Written by SpotACheetahCoach | 20 March 2012

The executive summary is the most important section of a business plan and you should really know how to write the executive summary if you want people to read your business plan.  After reading the executive summary of your business plan, the reader should be able to clearly understand the business that you’re in, how it is operated, the competition and the differentiators and its current financial situation.

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Written by SpotACheetahCoach | 20 March 2012

When thinking of writing a business plan for small business, most entrepreneurs are faced with the question, “How to Write a Business Plan?”  The answer lies in knowing your business inside out and knowing the structure of a good business also called business plan outline.  Here we present an easy and simple business plan outline that can be used to write a business plan for businesses of all types.

Business Plan Outline

Executive Summary

The Executive Summary is the first section of the business plan, but, you will usually write it last after writing all other sections of the plan.  The Executive Summary provides the reader an overview of your business, its history and future plans.  The success of your business plan often depends on how interesting the Executive Summary is.......Read more

Market, Opportunity & Competition Analysis

In this section, you will describe the business opportunity, define the target market including its size, demographics, trends and special characteristics.  You will also need to provide an overview of the industry at large, analyze the competition and understand regulatory and other market conditions...........Read more

Business & Product and Service Lineup

In the business description part, you will give the reader an overview of the business you’re in and what will make the business successful.  You will also describe the products and services that the business offers to the customers along with the details like the development stage of the product or service, its benefit to the customers and its competitive strengths........Read more

Management & Organization

The management and organization structure provides details about the key members of the management team, organizational hierarchy and key positions in the organization.  You will also describe the key roles and provide details of who is going to man those roles.  Apart from the management and ownership of responsibilities, you will also need to provide the legal structure of your organization and details of its ownership including the business type, owners and type of ownership........Read more

Marketing Plan

The Marketing Plan section will provide the reader insight into your sales and marketing activities.  You will need to provide details about each element of marketing mix in your business i.e. the Product, Price, Place or Distribution and Promotion.  You will define how you are going to reach out to the potential customers and how you will make sure that the product is available to the channels accessible to your target market.......Read more

Operating Plan

The Operating Plan section of the business plan is used to define the business operations process, describe the location of the business and land, building, plant, machinery, equipments and human resources required to successfully deliver products and services to the customer.  This section also provides details about other elements of the delivery or manufacturing process such as the suppliers and the core delivery process itself.......Read more

Financial Plan

The financial plan or financial management section provides the reader an insight into the financial history of the business, if available, and the future financial projections.  You will need to include your detailed financial statements such as the balance sheet, pro forma profit and loss account and cash flow statement for the next three to five year depending on the requirements.

Apart from the core elements of the business plan outline mentioned above, you will also have other data, information, and research reports that you will need to keep handy.  You can use the appendix section to provide all the additional data and information.

A good business plan outline is just meant to guide you on how to write a business plan; however, each business plan is unique and you will need to decide on the importance and relevance of each section according to the needs of your business.......Read more

Written by SpotACheetahCoach | 20 March 2012

One vital lesson for entrepreneurs and business people (as well as employees and students) that to really do well in any field or in any business, you have to "learn" before you "earn."
Business is a skill that can be learned and practiced (and hopefully perfected) if you work at it.

The more you learn and the more you practice, the better you will get.

So don't use your lack of knowledge as an excuse not to get into the right situation or to align yourself with people or other ideas that may not be in the best interests of you or your ideas.

Get educated as to what market or consumer target would benefit from your idea. Then, get educated on business models, business formation and ways to quickly generate cash flow. You’ll be far better off in generating true and lasting wealth from your ideas and plan

 

Written by Carol | 14 March 2012

Entrepreneurship is more than just a single step. Entrepreneurship is a lifestyle.

1. Know Your Purpose & Fill a Need
Entrepreneurship is hard and fun. The fun of it comes from the hard part. The hard part becomes easy when you understand it. Look at entrepreneurship as a ladder that gets higher while you want to and you get to its top when you are comfortable with what you are getting. That way, entrepreneurship is relative. Its extent depends on you. The extent of entrepreneurship depends on how much you want to scale it.Entrepreneurs succeed by filling an existing need. They know their stuff. A deep understanding of what you are concerned about is essential. Failure begins when you don’t know yourself and what you are about.

2. When You Fail, Get Up Fast
People fail in a variety of ways. Your failure may come in the form of rejection, sometimes it comes as doing meaningless tasks and earning mediocre rates months on end. While you are failing, you waste a tremendous opportunity cost. You could be filling another need. Whatever your kind of failure is, fail fast. You need to get back to your feet as fast as a Ferrari, and continue being an entrepreneur, perhaps a successful one this time round. Knowing what you are about and getting to know your customers are about is the way not to fail.

3. Show Your Customers What You Can Do
Once you know what you are about, why you are an entrepreneur, you should make your customers know about it too. Here, you portfolio is your resume. What have you done so far? Ask yourself this question and come up with a comprehensive answer. Being able to say what you have already done as an entrepreneur helps you to avoid the procrastinators’ trap. The procrastinators’ trap is the dilemma of having so many ideas of what you could do and actually doing nothing because you cannot decide which one to go with. You need to make your customers know about what you have done. Successful entrepreneurs get more sales because they are better than you are at convincing their customers, of work that may seem inferior to you. Always remember to keep on convincing your customers of your capability.

4. Be Specific on How You Solve Customers’ Problems
You don’t convince your customers by saying that you are an expert. You convince them by saying you can solve their problem. For example if you are selling tomatoes, you don’t try to convince your customers that you have the best tomatoes. Instead, you should show them how you mind their hygienic concerns, their price and quality concerns, and any other concern that they have. Of course, by now you know their concerns because they are your customers. Strive to say specifically how you will help fill an existing need. Here, you need to quantify your service. Its about the number of hours you have saved them, the number of successful lessons you have held with them, the number of times they have enjoyed your products or services.In your own world, you handle various things in a single day, various engagements and thoughts. It is the same with your customers as they are busy people. Cut to the chase. When customers choose your product or service, they don’t want to read about its greatness. They care less about talking with you, unless its part of problem solving. All they want is you to handle their problem.
The lesson boils down to being able to do their work (fill their need) and demonstrating that you can do it, then actually doing it. If you do this repeatedly, your gain is infinite.

5. Don’t Force Customers, Use the Power of Attraction
Don’t try to change people’s behaviors. Don’t try to push what you think is right into people’s head. Don’t try to show people, and potentially your customers, why your service or product is the best and why they should jump on to it. It makes them feel bad. It makes them view you as an intruder into their lives. You are trying to show them how something in their life is not already good. Even if they already know that, they will still turn defensive. You are a stranger until you establish a relationship with your customer. Not everyone likes being criticized by strangers.
Instead, place your product and service within their reach and then say you can solve this and that problem. Let them come to you with their needs after you have already convinced them that you deal very well with those kinds of need.

If this information has assisted you, share it. Sharing helps you remember because it’s a way of practically using what you know. If you already knew this, still share because it shows you know. Using spotacheetah as your platform, you can give feedback through comments or join group discussions and that way, you will learn more than what this article is all about.