1 Simple Rule For Business Planning

Most business ideas come out of thin air, are thought of over night and typically not much more thought is put into it.

That is, until that “over night” idea goes into effect and a business is made. Or at least started.

But when starting out, one of the major steps you can’t afford to skip is business planning.

One Simple Rule For Business Planning

The only thing you need to know when it comes to planning your small business startup are to be answered in the below questions:

What is your business? (the idea)
Why do you want to do it? (the problem)
How will it help? (the solution)
How do you know? (the research)
How will you make it work? (the path)
What do you need? (the need)

Once you have the answer to the above 6 questions you will have everything you need to create a business plan.

And we all know that a business plan is the key to success to any new small business.

What is your business?

By answering the question, that is the business idea you are basically summarizing the other questions. If you are a motivated individual, you would love to talk about your business idea and explain in detail why your idea is the best!

What do you want to to it?

Usually most business ideas start off because there is a problem that exists that you want to fix. Think about the when Henry Ford made the first vehicle. The problem was that he needed to create a better way of transportation other than horses. So he found a problem (horses) and he decided to fix it with his solution (the car). Do the same for your own business idea. What is the problem you are trying to solve?

How will it help?

Just as explained above, once you have figured out a problem that your business is “created” from, you will need to figure out if your business idea is the solution to that problem, and how?

How do you know?

While it is great that you are happy about your business idea and you’ve put your life savings into it and you know that people are going to line up to buy your product or service, you need to hold up for a minute and do some research. Do you know who your customers? Where do these customers find solutions to the problem now (before you)?. How much do they pay for the solution? How will your solution be different?…and many more questions. This is where you need to come back down to earth and really dig deep and do a lot of research to figure out if your business idea will actually be a good enough solution to the existing problem that customers are willing to accept.

How will you make it work?

You really need to prove that your solution works before you get out there and start up your business. Think about how you will provide the product or service, what happens if there is an issue and think of everything that could go right, and wrong. Think outside of the box.

What do you need?

Your needs are key here. Do you need help producing your product or service, do you need funding, staff, marketing…etc This is where you figure out your needs.

Once you have the above 6 questions answered, you are ready to put that good information into a business plan,

Once you have a business plan ready, you are ready for the next step. Searching for funding!