You have heard it before. You need a business plan before you start a business. However, most entrepreneurs can't stand the thought of actually sitting down to write a business plan because it reminds them of the dreaded research papers they had to write in school.
As SBDC advisors, we help clients write their business plan. While going through the steps to write a business plan, I hear these excuses:
I don't have time for that.
What good is that going to do?
The bank is making me write one, otherwise I wouldn't.
Most of the time, clients never finish their full plan and open without one. Not fully thinking through how you will operate your new business is a precursor to a short-lived business. For all of you procrastinators and naysayers of the need for a business plan, I have good news for you. You truly may not need a business plan.
This, however, does not mean you get to start your business without working through how the components of your business will fit together. Because most people are visual, it makes sense for future entrepreneurs to make a "roadmap" of how they will operate their business. One tool we've recently found is the Business Model Canvas devised by Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur. Read more on victoriaadvocate.com.
A business plan is a formal statement of a set of business goals, the reasons why they are believed attainable, and the plan for reaching those goals.
Showing posts with label business plan help. Show all posts
Showing posts with label business plan help. Show all posts
What Work Practices Can Prevent Electrical Accidents?
Electrical hazards are one of the greatest threats to workplace safety. Certain work environments, including those that are dimly lit, wet, or in an especially confined space pose even more risk of serious injury or death to workers who neglect to learn and follow safe work practices.
Electrical accidents are largely preventable through safe work practices. Examples of these practices include the following:
* De-energizing electric equipment before inspection or repair * Keeping all electric tools properly maintained * Exercising caution when working near energized lines * Using the appropriate protective equipment. Read more on WORKPLACE SAFETY TIPS.
The Biggest Challenge in 2011
There is a Community Track, the main contest open to all South Florida residents, an FIU Track for students and alumni of that university, and a High School Track for grades 9-12. You do not need to have your business up and running to enter, but if you do, it can not be more than two years old. Each contest has its own set of prestigious judges. We have investors, executives, educators, consultants, bankers and small business loan specialists — most are entrepreneurs themselves, many of them several times over.
The judges will be looking for whether the business fills a real need in the marketplace, what value it brings to the customer, what sets it apart from the competition and its potential for expansion. They also want to see how you plan to market your product, your financial projections and how you intend to fund your startup costs. Make sure to make clear why you have the expertise to lead such a company and the expertise of your management team.
Yes, all this in three pages or less. Think of it as a meaty executive summary — just the highlights of what you would put in a full business plan. Contest Rules are on www.MiamiHerald.com/Challenge.
Judges will select the top three winners in each track, and the overall top-rated plan will be declared Challenge Champion. The top six finalists in the Community and FIU Tracks will also compete in the People’s Pick video contest, which last year drew more than 15,000 votes and even more page views. That’s great exposure for entrepreneurs. The winners, including the People’s Picks, will be profiled in a Business Monday cover story and are honored at a banquet, where they can meet and mingle with the judges.
The judges will be looking for whether the business fills a real need in the marketplace, what value it brings to the customer, what sets it apart from the competition and its potential for expansion. They also want to see how you plan to market your product, your financial projections and how you intend to fund your startup costs. Make sure to make clear why you have the expertise to lead such a company and the expertise of your management team.
Yes, all this in three pages or less. Think of it as a meaty executive summary — just the highlights of what you would put in a full business plan. Contest Rules are on www.MiamiHerald.com/Challenge.
Judges will select the top three winners in each track, and the overall top-rated plan will be declared Challenge Champion. The top six finalists in the Community and FIU Tracks will also compete in the People’s Pick video contest, which last year drew more than 15,000 votes and even more page views. That’s great exposure for entrepreneurs. The winners, including the People’s Picks, will be profiled in a Business Monday cover story and are honored at a banquet, where they can meet and mingle with the judges.
Preparing Business Plan for 2011
At difficult times of budgetary constraint like these, it is inconceivable that so many GP surgeries do not prepare business plans to be agreed in advance with their partners and teams. Preparing a business plan is quite simple – it is the implementation that is hard. You might be surprised, but I advocate the following method of planning for the year ahead - you must adopt the same methods as for strategic planning for a commercial business, i.e. using What, Why, How, Who, Where, and When.
What?
Famous management guru Stephen Covey, who wrote best selling book ‘Seven habits of highly effective people’ and he emphasised the importance of ‘starting with the end in mind’ to have any chance of being effective.
If you do not decide in advance what exactly you are tying to achieve in the year ahead, how will you know when you have got there? In my experience, precious few surgeries plan ahead, they just appear to hope to do better than last year (whatever better means?)
Too many GPs seem to be happy leaving the planning for ‘others’ to do, preferring to get stuck into usual daily and monthly activity, what Michael Gerber (Author of E-Myth for Doctors) refers to as the ‘tyranny of routine’. They prefer to get stuck into the ‘how’ before having decided ‘what’ they want to actually achieve in the year ahead.
Let’s face it, very few surgeries even prepare a detailed financial budget – which is part of the reason why so many claims get missed by practice managers
In my firm, we have a model we recommend, and the first figure we ask to be entered is the profit the partners feel they should be generating for the work they do – that figure should be the first figure that goes onto any budget – not the income to be generated by the surgery.
This is fundamentally different to what most surgeries who plan (in my experience) actually do i.e. they list out their income and expenditure that they think might happen and then see what profit is left for them.
Psychologically, there is a big difference in the two methods – my way has been proven many times to work. It helps partners focus on what they have to do to achieve their desired profit – which after all, is the main reason why they should be doing the exercise each year.
Why?
Be very clear why you have chosen those goals or that figure for profit – is it realistic, and will all the partners be committed enough, wanting the profit hard enough, to make it happen?
If not, change it – this is meant to be a real life task, not simply a theoretical exercise to be ignored once it has been put to screen or paper
How?
Click here to find out more!
Once all the partners and team are clear and happy about all about your ‘what’ and ‘why’, you can decide ‘how’ you are going to make that desired outcome really happen.
Having listed your desired profit, break that down into quarterly figures and then monthly - if your practice manager is willing and able to monitor the results that frequently (which I believe they should).
Having done that, now summarise quarterly/monthly the totals under each ‘overhead expense category’ (e.g. wages, repairs, light and heat etc) that you expect to be incurring, provided nothing unexpected happens in the year ahead.
Now add in the expenditure on non-expense items like new equipment you hope to buy, that will not be paid for by the NHS, together with any loan repayments you need to make.
Working backwards, by adding the figure for the profit you require to the total of the expenses and other payments you think you are likely to have to cover, you will now have a figure for the income you need to generate to make that profit manifest itself.
This income should be split down into appropriate categories of income that you would normally expect to receive (e.g. global sum, rent, QOF, PBC, DES and LES) and this will then leave any unallocated balance of income to be generated from new sources of income, or increased income from existing sources.
If you need to generate more income, define where you are most likely to generate it and identify if you will incur any more costs in doing so.
Failing that, you will have to identify what costs can be reduced to achieve that all important profit figure the partners require and deserve.
Who/Where/When?
Do you need to change the make up of your team to be able to achieve your objectives – easier said than done with today’s increasingly inflexible employment laws? Include any desired changes in your business plan. Will you need any temporary financial assistance from your bank e.g. to finance an extension or refurbishments? If so, also include that in your business plan.
What?
Famous management guru Stephen Covey, who wrote best selling book ‘Seven habits of highly effective people’ and he emphasised the importance of ‘starting with the end in mind’ to have any chance of being effective.
If you do not decide in advance what exactly you are tying to achieve in the year ahead, how will you know when you have got there? In my experience, precious few surgeries plan ahead, they just appear to hope to do better than last year (whatever better means?)
Too many GPs seem to be happy leaving the planning for ‘others’ to do, preferring to get stuck into usual daily and monthly activity, what Michael Gerber (Author of E-Myth for Doctors) refers to as the ‘tyranny of routine’. They prefer to get stuck into the ‘how’ before having decided ‘what’ they want to actually achieve in the year ahead.
Let’s face it, very few surgeries even prepare a detailed financial budget – which is part of the reason why so many claims get missed by practice managers
In my firm, we have a model we recommend, and the first figure we ask to be entered is the profit the partners feel they should be generating for the work they do – that figure should be the first figure that goes onto any budget – not the income to be generated by the surgery.
This is fundamentally different to what most surgeries who plan (in my experience) actually do i.e. they list out their income and expenditure that they think might happen and then see what profit is left for them.
Psychologically, there is a big difference in the two methods – my way has been proven many times to work. It helps partners focus on what they have to do to achieve their desired profit – which after all, is the main reason why they should be doing the exercise each year.
Why?
Be very clear why you have chosen those goals or that figure for profit – is it realistic, and will all the partners be committed enough, wanting the profit hard enough, to make it happen?
If not, change it – this is meant to be a real life task, not simply a theoretical exercise to be ignored once it has been put to screen or paper
How?
Click here to find out more!
Once all the partners and team are clear and happy about all about your ‘what’ and ‘why’, you can decide ‘how’ you are going to make that desired outcome really happen.
Having listed your desired profit, break that down into quarterly figures and then monthly - if your practice manager is willing and able to monitor the results that frequently (which I believe they should).
Having done that, now summarise quarterly/monthly the totals under each ‘overhead expense category’ (e.g. wages, repairs, light and heat etc) that you expect to be incurring, provided nothing unexpected happens in the year ahead.
Now add in the expenditure on non-expense items like new equipment you hope to buy, that will not be paid for by the NHS, together with any loan repayments you need to make.
Working backwards, by adding the figure for the profit you require to the total of the expenses and other payments you think you are likely to have to cover, you will now have a figure for the income you need to generate to make that profit manifest itself.
This income should be split down into appropriate categories of income that you would normally expect to receive (e.g. global sum, rent, QOF, PBC, DES and LES) and this will then leave any unallocated balance of income to be generated from new sources of income, or increased income from existing sources.
If you need to generate more income, define where you are most likely to generate it and identify if you will incur any more costs in doing so.
Failing that, you will have to identify what costs can be reduced to achieve that all important profit figure the partners require and deserve.
Who/Where/When?
Do you need to change the make up of your team to be able to achieve your objectives – easier said than done with today’s increasingly inflexible employment laws? Include any desired changes in your business plan. Will you need any temporary financial assistance from your bank e.g. to finance an extension or refurbishments? If so, also include that in your business plan.
A Business Plan
A business plan is a formal statement of a set of business goals, the reasons why they are believed attainable, and the plan for reaching those goals. It may also contain background information about the organization or team attempting to reach those goals.
The business goals may be defined for for-profit or for non-profit organizations. For-profit business plans typically focus on financial goals, such as profit or creation of wealth. Non-profit, as well as government agency business plans tend to focus on the "organizational mission" which is the basis for their governmental status or their non-profit, tax-exempt status, respectively—although non-profits may also focus on optimizing revenue. The primary difference between Profit and Non-Profit organizations is that "For Profit" organizations look to maximize wealth versus Non-Profit Organizations, which look to provide a greater good to society. In non-profit organizations, creative tensions may develop in the effort to balance mission with "margin" (or revenue). Business plans may also target changes in perception and branding by the customer, client, tax-payer, or larger community. When managing a business, a business plan, or B-Plan, is often confused with the term Marketing Plan. When the existing business is to assume a major change or when planning a new venture - a 3 to 5 year business plan is essential.
The business goals may be defined for for-profit or for non-profit organizations. For-profit business plans typically focus on financial goals, such as profit or creation of wealth. Non-profit, as well as government agency business plans tend to focus on the "organizational mission" which is the basis for their governmental status or their non-profit, tax-exempt status, respectively—although non-profits may also focus on optimizing revenue. The primary difference between Profit and Non-Profit organizations is that "For Profit" organizations look to maximize wealth versus Non-Profit Organizations, which look to provide a greater good to society. In non-profit organizations, creative tensions may develop in the effort to balance mission with "margin" (or revenue). Business plans may also target changes in perception and branding by the customer, client, tax-payer, or larger community. When managing a business, a business plan, or B-Plan, is often confused with the term Marketing Plan. When the existing business is to assume a major change or when planning a new venture - a 3 to 5 year business plan is essential.
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