Business Plans

If you want to run/own your own Business, one of the best ways to start, is to create your Business Plan. Sit and write/type down your idea.

Write down all the steps it will take to make your idea work, put them into order and start to organise your Business Plan.

Writing down a plan/idea is being constructive and putting your idea into writing, is a positive step to making your business real. You need to list all the steps it takes to start your business, then write down the way you are going to run your business (your procedures), your networking/marketing plans, your bookkeeping, your goals and values, a mission statement, etc put it all down in writing. This is your working Business Plan.

You will look at this document often, updating it as your plans change and they will, as you learn more and more about running your business. Your Business Plans should be one of your first tools you start to do, to run your business. Without a plan your business could be already up for failure. Document and make it real, this should be one of your first steps to starting up your business and this is for all businesses.

Searching the Internet you will find lots of templates and details available about Business Plans, lots of people have wrote steps that you need/can follow to write up your plan, details that you need to include. Do the Internet research about Business Plans and you will find it is not a difficult task but rather an easy task to complete and it is one step closer to running your own Business. I think this is a task that puts people off starting their own businesses, they think it is difficult but once started, it soon becomes easy.

You need the following within your plan:

· Start up structure, office set up, launch business, organise press release, advertising etc.
· Business Structure, how you are going to run your business, procedures. A business runs better when there are steps and procedures in place. (Steps to do your work, steps to do your books, steps to actually run your business).
· Steps to obtain Clients, how are you going to obtain clients, what steps do you need to take. Target Market, which type of clients are you going to market your services too, have some idea of this. How are you going to do this, A business will not run with no clients.
· Mission Statement, logo, bi-line
· Goals, Values and Objectives
· Marketing Strategy
· Networking Strategy
· Advertising Strategy
· Products and Services, what services will you offer clients, list your services.
· Pricing Structure/Budget
· Skills, Training, Education, Resources
· Back up plan for failure of equipment that you will use to run your office
· Contacts, keep database of all your contacts and clients. Build this up over time.

With a business plan in place, it gives your business structure and a starting point.

Alison Fourie (Virtual Assistant), AMF Typing Services cc, South Africa. A Virtual Office providing Typing Services