Many business owners think a Business Plan is for start-up businesses, or for someone needing money. They might think "I am neither so I don't need any sort of business plan." Of course they would be wrong. Things change and believe it or not, your business needs to change.
When I was running my business, every January I would sit down and write my business plan for that year. It was a strategic plan as much as a business plan, but the terms are insignificant. The point is that you need to do some sort of planning every year.
I think simple is always better, so how can I make a simple business plan? I believe every business every year needs to look at three items, and thus this is my simple annual business plan for your small business.
1) Your Industry: Every industry is changing. If you sell multiple products, products grow, products shrink. Take for example the video rental business. 10 Years ago the video rental business was strong, Blockbuster was going crazy and the independent stores were doing well. Now you can't find Blockbuster, or an independent video rental business anywhere. If you were in the video rental business six years ago you should have been looking to see what is going on in the industry before you signed a 10 year lease on your building. The question now is, what is the video rental business 5 years from now, is it your business???2) Your Competitor: Competitors come, competitors go. Some business owners just say "I don't have any competitors" or "I don't worry about the competition, they should worry about me". Hey, that is what Blockbuster was saying in 2008. Every business owner should know exactly who their competitors are and complete an annual SWOT analysis (an assessment of your businesses Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats). What are competitors doing, have they added new services, have they changed their pricing structure, have they gotten rid of services? What are they doing different, how are they advertising their business? You really want to know what your Opportunities and Threats are before you lose those opportunities, or before the threats sneak up from behind and destroy you. Again, ask Blockbuster why they didn't invent Redbox or Netflix?
3) Marketing: The last area to look at is your marketing. Believe it or not, marketing has changed over the last 20 years. Believe it or not, Yellow Page and Newspaper advertising isn't the only means to reach customers. If you are not aware there is this really cool thing out there that is pretty cheap and can easily reach many customers. It's called the Internet. Be sure you have a website, make sure it stays current and relevant. Look at Social Media, be sure you are evaluating other Internet marketing ideas. Also evaluate where you are spending you current marketing dollars, and does it make sense. Are you marketing to your current customers? Most businesses should be spending more than 50% of their marketing budget marketing to their existing customers. Are you doing that??? Each Year marketing will change, be sure you are keeping up.
That's it. If you follow these three steps every year you will be a more focused, and stronger company and ready to fight another day!
