Creating Your Dream Business
Behind every successful company is a founder who had a dream that eventually became a reality.  Examine any of today’s prominent entrepreneurs and you will discover a shared thread of traits.  These are talent, vision, and perseverance in the face of all obstacles.  If you possess an idea that you believe would make a great business, there’s no time like the present to make that move.  Innovative business ideas are spun off into new enterprises all the time - both in good financial times and bad - so don’t abandon the fight due to a perceived weak economy.

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Creating a Viable Business Planning Strategy
New owners of businesses should feel compelled to engage in the business planning process, whether they are starting a brand new venture or taking over one that is already up and running.  Anyone who fails to take this all important step - akin to jumping out of an airplane before making sure that your parachute is working properly - is in for a big surprise at the end of that journey.  A business plan makes good sense for so many reasons, but primary among them is the fact that no one will loan you money unless a formal, written business plan is available - and one that realistically examines the pros and cons of your enterprise.  In its most basic form, a business plan serves two functions.  First, it must convince a banker or some other investor that your enterprise is worth their effort to put money into it.  Second, and more importantly, it is the master blueprint you will follow to achieve your financial success.

Business Plan Process: Small Goals Lead to Greater Achievements
There are some simple goals that every business owner shares.  They want to build an honest business that makes them proud to own it.  They want to make a comfortable living commensurate with the effort they expend.  They want to build something for the future.  They also believe in the product or service they are offering for sale, convinced that it will improve the lives of their customers in some large or small way.  Your business plan does not need to be hundreds or even dozens of pages long - unless you’re building the next Intel or Microsoft, in which case, best of luck!  Anywhere from four to ten pages should be enough to get your point across, both to your investors and yourself, especially if your goals are small and easily attainable early on.

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Cashing In on a Business Start Up
More people than ever are deciding to start their own businesses, so why should you be any different?  Whether you choose to acquire an existing company, start one from scratch, or purchase a franchise, there are a number of costs associated with buying a business.  Knowing what they are and calculating in advance how much you’ll need for each item will save you tons of time, headaches, and even money down the road.

Primary Business Start Up Costs
Different small business start-ups will have all sorts of different start up costs.  For example, retail businesses need storefront locations and the people to run them during business hours.  Work from home businesses need none of that, but you will instead incur costs to remodel and stock the spot in your home from which business will be conducted - as well as investing in a secure lock to keep out the kids while you’re trying to close a big sale.  The business cost start up variables you will most likely encounter - no matter what kind of business you choose to own - include the following:

• Fees to professionals - Any owner of a new business requires the services of an attorney to draw up articles of incorporation or other company-forming materials, plus an accountant to keep the books straight and the I.R.S.

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What is a Business Plan?
Business plans are essentially resumes for companies.  They provide a description of what your business involves, how it hopes to operate, what level its earnings are expected to reach, and how soon those milestones will be met.  Anyone who wants to start a business must write a business plan, primarily because no financial institution will loan you money without first seeing your blueprint for success.  There are countless business plan templates available online or at your local bookstore, and sample business plans are usually sufficient to provide all the necessary information for more than 90 percent of prospective business owners.  Here is a business plan example to get you started.

Sample Business Plan
The term “template” can mean a standardized document that contains a basic layout in which details are added to customize it for a specific use.  A template business plan is an outline where you add information about your company to create a unique presentation.  Every business plan should contain the following sub-headings:

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Do I Need a Franchise Business Plan?
Unless you have enough money to buy a franchise outright, including all the start-up costs and a nice safety net of cash to carry you through the lean times until your business is more firmly established - of course you need a business plan!  Even if you’re independently wealthy, a business plan will serve as your road map to success.  Besides, most corporations won’t even consider selling you a franchise without first seeing at least a rudimentary business plan.

How to Write a Business Plan for Your Franchise
There are a number of places to go in order to create the perfect business plan for your franchise.  There are books for sale at your local bookstore as well as many Web sites with valuable information.  Surprisingly, your franchisor could be a worthwhile source, and they can certainly offer advice on the sort of material they want to see from you.  The basic business plan, whether for a franchise or any other kind of enterprise, should contain the following elements:

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One question I get asked a lot goes something like “I’ve got an idea for a business. I need to get finance from the bank, buy stationery and equipment and do some research. I’m not sure how to plan everything that I need to do.” Do you feel like this? Do you have a business idea and so much to do to get it up and running, that you feel overwhelmed and don’t know where to start?  If so, you’re not alone. Thousands of new business owners feel like this and that’s why it’s vital to put down on paper what you need to do. Here’s how: 

Take a big piece of paper and then write down everything that comes into your head that you’ll need to do to set up your business. Don’t worry if it sounds silly – just get it down. You might want to carry this piece of paper round with you for a couple of days just in case you think of anything else you need to do. Once you’ve got down the vast majority of all the things you’ll need to do, now is the time to start organising them. The first thing to do is group them. For example, anything to do with finance, group them all together (you could do this using a highlighter pen or writing them in groups on a separate sheet of paper); anything to do with getting a loan, group this too. Keep grouping the categories until you have five or six main headings to do. With grouping, what you’re trying to do is firstly realise that a lot of the tasks you need to do are related and can be done together and secondly reduce the number of things you need to do into five or six areas. As such, if when you do this exercise, you find that some things don’t quite fit into a category, that’s fine – feel free to break them out into another heading. 

When you’ve got your groups, take a good long look at them. Is there a logical order in which they need to be done?

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Today there is a lot of discussion about vision, mission, and goals.  In fact I see many companies investing loads of time, money and effort in coming up with their “mission statement.”  Usually this is a few inspiring sentences that are placed on plaques to hang on the wall or printed on the back of business cards or put on the company web site.  With few exceptions, this often amounts to a big waste of time! 

The fact is few of these mission statements accomplish what they were intended to do.  That is “motivate employees to perform at a higher level.”  Ironically, however, after a month or so not even the CEO, let alone the employees can even remember one word of the mission statement. 

So does this mean establishing a mission for your company is a useless task? 

Not necessarily.  Yet in order to understand how to make mission planning a valuable tool we must first understand WHAT a “mission” is.  In short, a mission is a course of action that a company decides to pursue.  It is the road they will travel in order to ensure they arrive at their ultimate destination.  It is their plan for achieving their vision.  A mission is not something we say, it is something we do. 

Mission Statement Development

A mission statement describes “how” you will achieve your vision.  It describes the “road” that you will walk.  It outlines your values and is a summary of your plan to accomplish your goals. 

Here are some basic guidelines in writing a mission statement:

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It is not often that I find myself without words. I usually have plenty to say about any topic imaginable. But recently when speaking with a CEO who had asked my advice about how to deal with a particular challenge in his business, I was rendered speechless. This CEO had recently lost a key supplier to the competition thereby disrupting his supply chain and causing production and delivery problems.

As we discussed his challenges, the CEO seemed forthright and was open to hearing ideas of how to handle this. So I told him about several other clients that had experienced the same problem and how they created a foolproof method for avoiding such circumstances in the future. I suggested he engage in some planning to create a network of suppliers with contingencies for those that fail to maintain loyalty. I suggested that in the future, he should try to avoid depending too much on any one supplier unless there was an exclusive arrangement in place. I told him that the key was doing some careful planning to identify competitive suppliers and play one against another. 

His response both stunned and surprised me. He said. “Wow, that sounds like it would take a LOT of time. I don’t have time for planning!” I asked him if he now had time to find a new supplier. He answered a sheepish, NO and went on to tell me about how he was working 60+ hours per week just trying to manage all of the details of his business. 

I think this is a fairly common problem with business leaders today. We spend so much time working IN our business that we fail to work ON the business. Peter Drucker said that on the average one hour spent planning is worth 5 hours of execution. Are you spending enough time planning? Do you need to take a step back and look at the big picture and identify some contingencies?

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