed training wheels or someone to run behind you and hold your bike. After trials and errors you began to get your balance and could ride alone with assistance and without the training wheels. Business Plans for Small Business are like the training wheels. Think of your business coach as the parent guiding you as you take that first ride. Business plans are the training wheels to help you get your business off on the right foot. Business Coaches help you as you continue learning how to ride that bicycle.

Here are ten reasons why you should consider and use Business Plans for Small Business:

1. To prove that you’re serious about your business. A formal business plan is necessary to show all interested parties — employees, investors, partners and yourself — that you are committed to building the business.

2. To establish business milestones. The business plan should clearly lay out the long-term milestones that are most important to the success of your business. To paraphrase Guy Kawasaki, a milestone is something significant enough to come home and tell your spouse about (without boring him or her to death). Would you tell your spouse that you tweaked the company brochure? Probably not. But you’d certainly share the news that you launched your new website or reached $1M in annual revenues.

3. To better understand your competition. Creating the business plan forces you to analyze the competition. All companies have competition in the form of either direct or indirect competitors, and it is critical to understand your company’s competitive advantages.

4. To better understand your customer. Why do they buy when they buy? Why don’t they when they don’t? An in-depth customer analysis is essential to an effective business plan and to a successful business.

5. To enunciate previously unstated assumptions. The process of actually writing the business plan helps to bring previously “hidden” assumptions to the foreground. By writing them down and assessing them, you can test them and analyze their validity.

6. To assess the feasibility of your venture. How good is this opportunity? The business plan process involves researching your target market, as well as the competitive landscape, and serves as a feasibility study for the success of your venture.

7. To document your revenue model. How exactly will your business make money? This is a critical question to answer in writing, for yourself and your investors. Documenting the revenue model helps to address challenges and assumptions associated with the model.

8. To determine your financial needs. Does your business need to raise capital? How much? The business plan creation process helps you to determine exactly how much capital you need and what you will use it for. This process is essential for raising capital for business and for effectively employing the capital.

9. To attract investors. A formal business plan is the basis for financing proposals. The business plan answers investors’ questions such as: Is there a need for this product/service? What are the financial projections? What is the company’s exit strategy?

10. To reduce the risk of pursuing the wrong opportunity. The process of creating the business plan helps to minimize opportunity costs. Writing the business plan helps you assess the attractiveness of this particular opportunity, versus other opportunities.

Still not convinced that you need the training wheels? Still unsure whether you should learn about Business Plans for Small Business and SWOT Analysis? Still unsure about whether you need a business coach? Take a gander below and reconsider – - -

Get FREE INFORMATION about your Business Coach, SWOT Analysis and Business Plans HERE

Small Business Plans are essential for the start up business as well as the mature business.  Think of Small Business Plans as checklists for growth and profitability.  The Small Business Plans do not guarantee success, but without the Small Business Plans they guarantee failure.  As you develop your company think of the areas that are potential minefields or failure fields.  Here are some of those minefields to avoid:

Choosing a business that isn’t very profitable. Even though you generate lots of activity, the profits never materialize to the extent necessary to sustain an on-going company.

Inadequate cash reserves. If you don’t have enough cash to carry you through the first six months or so before the business starts making money, your prospects for Success are not good. Consider both business and personal living expenses when determining how much cash you will need.

Failure to clearly define and understand your market, your customers, and your customers’ buying habits. Who are your customers? You should be able to clearly identify them in one or two sentences. How are you going to reach them? Is your product or service seasonal? What will you do in the off-season? How loyal are your potential customers to their current supplier? Do customers keep coming back or do they just purchase from you one time? Does it take a long time to close a sale or are your customers more driven by impulse buying?

Failure to price your product or service correctly. You must clearly define your pricing strategy. You can be the cheapest or you can be the best, but if you try to do both, you’ll fail.

Failure to adequately anticipate cash flow. When you are just starting out, suppliers require quick payment for inventory (sometimes even COD). If you sell your products on credit, the time between making the sale and getting paid can be months. This two-way tug at your cash can pull you down if you fail to plan for it.

Failure to anticipate or react to competition, technology, or other changes in the marketplace. It is dangerous to assume that what you have done in the past will always work. Challenge the factors that led to your Success. Do you still do things the same way despite new market demands and changing times? What is your competition doing differently? What new technology is available? Be open to new ideas; experiment.

Overgeneralization. Trying to do everything for everyone is a sure road to ruin. Spreading yourself too thin diminishes quality. The market pays excellent rewards for excellent results, average rewards for average results, and below average rewards for below average results.

Overdependence on a single customer. At first, it looks great. But then you realize you are at their mercy. Whenever you have one customer so big that losing them would mean closing up shop, watch out. Having a large base of small customers is much preferred.

Uncontrolled growth. Slow and steady wins every time. Dependable, predictable growth is vastly superior to spurts and jumps in volume. Going after all the business you can get drains your cash and actually reduces overall profitability.

Believing you can do everything yourself. One of the biggest challenges for entrepreneurs is to let go. Let go of the attitude that you must have hands-on control of all aspects of your business. Let go of the belief that only you can make decisions. Concentrate on the most important problems or issues facing your company. Let others help you out. Give your people responsibility and authority.

Putting up with inadequate management. A common problem faced by Successful companies is growing beyond management resources or skills. As the company grows, you may surpass certain individuals’ ability to manage and plan.

While poor management is cited most frequently as the reason businesses fail, inadequate or ill-timed financing is a close second. Whether you’re starting a business or expanding one, sufficient ready capital is essential. It is not, however, enough to simply have sufficient financing; knowledge and planning are required to manage it well.

Can you start to understand the significance of Small Business Plans? Small Business Plans help you avoid problems like those I have discussed above. Small Business Plans are the operatives that help clear the mines so you will not have problems explode in your face. Now you don’t have to have a Small Business Plan, you can walk the path yourself; you can be your own mine clearer. Is that what you really want?

Use a professional mine clearer — our Coaching Staff — Let them walk the walk for you.

Small Business does not equate to failure.  Small Business is not “Eyes Wide Shut”.  Rather Small Business succeeds when the owner understands the cost of success and the cost of failure.  Failure results because the owner of the Small Business is not willing to pay the necessary price either at the time of start up or during the on-going continuation of the business.  To help understand that cost that you are going to pay here are some reasons for Small Business failure.

So What is Small Business Failure? How can you tell when your business is going to fail, and make corrective action? Business failure is the last stage of an organization’s life cycle. Organizational decline, leading to failure is characterized by inadequate or nonexistent planning and inefficient decision-making. The most common reasons for small business to under perform (low productivity, low profits) or fail (bankrupt, cease being) are as follows:

· Poor cash flow management.

· Absence of performance monitoring.

· Lack of understanding or use of performance monitoring information.

· Poor debtor management. A combination of not paying your debtor on time and not coordinating payments with incoming cash flows.

· Over borrowing. The company is over leveraged and debt is not being reduced.

· Over reliance on a few key customers.

· Poor market research leading to an inaccurate understanding of the target customers wants and needs.

· Lack of financial skills and planning.

· Failure to innovate.

· Poor inventory management.

· Poor communications throughout the organization.

· Failure to recognize your own strengths and weaknesses.

· Trying to go it alone. Trying to do everything yourself and not seeking external help. Whether this external help be as simple as hiring additional staff or going to professional services such as a lawyer, accountant, banker or business coach.

· Younger companies are more likely to go bankrupt because of shortcomings in managerial knowledge and financial management abilities. In contrast, older firms are more likely to fail because of an inability to adapt to environmental change.

· It sounds simple, but the number one reason why businesses succeed or fail is because the business owner did not take the time to conduct a feasibility analysis, market and business plan. Ah, the Business Plan and SWOT Analysis. Why? Sometimes an idea is developed that the business owner thinks is good but no one else does. Sometimes an idea is formulated that the business owner believes is so good that the potential customers will find it themselves. And sometimes the business owner thinks that everyone is a potential customer.

· A clear and consistent finding of prior research is that firms face the highest failure risk when they are young and small. But if there are factors other than the liabilities of newness and smallness that contribute to firm failure, what are they and how can their influence be mitigated? Young failures should be attributable to inadequate resources and capabilities (relative to initial endowments). Older failures should be attributable to a mismatch between resources and capabilities and strategic industry factors.

· The main reason for failure is inexperienced management. Managers of bankrupt firms do not have the experience, knowledge, or vision to run their businesses. Even as the firm’s age and management experience increases, knowledge and vision remain critical deficiencies that contribute to failure. A second key deficiency occurs in the area of financial management. Some 71% of firms fail because of poor financial planning. Three particular problems that arise in this area are an unbalanced capital structure, an inability to manage working capital, and under capitalization.

· In diagnosing the root causes of small firm failure it should not be surprising that this turns out to be the management inefficiency of owner-managers.

So do you see there is a cost in Small Business; that cost is an on going payment? If you are unwilling to pay the piper to do the Business Plan, to do the SWOT Analysis, to use the Business Coach, to retain the professionals to advise you than you will pay another price. What is that Price? Well, it is the Price of Failure.

The Price of Failure is too costly for me.  Try the Price of Success, which is FREE.