Business Plans - What is including?

Study a Few Real-World Business Plans.

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Business Plan - What Is It?

A business plan is a document that provide answers to the type of questions anyone who may provide financing would like to know about your home business. A business plan says. "I've considered this from every angle, and here's what I've come up with". What is your product or service? This is the first question every business plan should answer. You must explain in the clear, concise language what in the world you plan to produce or what service you plan to provide.

Who are Your Customers? You need to clearly identify your customers in order to properly target your advertising, packaging, pricing, et.

What Makes You Different? You need to identify the "primary factors" that will make your business different than other businesses you'll be competing with.

What are Your Expenses? Your start-up expenses include any equipment that you need before you can get up-and-running, while your day-to-day expenses are staff costs and supplies.

Following is a Simplified Example of Business Plan

Catering Plus

The business will be a home-based catering company, producing luxury food for special occasions such as birthdays and weddings. We will provide a comprehensive catering service, while specializing in high end customized cakes, which have a higher profit margin than other foods.

Our catering business will be aimed at middle-class customers who desire a top-of-the-line catering but must operate on a budget. Our initial market area will consist of Mytown and the affluent area of Theretown.

We will only use commerical grade ingredients purchased from wholesalers and provide top quality design and service. This will allow us to provide food that looks tastes great, while keeping costs as low as possible.

Beause I will be using my kitchen and making the food myself, there are only two real expenses: The purchase of an industrial grade mixer and then the day-to-day cost of supplies. Our research has shown that this supplier offers the best value for start-ups.

To wrap it up, you should include a breakdown of both projected profit and loss per month (in graph form)for the first year in business. Show one-time and day-to-day expenses versus projected profit to indicate how you will pay-off your loan. Your business plan should show you making enough of a profit each month to live on - if it doesn't, then it may be considered unfeasible.

Study a Few Real-World Business Plans

The best way to get a real a feel for the dos and do nots of a business plans is to find real-world plans that have already been approved and study them. A good place to start is the internet. Once you've studied a few, you will get a better feel for how much work will be involved in putting your business plan together.

Circular Logic – Compensation Plans That Make Your Head Spin

At the time of this writing, Multi-Level Marketing is more than 50 years old. It’s truly amazing that such a ludicrous business model has survived, and even experienced incredible growth, over such a great length of time.

On the surface, this type of business has a lot of appeal. Many people are attracted to the idea of selling quality products and sharing a lucrative opportunity with their friends and neighbors.

But once you take a good hard look at the nuts and bolts ...

Keywords:

MLM, affiliate program, compensation plan, business opportunity scam

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At the time of this writing, Multi-Level Marketing is more than 50 years old. It’s truly amazing that such a ludicrous business model has survived, and even experienced incredible growth, over such a great length of time.

On the surface, this type of business has a lot of appeal. Many people are attracted to the idea of selling quality products and sharing a lucrative opportunity with their friends and neighbors.

But once you take a good hard look at the nuts and bolts of how 99% of these so-called ‘opportunities’ intend to pay you for your efforts, much of the initial appeal goes right down the drain. It’s fairly common for an MLMer to sell a $50 bottle of herbal tonic and make only a few bucks for themselves.

A big reason for this is the complex structure of most network marketing programs. Money is divided among so many different parties that it’s difficult to squeeze a decent profit out of a retail transaction.

For example, you might sell a bottle of your program’s super tonic at $50, but three of your upline sponsors have to get their share of the profits before you get paid. And of course there will be at least one heavy hitter in your upline tree who gets to claim some type of ‘over-ride’ bonus; this will mean more of the money you generated goes into someone else’s pocket.

And let’s not forget about the clever ‘one-up’ option many MLMs build into their payment structure. In this scenario, a member’s first sale gets credited to their immediate upline.

I’ve looked at many compensation plans that require a member to retail nearly $200 in product before they are even eligible for a commission. In other words, if they fall short of this monthly quota by even a few bucks, they don’t get paid!

The solution to this dilemma, according to the always jovial sponsors and team leaders?

Just buy the minimum amount of product yourself so that every real sale you make generates commission. And then of course you are told to encourage anyone you refer to the business to do the same.

How reasonable does that sound to you?

Sure it’s great to use and believe in a product you are trying to sell. But buying $200 in vitamins or face cream every month just so you can qualify for your distributor commissions borders on the idiotic, in my opinion.

If the potential monetary gains were significant in most cases perhaps I’d have a different attitude. But more often than not participants of an MLM system are paid 10% or less of the money they generate for the program.

In essence, the company owners and the professional network marketers who have helped them launch their business are keeping most of the money created by the retail and referral activity of their members.

You don’t need to join an online business opportunity to put money into somebody else’s pockets. That’s what a J-O-B is for.

The web is full of affiliate programs that pay their members a fair percentage on each successful transaction. There is absolutely no reason to settle for some kind of bogus MLM system that asks you to work your tail off for pennies on the dollar.

Contingency Plans - Can You Handle Curve Balls?

Contingency plans are absolutely critical for first year business success. Your ability to weather the ups and downs of your business will depend heavily on the thought and time you put into your contingency plan.

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Contingency Plan, Contingency-Plan

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Contingency plans are absolutely critical for first year business success. A contingency plan is what will help you deal with the curve balls that get thrown at you. Despite your best research and planning, you will encounter surprises: good and bad.

When you start your contingency plan you need to list out anything you can think of that will either positively or negatively impact your business. There are a number of things that you should consider for your contingency plan including:

Concentrating on a niche - what contingency plan can you put in place if your niche dries up or turns out to be unable to support your business?
Labor market issues - do you need a contingency plan for a lack of availability of contract workers or employees?
General comfort with ASP software - if clients don't need the services you provide, are you able to branch into different service markets?
Strategic alliances between competitors - if there are mergers or alliances in your industry have you thought of how your business can react and stay alive?

A thorough contingency plan address 15 - 20 reasonable possibilities that could affect your ability to remain profitable. These are things that are outside of your control that you must react to. Your contingency plan only needs to cover a one-year time horizon but it should be revised often.

The Bottom Line On Contingency Plans

You don't want to be caught without a contingency plan. Things happen - some positive, some negative. Your ability to weather the ups and downs of your business will depend heavily on the thought and time you put into your contingency plan. Your ability to deal with the unexpected is what will keep you on track for success, or derail you completely.

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Business Plans And Marketing Schemes

The corporate community makes use of different terms in talking about business planning - business strategy, sales planning, marketing strategy, business plans, and marketing schemes. But as different as these terms sound or spell, they cover same principles -- how to improve sales and getting the company "out there". Efficient business plans and marketing schemes need to be strong, cost-effective, and most of all, realistic. As such, an efficient business plan considers seve...

Keywords:

business plans and marketing, business planning

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The corporate community makes use of different terms in talking about business planning - business strategy, sales planning, marketing strategy, business plans, and marketing schemes. But as different as these terms sound or spell, they cover same principles -- how to improve sales and getting the company "out there". Efficient business plans and marketing schemes need to be strong, cost-effective, and most of all, realistic. As such, an efficient business plan considers several important factors: products, services, market size, competitor activity, marketing, and production costs.

Since a business's' selling point and source of income are the kind of products and service it offers, it is logical to pay these much attention. Product and service evaluation should be part of all business plans and marketing schemes a company formulates. Product evaluation involves product testing, improving quality control, product design, and marketing. In product testing and quality control, it is important to ensure that the company's product is all it claims to be. For example, if company A wants to claim that its product washes off stains in less time than the leading brand B, it must test and improve its product A against product B. Doing this allows company A to adjust the formulation of product A to beat product B. The testing process can also serve as proof if the company A puts advantage of product A in their advertisements.

Business plans and marketing schemes are not complete without including service assessment. A company's employees can make or break the business by attracting or turning consumers and possible clients off. The company may consider hiring the services of a mystery shopper who can pretend to be a customer to get a more objective service evaluation. The mystery shopper has the advantage of anonymity and the staff would treat him as an ordinary customer. The company's head honcho will not get the same results because, naturally, the staff would act their best with the big boss around. Let us again take the example of A and B and make them competing groceries. If company A hires a mystery shopper to visit both stores, A gets the benefit of assessing its own store and that of its competitor. Company A, with the help of the evaluation, can fire unproductive employees, reward the good ones, and implement new courtesy policies that beat that of B's. Statistics show that customers are more likely to support business with efficient and courteous staff over a competing business that offers the same products. Thus, by improving service, a company has the benefit of being more cost-effective (firing unproductive employees) and increasing sales.

Expansion is one goal of entrepreneurs. It could be physical expansion or putting up new stores, or an expansion in terms of market size. Market size expansion has a great deal to do with effective marketing. It is essential for business plans and marketing schemes to have provisions for advertisements. There are several ways in which a company can advertise its services and products: paid email-reading sites, promos, print ads, radios, televisions, and other audio and visual media. Consulting statistics about the media habits of its target market, a company can identify what medium is more effective. Though taking risks is part of business, it helps to be realistic and supported by fact.

Business plans and marketing schemes play important roles in the success of a business. Business analysts affirm this by saying that by coming up with new business plans and marketing schemes regularly, businesses prevent being stagnant and are able to continuously deliver good services and products. Over time, these are the businesses that last.

Business Plans - What Do They Include?

Ok... so you've finally reached that stage in the development of your home business to get started. You've done the research, you have a game plan and you're ready to go except for one small detail... you need money. Whether it comes from a loan or from investors it doesn't matter but you need a good dose of seed money to put all your hard work and planning into action. However, regardless of who hears your money pitch before they give you a dime they will want see your busin...

Keywords:

home business, work from home

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Ok... so you've finally reached that stage in the development of your home business to get started. You've done the research, you have a game plan and you're ready to go except for one small detail... you need money. Whether it comes from a loan or from investors it doesn't matter but you need a good dose of seed money to put all your hard work and planning into action. However, regardless of who hears your money pitch before they give you a dime they will want see your business plan.

Business Plan - What Is It?
A good way to think of a business plan is that's it's a document that provide answers to the type of questions anyone who may provide financing would like to know about your home business. You will not get outside funding without one, because the people giving you the funding will insist on one because it helps them to know that you’ve thought through what you’re proposing to do. A business plan says to them... "I’ve considered this from every angle, and here’s what I’ve come up with".

Business Plan - What Does It Include?
What is your product or service? This is the first question every business plan should answer. You must explain in the clear, concise language what in the world you plan to produce or what service you plan to provide. You will also want to include why you've chosen this particular product or service.

Who are Your Customers? After you've explained your product or service, the next step is to identify who you plan to sell your product or service too and why. The demographics (age, sex, language, country, state or city, income, etc.) You need to clearly identify your customers in order to properly target your advertising, packaging, pricing, et.

What Makes You Different? You need to identify the "primary factors" that will make your business different than other businesses you'll be competing with. What niche are you filling that they are not or what do you plan to do to fill a particular void in the market that you've identified?

What are Your Expenses? Your start-up expenses include any equipment that you need before you can get up-and-running, while your day-to-day expenses are staff costs and supplies.

Following is a Simplified Example of Business Plan
This a a simplified and shortened version of a business plan. In the real world... each one of the following sections would be 1 - 2 pages in length. That being said... in most instances it's better to be as brief as possible. Only add information if your potential backers request it. It's a bad idea to go into too much detail in your plan. You’re not trying to explain everything down to the nth detail, just the basics of the business and why they should give you the money you need to launch it. And always focus on profit.

Catering Plus
Nature of Business: The business will be a home-based catering company, producing luxury food for special occasions such as birthdays and weddings. We will provide a comprehensive catering service, while specializing in high end customized cakes, which have a higher profit margin than other foods.

Target Market: Our catering business will be aimed at middle-class customers who desire a top-of-the-line catering but must operate on a budget. Our initial market area will consist of Mytown and the affluent area of Theretown.

Key Factors: We will only use commerical grade ingredients purchased from wholesalers and provide top quality design and service. This will allow us to provide food that looks tastes great, while keeping costs as low as possible.

Expenses: Beause I will be using my kitchen and making the food myself, there are only two real expenses: The purchase of an industrial grade mixer and then the day-to-day cost of supplies. I've attached a suppliers’ letter listing prices. Our research has shown that this supplier offers the best value for start-ups.

To wrap it up, you should include a breakdown of both projected profit and loss per month (in graph form)for the first year in business. Show one-time and day-to-day expenses versus projected profit to indicate how you will pay-off your loan. Your business plan should show you making enough of a profit each month to live on – if it doesn’t, then it may be considered unfeasible.

Study a Few Real-World Business Plans
The best way to get a real a feel for the dos and do nots of a business plans is to find real-world plans that have already been approved and study them. A good place to start is the internet. Once you’ve studied a few, you will get a better feel for how much work will be involved in putting your business plan together. Remember, until your business exists for real, the business plan is the only tool you have to sell prospective backers on how great your business is going to be.