It’s absolutely time to be thinking about:

• What do YOU want to do?

• What do YOU want to achieve?

• What is success to YOU?

When you begin to understand what it important to you rather than what is important to your partner, children, parents or even friends and colleagues, then you can begin to develop your own unique style that defines who you are and what your business is and watch as people turn around their views and admire you for who you are.

Life is About Choices and the Decisions We Make

Find Your Higher Purpose

To find your natural style, you must find out what your passion is. To find out what your passion is then you need to work out your vision, your values and your principles.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is a perfect way to start finding out what your vision, values and principles are. It helps us find our higher purpose and therefore our motivation.

Originally created in the 1950’s as a five level tier it was recently updated in the 1990s to an eight level model.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Our needs have a direct influence over our actions. A young child has a very different need for love from an adult who may still need love but is more motivated by being successful or having a lot of money. When one of our needs are satisfied, another need emerges and once that is satisfied (according to Maslow) another new and even higher need emerges, and so on.

Maslow’s Self-Actualizing Characteristics

• keen sense of reality – aware of real situations – objective judgement, rather than subjective

• see problems in terms of challenges and situations requiring solutions, rather than see problems as personal complaints or excuses

• need for privacy and comfortable being alone

• reliant on own experiences and judgement – independent – not reliant on culture and environment to form opinions and views

• not susceptible to social pressures – non-conformist

• democratic, fair and non-discriminating – embracing and enjoying all cultures, races and individual styles

• socially compassionate – possessing humanity

• accepting others as they are and not trying to change people

• comfortable with oneself – despite any unconventional tendencies

• a few close intimate friends rather than many surface relationships

• sense of humour directed at oneself or the human condition, rather than at the expense of others

• spontaneous and natural – true to oneself, rather than being how others want

• excited and interested in everything, even ordinary things

• creative, inventive and original

• seek peak experiences that leave a lasting impression

Find Your Vision

It is quite natural for your visions to change over time and that can apply to your own personal vision or your business vision. Whatever your vision is, make sure you make it as big and real as possible.

“The mind is the limit. As long as the mind can envision the fact that you can do something, you can do it – as long as you really believe 100 per cent.” – Arnold Schwarzenegger

What are Your Values?

When starting a business, your vision and values define what that business is and how it operates. Therefore you need to know what you truly want out of life and how your business will fit into that vision.

You need to know what you are naturally good at, how many hours per week that you want to work and how big you want your business to get.

If you are finding it difficult to know what your values are, do the following exercise.

?  What is it that I admire most about in my best friend or partner?

?  Write down the first five things that come to mind.

?   When you know what these five things are, use these as a starting point to add on more things that come to mind about what you value most in people and yourself.

What are Your Principles?

In teaching circles, there is a common belief that there are universal principles that we should all follow. These are:

• How we treat others
• How we operate
• Make a difference – either for local charity or volunteering as a teacher helper
• Pride in whatever you do
• Continue to learn and grow and then help others to learn and grow

Putting Your Vision, Values and Principles Together To Create Your Unique Personal and Business Style

Now that we have defined what our vision, values and principles are, we can create our unique personal and business style; one that will completely reflect who we are, what we represent and one that we can be truly proud of.

Julian Burton put it so eloquently:

“You have got to be authentic, remain true to yourself because there is no greater satisfaction than doing this. Surround yourself with good people, people you can trust, people that are honest; this is critical. Remember you have to have the fierce conversations; I’m really big on this. I mean the right conversations, with the right people at the right time. Get a handle on this and it will really make a difference. Finally to sum up, you always have to be grateful for what you’ve got, and always have the attitude that you can give.”

Once you have all of that together be sure to stick to being your authentic self in every situation in both your business and private life.

Don’t feel that you have to pretend to be somebody else in order to get someone to like you, that will only form a false relationship and if you truly want to get the best out of someone, they are going to work out who you truly are in the first place, and probably love you more!

Equally, don’t try and change who other people are either. If they are not a good match for you or your business, or if they have a set of values that are not congruent with your own, then go and find somebody else who is. There are many perfect relationships out there so don’t try and force something that isn’t meant to be.

By trying to work on a business or personal relationship that really won’t work in the long run, think about whether you are more focussed on the outcome of that relationship rather than the person themselves. There is absolutely no need to work together if you both have very different goals in mind and you could end up feeling taken for granted or used.

Ask yourself:

• What is my purpose in this situation?
• What am I trying to accomplish?
• What do I need to do first in order to accomplish my purpose?
• How does this differ from my partner? (whether business or personal)
• Does my stated agenda differ from my real one? If so, am I willing to admit to my real one? If not, why not?

If that last answer is difficult, then perhaps you are trying to fight against who you truly are and may need to remind yourself that your style is uniquely you – life is so much easier and happier that way!

It takes a special kind of person to become an entrepreneur; it certainly isn’t something that is suited to the majority of people but if you’re reading this, I’m guessing you at least have a very deep interest in finding out whether becoming an entrepreneur is for you and finding out whether your business could benefit from an entrepreneurial mind.

Let’s start by running down through a list of common traits of an entrepreneur and see if most or all of them resonate with you:

Confidence: Entrepreneurs are born looking on the bright side of things and always see the glass as half full. They have an inner belief that they can do it despite other’s seeing them as irrational dreamers. Of course there can be fear and a little doubt, but they carry on regardless just knowing that it will work out with a bit more perseverance.

Charisma: Entrepreneurs have a gift that inspires other people to be the best they can be and succeed too. They are not only confident that they can be successful; they absolutely know that you have it in you too! For this reason, they tend to have a following of people who admire and respect them and who will take action based on the support and encouragement given by the entrepreneur.

Energy: Entrepreneurs have bags of it! You won’t see a true entrepreneur slumped in front of the TV at night or struggling to get out of bed in the morning. They appear to be driven by adrenalin.

Obsession: Entrepreneurs eat, breathe and sleep (whey they do sleep) their business. It’s a topic of conversation wherever they go which may bore the tail of some people but they also make some great connections that way.

Ambition: Without a doubt, entrepreneurs are ambitious but it’s not the general ambition of a dreamer who just wants to be rich. An entrepreneur’s ambition is about changing the lives of not only themselves but of others and of the industry they are in and even of the world. If they feel they can make a change, they will do their best to achieve it.

Rushed: Entrepreneurs won’t wait until the right moment comes along to do something – they know that the right moment will never present itself so they make the right moment NOW! They don’t just say they are going to do something; almost before the word is out, the action is already in process.

Sounding good so far??

You might not be too keen on these next ones but honestly it can’t be all good! These are the less attractive but common traits of an entrepreneur:

Arrogance: Entrepreneurs know that they are good at what they do and heck, they are probably good at everything. They know to be good at everything they need a great support team behind them who are good at what they do too and even though an entrepreneur knows that they would struggle without such a support team, they also believe that they have to remain at the helm of every action and guide them to success. Sometimes though, because those helms can get so large in number, they are not always focused exactly where they should be. This can result in a confused team who have clear instruction one minute and left to their own devices the next. Both parties can then be left frustrated; the entrepreneur wonders why something hasn’t been done and the team are left scratching their head as to when a particular instruction was left to them or when they were given the authority to use their own judgement to move forward with a project.

Manipulative: Entrepreneurs know how to use people to their own advantage. Yes they will provide support, inspiration and encouragement but often there is a darker side to that charisma.

Igniters: Entrepreneurs are great at starting the flame of a new idea but rarely do they see it through to the end. Full of great ideas, the entrepreneur absolutely loves brainstorming and getting a room full of people buzzing with excitement….and then almost immediately the plan is put in place, they get onto the next great idea which leads us to..

Lack of Focus: If you look at some of the great traits of an entrepreneur such as energy and obsession, you can see that having all that constant drive and unusual outlook on life, the entrepreneur can be often thought of as the little silver ball in a pinball machine, constantly bouncing around ideas and projects, getting little bits done here and there but never really sitting still long enough to complete any course. Clever entrepreneurs recognise this though and force themselves to slow down and see things through to the end or find someone who can help them to do that.

Impatient: Probably because they have so many great ideas bounding around in their heads and their admittance to having a lack of focus, entrepreneurs just want to get things done so that they can move onto the next project. Sometimes this impatience can cause projects to fail because they have missed out on an important component. Again, they need to force themselves to slow down a bit and not take any shortcuts.

So if you do truly recognise within you the good, bad and the ugly traits of an entrepreneur and are prepared to work with your strengths and weaknesses, welcome to the world of entrepreneurship!

It has to be said in our favour that entrepreneurs do truly change the world in a great way. They provide a lot of opportunities and wealth for a great number of people. They bring out the best in people and inspire others to make great changes for the benefit of others too. If it wasn’t for entrepreneurs, we will still be looking for those igniters of the world that have brought us warmth, shelter, food, education and the iPhone!

An Entrepreneurial Business?

Is it absolutely possible to run your own business yet not be an entrepreneur? The answer is yes!

You may have read the above and thought, ‘well, that’s not really who I am so maybe I shouldn’t get into business’ but don’t worry, being a business owner and an entrepreneur are not necessarily the same thing.

While a business owner still needs to be ‘accountable for the inherent risks and the outcome’, if you are perfectly happy running a small enterprise where the only person who is really affected by how well your business succeeds is you, then there is absolutely no reason to think that you can’t grow a profitable business.

There are plenty of businesses whose owners are happy to remain sole-traders and do all of the work that constitutes working in and working on your business. They stick to the same small niche and are perfectly happy with what they do. Book-keepers and music tutors are two that immediately spring to mind – they are likely to feel that although what they do is extremely important and satisfying to them and their clients, they don’t necessarily want to open up a huge accountancy practice or create a symphonic orchestral society!

The world needs every type of business owner and entrepreneur!

So if you have a great idea that you think could work and turn into a brilliant business, we at Miss Independence will certainly be here to encourage you along the way!

A Word About Mentoring & The Business Owner or Entrepreneur

Before I finish this guide, I want to share something with you that I feel is extremely important whether you are a business owner and/or an entrepreneur.

For any business to be a true success, I believe that finding yourself a really good mentor is the absolute key. I cannot think of one company or successful business owner who hasn’t made use of at least one good mentor.

A mentor is worth their weight in gold and can make all the difference between an idea’s success and failure. They are someone who you can turn to whom you can ask questions, ask for an opinion or help you find the answer to a problem and while you may be thinking that you have that in your partner or best friend; those closest to you will not always be looking at your enterprise in the right way. They may not always have the skills or experience to tell you if they think something will work or not and often they may not want to upset or disappoint you if you are clearly eager to try something out but they see a major flaw in the idea.

A good mentor will not only have experience in running their own business, they are also likely to have some fantastic connections that can help you get a step up in the ladder of success. They can help you find specialist advice and best of all you will have the endorsement for your elevator pitch. A serious business person is taking you seriously.

Mentors absolutely enjoy what they do. They love to see people who are at a level of business where they themselves were perhaps not all that long before. They understand the struggles and overwhelm that every new business owner goes through, yet they know that with the right encouragement and support, you can grow your business beyond expectation.

A lot of people starting out in business struggle to find the right mentor for them. There are some people who would love the idea of being a mentor but really don’t want to put the time or effort into helping you, if you find someone like that let them go quickly as they will only waste your time.

This is why we at Miss Independence encourage you to take a look around some of the great mentors that we have here and work out who would be the best fit for you and your business.

Contact us if you would like more information on mentorship.

Your marketing strategy helps to define what the goals for your business are and the dream you have for its future.

Here are just a few goals that may be relevant to you: 

• Make more money
• Grow your client base
• Develop more opportunities
• Create more products

It’s great to want these goals but too many people setting out in business have no real idea of what it is they are hoping to achieve in the long run. Many can speak of ‘wanting to grow the business’ but what does that really mean? What would you define as success?

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Starting your own business as an owner or entrepreneur for the first time can be a very exciting yet daunting and overwhelming time in your life. If you’ve started out as a sole-trader or solopreneur, then you very quickly begin to realize that despite the fact that you have good business ideas and the intention was to do everything yourself, that idea is an almost impossible job to succeed at.

Along with just getting to grips with running a business, you need to be able to wear so many different hats that you end up spending most if not all of your time working to keep up with industry news, figuring out how to work your website, writing content and marketing material, dealing with suppliers and bookkeeping (if you’ve actually managed to find a client and provide a service in amongst all of that!).

So you soon begin to realize that you do need to take on help – they may be paid employees or you may decide to outsource some of your work to freelancers. Either way, you really need to know that you can get along with your worker(s) so that you get the best out of them and they are happy and willing to give you their best.

This is where the idea of personality profiling comes in. If you can find people to help you that you know suit the work that you are asking them to do and also suit your personality, you have a much better chance of succeeding in building a harmonious working relationship together.

Personality profiling is sometimes referred to as psychometric testing which measures an individual’s personality in a given situation. It doesn’t assess how clever they are or their ability to do a job but rather their behavior or attitude towards a particular situation.

When someone reacts in their most common and comfortable behavior to a stimulus, that is considered their social and intellectual profile to that particular type of challenge that has just been put before them.

To determine someone’s personality profile, a questionnaire is usually taken to which there are no right or wrong answers; the assessor is simply using the answers as a means to assess the person’s behavioral patterns and natural or ingrained habits.

Overall, there are sixteen recognized and distinct personality types. They all have their own characteristics which can each be identified as individual personalities – you don’t need to find someone who matches your personality; if you did, you would find that you couldn’t bring new ideas and ways of working together to the table. Who you ideally need to find is someone who compliments your personality and creates a balanced outlook to the business.

There are a number of personality profiling tests that you can access online but it’s not always a good idea to just delve into any of them, I suggest you learn a bit more about personality profiling before you do that – we can give you more information on our site.

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To get the absolute best from your team and get the best out of its performance, we need to figure out how to improve the team dynamics by getting the best out of its members, including their leader….you!!

By allowing each team member to work to their best within their individual job role and best fit within their environment, you are sure to build that harmonious team. Personality profiling can help you determine what that best role and environment is.

“A small number of people with complementary skills committed to a common purpose, performance goals and ways of working together for which they hold themselves mutually accountable.”      (Katzenbach & Smith, The Wisdom of Teams)

What is Personality Profiling? 

Personality profiling is sometimes referred to as psychometric testing which measures an individual’s personality in a given situation. It doesn’t assess how clever they are or their ability to do a job but rather their behaviour or attitude towards a particular situation.

When someone reacts in their most common and comfortable behaviour to a stimulus, that is considered their social and intellectual profile to that particular type of challenge that has just been put before them.

To determine someone’s personality profile, a questionnaire is usually taken to which there are no right or wrong answers; the assessor is simply using the answers as a means to assess the person’s behavioural patterns and natural or ingrained habits.
 

Personality Types

Overall, there are sixteen recognised and distinct personality types. They all have their own characteristics which can each be identified as individual personalities which are shown in the table below:

Can We Force a Change Our Personality Type?

Without a doubt, people’s behaviour can and does change frequently. We can be influenced by our environment or other people and this is why we often refer to someone’s sudden change in behaviour by saying that that ‘there must have been a reason for it’.

If we know what the causes are that make us change our behaviour, we can use it to our advantage.

 Sometimes we are forced to change our behaviour; it might not always be appropriate to act in a way that is more to our nature in given situations. There may be a time for instance, where you have to take the lead in a situation when you would normally shy away and let someone else shine.

While we might not be exactly comfortable having to take charge and act as the extravert rather than the introvert, we as humans are adaptable and if the situation calls for it then it can be done, albeit we may be a little bit less convincing if we haven’t practiced but with that practice, we could soon ‘act like a pro’!

This can help in a team situation if we have to adapt our natural reactions and behaviours in order to carry out our job or work within a team situation. In fact, practicing differing behaviours works to our advantage as it helps to give us insight into why other people act and react the way that they do. This in turn can influence the way that we act towards them by realising that they are not necessarily trying to get out of making a decision or taking over a project in order to annoy you!

So What Are The Benefits of Team Profiling?

The last thing that you want to do as a business owner or team leader is to constantly be changing the team members even though you know they have the competence to carry out the duties you have asked of them.

Personality profiling can be a means of determining how you can get the best out of them without pulling out your hair. You can’t absolutely determine an individual’s behaviour but you can certainly have a good idea of what their natural response would normally be.

Another benefit is that it can be used when interviewing your team in the first place and this is where it is often used though not used as the deciding factor. The way an interviewee conducts themselves at interview along with their qualifications, history and past experience should be a much greater factor in determining who is most qualified and suitable to the role in which they are applying.

Once employed, personality profiling can address an employee’s greatest needs by really helping an individual thrive in their new role.

Their natural behaviours are understood and can be used to great advantage within the company. Two employees can have an equal capability and qualification as their peer but you, as an employer can determine who to put forward in a situation that needs a quick answer and who to put to use on a project that needs a deeper level of investigation before a decision is made.

That kind of insight is invaluable in the workplace. When we know what the individuals in our teams fear, what motivates them, what they prefer to do and how they tend to react, we can almost predict what will happen when we pick Joe rather than Janet to do the job.

That’s great, but isn’t it just about getting to know and build a relationship with your team?

Of course we all should make an effort to get to know your team and build a great working relationship with them but until you even know what your own personality profile is, it can be difficult to understand why people don’t see the world the way that you do. It’s not that you are right and they are wrong, you just see and act differently in different situations.

How often, for instance, have you heard how five people can see the same accident yet have five different versions about what happened and what or who was to blame?

It’s our perception of what has happened that has made the difference to our understanding of what happened and it may be totally different to what actually took place!!
 

Taking a Personality Profile Assessment May Be For You AND Your Team If:

• You wonder why you can’t get someone to see your point of view

• You struggle to understand why certain employees threaten to leave every time you initiate a change of working practice

• You have an employee who constantly demands your attention and takes up most of your time on what is often petty matters

• Every time you ask for an opinion, people are reluctant to give it

• You struggle to fill certain roles within your team

• You are brilliant at getting the job done but quickly forget where you put the paperwork

• You struggle to get your team working together even on simple tasks, yet individually they work well

But often the reality for many small to medium sized business owners and entrepreneurs is that when they are so busy providing services and products for their clients that they neglect their marketing needs. This is a bad idea!

What you will find happen is that as soon as you get over that busy period of work, you breathe a sigh of relief and then suddenly realize that you have a huge lag before you can bring in the next round of clients and that can send you into panic mode grabbing at any and every piece of business that you can which might not be the right thing for you or your business in the long run. It’s a stressful way to work and you will appear to be the ‘headless chicken’ all the time, either scrambling to get work done or scrambling to just get work to do!

No matter how busy you are, you need to always be employing some kind of marketing one way or another all of the time, every day, every week and every month of the year. A small amount at the beginning or end of each day at a bare minimum is all that it really takes even if it just means that you keep in touch with your past clients, search around the internet for any new opportunities that arise or work through your marketing strategy ideas to try out some new things.

You need to be marketing both your business and yourself.

But what if you don’t have a marketing strategy in place yet? Your marketing strategy helps to define what the goals for your business are and the dream that you have for its future.

Putting your marketing strategy together becomes easy when you know who it is you need to be marketing yourself and your business to. You need to carry out some market research to find out who your target market is – it’s not good enough to say ‘anyone who will buy my products or services’ – it’s only when you get really specific and think about what your most ideal client represents that you can get your marketing strategy concise and effective.

You should be thinking about their gender, age, occupation, income, relationship status and shopping habits – where are they hanging out? Is it on the popular social media networks or are they on niched forums? Perhaps they aren’t online at all!

Once you know who they are and where they are, your marketing strategy is already well underway!

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In an attempt to keep their heads above water, employers of large firms are putting huge pressure on their employees to work longer and longer hours for less and less pay – I have heard of so many people who have been told that if they want to continue in their employment, then they need to reapply for their ‘job’ and expect a lower pay if successful! Of course, the truth is often covered up with excuses that ‘your position is no longer available but there is this other one that we have’ routine. It just doesn’t seem fair for those loyal employees who suddenly find them self fighting for their livelihoods against a much younger, less-experienced candidate who costs less to hire.

But the good news is that small and medium-sized businesses are becoming the lifeblood of the economy. They are employing people and generating national wealth that the public sector and larger companies are struggling to compete with. Business start ups and entrepreneurs are becoming more and more supported not only by government bodies but also by their own friends and family who often give up their own time and invest what they can financially to see that the new enterprise is a successful venture.

It’s not wise though to suddenly dive into a great business idea without taking the time out to create a detailed business plan – unfortunately this is the point where a lot of fledgling business owners and entrepreneurs come unstuck. Don’t be one of them!

Take a look online and you’ll see numerous websites and guides devoted to writing business plans and your local bookstore will also have more than their fair share sitting on the bookshelves. These are of enormous help but there is no need to get overwhelmed in thinking that your business plan needs to be almost an encyclopaedia sized book. There is absolutely no need to make the process any more difficult than it should be. The first and most important question that you should be asking yourself is ‘Who are you writing the business plan for?’

If you need funding for your project, you need to be writing with that in mind – what would a potential investor be looking for? No doubt they will need a Revenue Projection to include sales forecasts and costs, but they also want to see how well you’ve planned the whole idea out; they want to know how confident you are that the business will succeed before they put their trust in you. If you’re wishy washy with the ideas and numbers then don’t be surprised if they say ‘no’ and walk away.

If you don’t need funding, it’s still a good idea to write out your plan – after all, you need to know where you are going or you are not going to know when you have got there! If you intend to keep your business small and simple, a one page business plan may be all that you need with a small and concise outline of what you want for your business under the following headings: Vision, Mission, Objectives, Strategies and Actions.

And even if you do need to write something with more detail, this simple one page business plan is a great thing to have in a visual position as you sit at your desk – it keeps you motivated and on track.

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 One of the first tasks and also one of the most important tasks when starting any business is to take the time to write out your business plan.

After all, if you don’t know where you’re headed, how will you know when you get there?

Take a look online and you’ll see numerous websites and guides devoted to writing business plans and your local bookstore will also have more than their fair share sitting on the bookshelves. But there is absolutely no need to make the process any more difficult than it should be following this easy to follow guide.

When sitting down to draft up your business plan, take time to think of the three following things:

1    Who Are You Writing The Business Plan For?

You may be wondering why you need to write a business plan in the first place; after all you may be thinking that you are the only one ever going to see it. It is quite possible that that may be true but this is really the one opportunity for you to sit down and really think about your business, its implications and the assumptions about your business that you may have made. Without thinking about the risks involved in taking certain strategies, you could run into trouble before you know it.

If you require funding for your business venture, your potential investor will certainly want to have a look at your business plan to ensure that they are investing in something that is worthwhile to them. This is where your business plan becomes your biggest asset and sales tool to raise the finance that you need.

2   Avoid Procrastination

A business plan is not an exact science of how your business will succeed and develop. There will be constant changes to your business plan that need to be made as your business grows over time and also when you need to take other uncontrollable factors into consideration like a change in law or tax. For this reason, there is absolutely no need to plan your business right down to the last cent. If you try and do this, you could find yourself taking forever to complete the plan and getting more and more frustrated with yourself that it still isn’t quite right. This could also put you off writing it altogether if it just seems too hard to get it perfect. So don’t sit there worrying over every last detail and not really getting anywhere; think about the most important aspects of your business that you need to get down on paper and just write it!

3  Adapt and Change

To continue further with what I have mentioned above, a business plan should continually evolve and grow with you and your ideas. Like an airplane flying to its destination, there needs to be little adjustments here and there on the way; it is never a straight flight path. Almost as soon as the plan is finished, there will be aspects of it that are already out of date. Successful business owners know though, that you need to continually adapt and change to your customer or client needs and the market that you serve. So don’t throw the plan into the bottom drawer of your filing cabinet; make sure that it is something that is to hand, read and updated on a regular basis.

What Will Your Potential Investor Be Looking For?

For many, the purpose of writing up a business plan is to raise funds for their intended business so it’s important to think about what a potential  investor may be looking for when presented with a business plan.

The first thing that they will assess (and they will have decided this within two minutes of you entering the room) is whether or not they think you have what it takes to make the business work.

They will likely form their opinion on how you are dressed, how confident you are acting, what relevant experience you have in your industry, whether you have thought about your strengths and weaknesses and addressed them and ultimately they will want to know whether or not you really have the desire and drive to see it through.

They will then think about whether or not the business concept is exciting to them. This will again be a fairly quick decision of around 4 minutes or so.

You can’t force them to get excited but what you can do is to try and put forward to them exactly why your idea is different to the other three courier services they have seen this week. I’m sure they will be much more interested if you state that you compete in triathlons and know your intended delivery area like the back of your hand therefore you will be able to make your deliveries at twice the speed of your competitors!

And then lastly, they will spend the rest of the time with you (around 40 minutes) deciding whether or not they are likely to see their money again!

Well, this is where the next part of our lesson comes in, the revenue projections!…

Revenue Projections

Your revenue projections come down to one thing; cash flow. The money that comes in to the business and the money that flows out again.

The total amount of cash that you receive depends on the price that you sell your products or services for and the number that you can sell. It is important not to set your price by how much you can produce the product or service for, rather it should be determined by what your customers are willing to pay taking into consideration of course that you need to cover costs.

Sales Forecasts

The number of products or services that you sell will come down to how big your market is and how many products or services you can physically produce per day. Before sitting down to writing your business plan, you really should already know through testing and research that there is a big enough target market for your services and what they would be willing to pay.

Costs

To put it simply, there are two types of costs; your direct costs and your overhead costs.

Direct costs are what it costs you as the service or product provider to create the product both in raw material costs as well as the cost of your time which is an important point to factor in.

Overhead costs are the fixed costs that any business owner has such as marketing costs, telephone and internet connection, professional fees, rent etc. There will be times of the year when your business may be slower than at other times and so you need to think about these yearly costs of operation so that you have enough cashflow to survive leaner months.

Once you have determined how many you could sell, you also need to determine how many you must sell to meet these overhead costs. What is your break-even price? What is your break-even level of sales?

Now that we have the reason why we need a business plan and who it is for, it is time to look at a simple checklist to see if we have everything we need to put it all together.

Simple Business Plan Checklist

A simple business plan consists of six key components:

1.  Brief Summary of your Idea

• Explain what your market is and what your unique idea is.
• Forecast of profits
• Longer term prospects
• Finance required

2.You and Your Team

• Your track record and key achievements
• Who will be helping you in your business venture?
• Strengths and weaknesses analysis
• How you will overcome your weaknesses?

3. Your Market

• What your market is and what needs is it servicing
• Your target market, its current size and your predictions of growth
• Detailed analysis of the niche that your product or service will fit
• Who your competitors are and how you will compete against them
• What is your USP (Unique Selling Points) of your product or service?
• A SWOT analysis: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats

4. Sales and Marketing

• Price of your product/service
• Where will you be operating from?
• Who will be doing the selling?
• What plans for promotion of your products or services do you have?

5. Operations Management

• Who are your suppliers?
• What equipment do you need?

6. Financials

• What are your forecasts? (provide evidence)
• Monthly cash flow forecast for the first year and quarterly forecast for the second year
• Profit and loss forecast
• Balance sheet

It’s always a good idea to keep a shortened one page business plan to hand on your desk and look at it on a weekly, if not daily basis to stay on track of your goals.

1 PAGE BUSINESS PLAN EXAMPLE

Vision

A vision provides the inspiration for both your daily operations and your strategic decisions. e.g  Within the next three years, grow (your business) into a $(  ) annual company that specializes in (your specialist product or service).

Mission

The mission statement should be a clear and succinct representation of the enterprise’s purpose for existence. It should incorporate socially meaningful and measurable criteria addressing concepts such as the moral/ethical position of the enterprise, public image, the target market, products/services, the geographic domain and expectations of growth and profitability.

Objectives

1st year revenue -
2nd year revenue -
3rd year revenue -

Strategies

List 3 to 4 different strategies that you will use to reach your companies objectives

Actions

What three or four action points do you need to do now in order to reach your objectives?

Take at least one day out of your ‘bus-i-ness’ to create your business plan, then keep it accessible so you can adjust and grow the plan and keep on track.

I added an action steps check list quarter by quarter for my first year to the Business Plan for Miss Independence.  I found this to be very helpful in long term planning and staying patient and on track.  I also found that it helped me when I occasionally felt overwhelmed by the enormity of the project.

Good luck and have fun!

It’s absolutely time to be thinking about:

• What do you want to do?
• What do you want to achieve?
• What is success to you?

Don’t worry about what aspirations and ideas other people may have for you and your business because until you are working to your own core values and motives, you will never be truly happy, successful and know what your soul purpose in business is.

When you begin to understand what it important to you rather than what is important to your partner, children, parents or even friends and colleagues, then you can begin to develop your own unique style that defines who you are and what your business is and watch as people turn around their views and admire you for who you are.

The one thing that I really want to emphasise to anybody starting out in business, but I think it is essentially more apt for women, is that you need to be kind to yourself when setting up and running your new business. It’s perfectly alright to expect a lot from yourself – that’s the way that goals are achieved, but don’t set yourself unrealistic goals or you are setting yourself up for disappointment. Don’t be afraid to ask for help if you need it. Many women battle on without asking for help afraid that it shows that they are not coping – that is absolutely not true – no one can survive in business alone – everyone, if the biggest business owners and woman entrepreneurs of the world like Oprah and Anita Roddick have an entourage of helpers both behind and beside them all the way. They can’t do it on their own.

You need to be able to find that confidence and respect for yourself and your unique talents and values – they are just as good as anybody else’s. If you act with integrity and professionalism, you will receive respect, integrity and professionalism in return. People will look up to you as the woman who had the confidence and wisdom to go out there and get what she wants and deserves out of life – and from that your reputation and your style will be what people know and remember you for.

Not everyone has the nerve to start up their own business and continue with it when times get tough but you will find that the more problems (opportunities) that you can work through, the more confident you become and the natural you will shine through.

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