Are you at a point with your business where you just don't know what to do next?
Do you have a business plan?
How about a growth business plan?
Have you looked at a lot of different ways to grow your business and nothing seems to work?
The right growth business plan could be your answer. If a growth business plan is done the right way it may open up some opportunities you have never thought about before. A growth business plan can be developed many different ways but I would like to discuss a growth business plan that you may have never thought about.
Here is the way I would encourage you to set up a growth business plan:
• Do some dreaming about what you would like your lifestyle to be
• By dreaming decide on an average income you would like to have over the next few years
• Decide how many years out you would like your plan to cover
• Decide how much profit you would like for your business to generate above the income you want for yourself.
• Set up a profit and loss statement of your existing business or your proposed business
• With the right business knowledge and a profit and loss statement you can actually use that data to see what your business would need to do for you to give you that income and profit
• Even better you can determine what size market you would need and even determine whether your market would support your business presently and in the future.
To me a small business is one of the best things you can have if you enjoy operating a business; however, it does require a lot more than just enjoying ownership and running a business. Especially if you are starting a small business and even if you have had a business for many years, you should know what you want for your future. Never guess about your business. You see, without a plan, you are just guessing. We business people work hard and we always continue to hope for the best but when we guess, we're taking a lot of risks. You've probably heard the old saying from an unknown author that says, "If you fail to plan, then plan to fail."
As a matter of fact, did you know that the Small Business Administration says that 50% of small business owners will fail sometime during their first 5 years? There are lots of reasons but one big one is that owners don't have a plan. Another is they have picked a product or service that doesn't have a big enough market to sustain their business and sometime during their future they will run out of customers.
Now as I said, there are many other reasons too.
After graduating from college, I started out in manufacturing as an engineer in a pretty large company and now, 45 years later, retiring as a of Director of Manufacturing, I have discovered an awful lot about business. Not only did I learn and teach a lot about business, I worked with small business owners as well. I've learned that it comes down to this. Too many owners work hard in their business but less on their business.
Do you work on your business as much as you work in your business? Do you ever dream about having a good lifestyle but just haven't quite figured out what to do about it. Have you ever thought about seeing what your business would need to do to give you those dreams? Developing a growth business plan could be the answer.
So, why should you make a growth business plan? Well in simple terms you need to know where you're going and how and when you're going to get there.
Some of the questions a growth business plan might ask you are:
- Are you comfortable that the market wants and is willing to buy your product or service?
- Is your product or service priced so it is competitive in your market?
- What's different about your product or service? Why would a customer purchase it over someone else's?
- Is your market big enough to support your business? What about 15 years into the future?
- If you wanted a better lifestyle, what would your business need to do to give you that lifestyle?
- How much sales would your business need to generate to give you that income?
- How much sales would your business need to generate to give you the income you want 15 years into the future?
- What will be the cost of your labor and material?
- What will your expenses run?
- How much will it cost to overcome the capacity constraints that will occur as your business grows to meet your income requirements?
- Will your profit give you the income you want in the future and at the same time maintain a healthy business for you as well?
If you develop a good Profit & Loss Statement for your existing business for the current year or for the first year of your proposed business, you can use this data to actually project how much sales you would need to yield the income you want and the profit margin you want. You can plan ahead as far as you want. Sound impossible? It's actually pretty simple and can be pretty accurate plan.
A plan like this would show you how much sales your business would need to do, what your fixed and variable expenses would be, what your material cost, labor cost and profit would need to be to provide the income and profit margin you want. You can see pretty quickly if it's possible for you to get your business to that level. I don't know of any better way than to have your business give you the income and profit you want. What's neat is you can determine what you want your income to be and your profit to be over the next few years and develop a plan that can show you exactly what your business would need to do to give you that income and profit.
And with just a little more data you can actually determine how many customers you would need for each year you plan for and how many leads you would need. From that you can actually determine what size market you would need and whether your market is big enough to supply those leads that could be converted into customers.