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For anyone who has ever seen what a business plan looks like, it may seem unimaginable that everyone needs to create one. They look long, complicated, and boring. Do you really need to spend time developing a business plan if no one is going to look at it? You might think you have the business thing all wrapped up without putting anything on paper.

If you do, you’re wrong.

Business plans have a much higher purpose than getting people to write facts and figures for hours. Business plans are meant to be the wake up call you need to have before venturing into a new business.

Why Do I Need A Business Plan? It’s a Small Company

While it may be true that your business is small, there can still be some big decisions to make and big money to spend. A business plan is designed to help you think things though, set goals, and have an outline to follow as you move through the start-up phase. Working through a business plan’s content, you’ll need to understand your company mission, structure, sales goals, marketing plans, and company milestones. Each section forces a business owner to really think about what they are getting into and what it takes to succeed.

I Thought Business Plans Were Only For Investors

While it is true that most anyone investing in a company will want to see a full-fledged business plan prior to handing over cash, just because you are an entrepreneur with no need for outside financial help doesn’t mean you don’t need a little direction in your life. A business plan for your own purposes may not have to be as detailed or time-intensive as if you were handing it over but it still needs to have the pertinent parts in place for you to use as a guide.

Parts of a Business Plan

Section 1 – The Executive Summary
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This section should be written last to capture the interest of readers in 3 pages or less, describing the following:

• Company profile
• Description of product/services
• Size and growth trend of the market
• Outline and background of key management players
• Financing necessities
• Key sales projections (gross profits, net income)
• Proposed purpose of funds
• Proposed exit strategy with projected ROI

Section 2 – Business Description

This section will give more detail about the following items:

• Company Mission Statement
• History of the business idea or current operation
• Company’s proposed or current legal form
• Proposed entry details and timeline for events
• Description of products/services and advantages over competition
• Product research and development information

Section 3 – Market Analyses

This section is meant to convince readers that there is a huge opportunity in the market for the product or service and include:

• Description of the industry
• Targeted markets
•  Marketing research
• Competition
• Barriers to entry

Section 4 – The Management Team

Investors will be very interested in the players who will create a successful venture so include:

• Background and primary responsibilities of the management team
• Organizational structure
• Board of directors/advisors
• Ownership

Section 5 – Operations

This section need to confirm the entrepreneur understands what is involved in the operation of the business and what needs to be done to accomplish this. Be sure to include:

• Marketing Strategy
• Production Plan
• Personnel
• Customer Support
• Future research and development plans

Section 6 – Risks

This section is meant to identify any problems that may have a negative affect on the business. It allows readers to find confidence that there is procedure for addressing such risks by describing

• External Risks
• Internal Risks
• Insurance Provisions
• Contingency Plan

Section 7 – Financial Projections

This section should expose the reader to the financial viability of the project. Actual financial projections need to be configured to prove positive performance including:

• First year financial projections by month
• First year financial projections by quarter
• Five year forecast
• Breakeven analysis
• Ratio analysis
• Exit strategy
• Historical financial data

Section 8 – Appendix

This section can contain an pertinent information and documentation of the business. Some things to include might be:

• Details explaining the tax advantages associated with the proposed structure of the new venture
• Documentation of any completed copyrights, patents, or trademarks      
• Independent reviews by outside agencies
• Interest letters from those wanting to purchase the product/service
• Marketing surveys conducted
• Resumes of the key management team/advisors
• Price list of competitors
• Copies of marketing materials/promotional products
• If the product is an invention, a non-compete agreements should be signed by the management team

 

Tisha Tolar is a freelance writer, entreprenuer, and co-owner of Trifecta Strategies, LLC.  She is also a blogger at EmpoweringMomBlog where she writes about small business and entrepreneurship.

First Part of a Two-Part Posting…

While it is often acknowledged that small business is the engine that largely drives the U.S. economy, small business owners in particular are by and large facing enormous challenges when it comes to providing healthcare coverage for their employees. Even employers that feel this is the right thing to do are finding the rising costs of premiums playing havoc with their bottom line, forcing them to cut back on options and coverage, seek cheaper alternatives, or to eliminate healthcare insurance altogether.

Uncertainty of “Obama-Care”- Is Access to Healthcare a Basic Right?

 

Fundamentally, one of the key issues facing America right now is the issue of managing healthcare costs, and ultimately, who is responsible for providing medical care. Is healthcare a basic human right that government has an obligation to provide for its citizens? Should it be subsidized so that basic health maintenance and preventative care is more accessible and affordable for citizens to pay out of pocket, leaving a societal “safety net” to provide for long-term or catastrophic coverage which would bankrupt all but the wealthiest citizens? Or are we as individuals responsible for our own health, including the costs to maintain it, as well as the choices that we make which can impact wellness and the cost of our care?

This is a very thorny issue, and as is often pointed out, virtually all modern industrialized nations with the United States as a notable exception provide some measure of healthcare coverage for their citizens. In the U.S., healthcare coverage began in earnest in the post World War II era as part of the benefits that many companies paid to workers in addition to their salaries. While this seemed to work for a few decades, it became readily apparent as the 20^th Century drew to a close that as technology progressed, people on average lived longer, and medical costs rose at rates well outstripping inflation that this might no longer be sustainable. Increasingly, premiums paid for healthcare coverage began to consume larger and larger budgets in terms of actual dollars and percentage of expenditures, and many companies were faced with the difficult choice of cutting aspects of existing coverage, such as for an employee’s family, or asking for co-payment of some portion of the premium.

Tax payers assume the burden of the uninsured

Often lost in the debate is the fact that emergency rooms are required by law to treat patients, regardless of ability to pay, yet when these are utilized for non-emergency care by those that lack health insurance (even if by choice) or the means or desire to pay cash out of pocket, costs are driven up for everyone. There’s also an argument to be made that if more focus was placed on preventative care, as well as the need of the individual to maintain a healthy lifestyle through exercise, proper diet and smart food choices, the burden that healthcare places on the economy could be substantially reduced.

Introducing a national government administered healthcare program for all citizens, as currently proposed by the Obama Administration, faces enormous challenges, since Medicare and Medicaid, not to mention Social Security, can hardly be described as paradigms of efficiency or effective use of collective bargaining power and as presently architected, appear to be unsustainable in coming years. Adding yet another sprawling program to this mix will only hasten the problems of honoring the liabilities incurred by such entitlements that politicians have been putting off for years.

Employee or Independent Contractor – The Employer Dodge

 

One “work-around” strategy that many businesses have resorted to employing is hiring personnel as independent contractors, which means that benefits are not paid and taxes of all kinds are not withheld and remain the responsibility of the individual to report to the IRS. While this is certainly a legitimate practice in many cases, there are situations where these contractors work full-time for the company (i.e. they have no other clients) and quite frankly, under IRS guidelines would be deemed employees.

For example, if a worker does not have the authority to decide how work will be done (such as the method of accomplishing the work), that worker is generally considered an employee, as the right to direct and control work is considered the domain of the independent contractor. While it may be convenient for a business to try to classify personnel as independent contractors to avoid payroll, social security and other taxes, and to avoid the burden of providing any healthcare, if discovered by the IRS this can have very negative ramifications.

Following the Need for Healthcare Coverage to Its Logical Conclusion

 

Ultimately, as a society we are faced with a limited number of options to pay for healthcare. We can push this into the domain of government, with some form of government-sponsored program or programs which provide varying levels of coverage to all Americans, but which would require significant tax revenues (and/or reduction in spending in other areas) to achieve. Another option is to place the burden on employers to cover all or at least a portion of a worker’s healthcare costs, perhaps with some form of government subsidy involved, although provisions must then be made for those uninsured due to voluntary or involuntary unemployment. Thirdly, we can insist that healthcare insurance is the responsibility of the individual, and either mandate some form of insurance is carried or expect individuals to cover costs out of pocket, which becomes impractical for serious or prolonged illness or injury.

Is health insurance a right or a privilege?

As a society we must ask ourselves, if everyone indeed has the “right” to healthcare, at what point is that burden shared and how much care can and should be provided over the lifetime of the individual? Is rationing of care truly avoidable when resources are finite and the tax base is only so large, even if taxes were raised to levels that most people might find onerous? Can we really expect “cradle to grave” provision of medical care while avoiding responsibility for living as healthy a lifestyle as our genetic makeup and environmental factors allow?

To be continued…

Jonathan S. Ross is the founder of Los Angeles based Black Rock Consulting, a boutique management and communications consultancy offering strategic planning and development, project management, marketing strategy and copywriting, and creative writing and content development services to start-up, early stage and more mature ventures. He is also the originator of Tao of the Zentropist, a business and personal development blog fusing universal truths found within Eastern and Western wisdom traditions.

An online business presence is certainly not a set-it-and-forget-it type of situation. Developing a website and/or blog for your business requires forethought and dedication to planning and posting. Providing readers (aka your target audience) with valuable information is a priority for all business owners looking to drive the right traffic to a site in an effort to increase sales. The more valuable the information, the more reliable a business appears to potential customers. Visitors want to believe in the expertise and knowledge of a business before they buy in good faith.

Research and thought makes a better blog

Providing valuable content is not the only requirement of a site either. The content you provide needs to also be updated constantly. No one will keep coming back to a stale site where nothing changes. Readers yearning for information often turn to the internet for answers and if your site is providing up-to-date posts, they will come to you time and again to find what they need. You are essentially providing a solution for a problem on a preferably daily basis. Additionally, if comments are allowed on your site, the feedback provided by readers an be invaluable to a business owner.

Consistent blogging helps drive traffic to your website

One of the ultimate goals of your website is to get recognized above your competitors on the internet. Information being picked up by the search engines each day needs to be fresh in order to improve the ranking of your site pages. New content triggers better ratings so posts need to be well-thought out and consistent with what is in the news and the web’s trending topics. It can be a help to outline a list of topics you want to write about to keep the site streamlined and focused. New posts can also be used as a marketing tool through social media outlets. You can promote the link to your daily posts on your Twitter or Facebook accounts to help people easily locate your site while giving yourself some additional ‘face time’ in front of your target audience on the social networking sites.

How to get started with blogging

Starting with an outline of ideas, continue jotting down current events and other relevant topic ideas as they come to you. Depending on your writing skills, you may choose to write a batch of articles at a time. Most site platforms allow you to pre-schedule posts for the future. Make time each week to craft a number of articles and post them all at once. If your writing skills are not up to par, consider employing a freelance writer who specializes in online writing. Quality writing is definitely a plus as the content you produce can be the first impression you make for many new potential customers.

Great blogs start with dedication and commitment

While many business owners begin with the best of intentions when it comes to websites and blogs, a good majority fail to keep up the trend. What is left is an expired waste of space that will more likely turn people off than clue them in to what your business has to offer. Consider your daily postings as part of your required routine much like checking your email or fulfilling sales orders.

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Tisha Tolar is the co-owner of Trifecta Strategies, LLC and one of the lead content writers for Reliable Writers. She has authored thousands of articles on small business and personal finance topics. Tisha has also self-published a fiction novel, ‘Gen X’.

Small business start-up advice and guidance

Business.gov, an initiative by the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) has recently launched a Gov 2.0 community website for entrepreneurs, business professionals and those thinking about starting a business to introduce themselves, get business advice, give business advice and take advantage of the programs provided by the U.S. government to facilitate the growth and development of small businesses across America.

It is widely known that small businesses account for the bulk of innovation and new jobs created in this country.  The United States of America is a land of opportunity founded on the principles of entrepreneurship.  In no other place in the world is it so easy to create a business and be wildly successful regardless of your race, ethnicity, cultural heritage, religion, sex, sexual orientation or age.

When you visit Community.Business.Gov, you will find tools and resources:

• Find loans and grants
• Obtain licenses and permits
• Become energy efficient

In addition, this website provide a forum for comments and questions.  Some of the popular discussion topics include:

• Introduce yourself
• Starting and registering a business
• Self employed and home based businesses
• Loans, grants and taxes
• Government contracting
• Government resources for businesses

Visit this website and let us know if you found it helpful.