Whether you have run businesses for years or you are starting out fresh having been working as an employee the first step in creating a new business venture is planning. The drafting of a complete business plan should be a very early priority after the initial idea phase. Coming up with a good idea for a business is actually not that difficult, and it tends to be in an area in which you already have some expertise. You may be a builder, electrician or plumber looking to start up on your own, or a website designer tired of the 9 to 5 grind, or a business manager looking to break into consultancy. It doesn’t really matter, chances are you are looking to utilize some of your existing skills but in the context of reaping the rewards yourself. Of course the potential downside of this is that you are also taking on the risks yourself.
Having formulated an idea of what you want in your new business, the crucial step as previously suggested is to develop a well worked out and thought through business plan. There are plenty of templates available for free online that will help with this process but essentially your business plan is an opportunity to explore in thought how you feel your new business will operate. It allows you to contemplate how you will generate business, what the risks are likely to be, what the costs will be, how much revenue you can generate, how long it will take you to turn a profit, how much investment you will need and even how you will drive the business forward, your mid to long term goals and an analysis of the marketplace you are entering into.
Bear in mind that this business plan, whether you end up showing it to anyone else or not forms the blueprint for your business and can easily be the difference between success and failure. It is by no means set in stone, but it is certainly something that you should regularly refer back to and modify as necessary. Of course, if you are looking for business funding, whether from the banks, or from private sources you are going to need a very carefully worked out business plan in order to demonstrate business viability. Whatever your reason for producing one, whether for personal use or for fund raising, your business plan must meet three criteria. It must be credible, in that figures must be realistic and achievable within the timeframes established. It must be as accurate as possible as it forms the basis of your business strategy moving forward, and finally it must be understandable. There is little point in filling your business plan with buzz words and acronyms if they are meaningless, or worse still irrelevant to anyone reading it.
It may sound like a long winded and onerous task, but you will have to trust me on this, a well structured, clear, concise and above all usable business plan is absolutely the best way to invest time in setting up a business. The very best advice I can give you, in summary, is : Keep it simple, keep it relevant, keep it usable and above all, keep it honest. If you follow these guidelines, you will find yourself in a much stronger position than the next guy who is starting up on a wing and a prayer with nothing but self belief and a half baked idea…..
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