I have taught many courses on writing business plans for entrepreneurs.  So it might surprise you that I am a believer in the Anti Business Plan.

Yes, it’s important to spend time to think through your business idea.  Yes, you need to consider who is interested in buying your solution.  Yes, you need to figure out how much you want to spend on your start-up costs and how much the product or service will cost you to make.

However, many people get trapped in the theoretical aspects of writing the plan and never finish the plan.  So I would rather you spend less time working on the plan and more time on running the business…and going back to the plan and making revisions.  The key reason to write the plan is to test and validate your business idea.  You don’t need 200 pages of charts, graphs and financial projections.    And you certainly don’t need to spend time researching your ideas without testing them.

So if you had limited time (or patience) and wanted to write the Anti Business plan – here are the core areas that you need to focus on. 

Vision Statement

This describes your raison d’ etre – what problem are you solving by starting this company?  If you are successful in your business, what will change in the lives of the individuals or companies that use your product or service?

While it will probably considerable time to brainstorm and word smith this statement, I recommend that you keep the text under two lines.  In addition, make sure your words pack a powerful competitive advantage – someone should be able to read your company’s vision and be invested on a personal level and from their pocketbooks.

Mission Statement

This section describes the core values and philosophies of your company.  It’s the sign you display in your office to remind you why you started the firm and it’s the language that will instruct employees, contractors, vendors and anyone who liaises with your firm how they could expect to be treated and how they need to behave.

Don’t worry about it being a masterpiece.  Keep it simple and powerful and be willing to revise it several times until you have the final statement.  Similar to the vision statement, it should be under a few lines.

Marketing Strategies

Assuming that you have done your homework and identified your niche target market (and not 1% of the entire market), you will need to identify 5-7 marketing strategies for your business.  How will you spend your time and money this year on telling your market that your company can help them solve their problems?

I recommend you update this section on an annual or bi-annual basis and use it as a goal setting tool for how you’ll spend your marketing time and dollars.

Consider the best ways for you to share the message about your company – social media, events, online, offline, etc – and back up your ideas with target goals and numbers.  For example, if you want to increase your social media strategy, don’t share “I will use social media to create 5,000 fans”.  The final number is not as important as why you need the 5,000 fans.

Instead identify how you gather the support of 500 of those 5,000 fans to help you communicate your message.  It speaks volumes about your business if you are able to get people to share comments and feedback and share the messages about your company with their friends and family – rather than stacking the numbers of people who liked your Facebook Fan Page.

Be willing to refer to this section throughout your year and make adjustments where necessary.

Sales Goals

Connected tightly with your marketing goals are sales goals.  Select 5-7 sales goals over a specified time period and share how you will achieve them.  Your marketing tells the world about your product/service while your sales convinces people to buy.  They are two separate but closely aligned goals.

Start testing your sales goals while you are writing the plan.  Many people are often weak in sales and don’t realize the amount of time and resources they will need to spend to secure each sale.  For example, by using the earlier example of the Facebook friends, you might discover as you are gathering your 500 champions  - it really takes 10 people to like your page, 2 who are champions and one who eventually buys your product.  Ensure that you factor in the time and resource that it will take to gather that one person

As you start gathering results on your sales projections, review the information three to four times a year to see what you’ll need to revise.  This makes for a much stronger Sales Goals section rather than selecting random projections that sound good.

Financial Statements

There are many key financial statements I would recommend in a full business plan.  However, the Anti-Business plan looks at three key areas

• Your anticipated revenue = how much money you will make from your sales
• Your anticipated expenses = thinking about all areas from technology to marketing to sales calls to professional fees
• Your estimated profit

This statement is really only an estimate.  Include every category that you can think of and use templates to give you ideas for the categories.  Spend time every six months reviewing your actual expenses and income to see how closely aligned to your projections that you are.

The entire Anti Business plan is approximately 3-5 pages long and would take only a weekend of solid writing and editing.  I encourage you to get started and draft your ideas using this template.

Let me know additional questions you have as you are working!

Recently a client shared a new business idea for an ongoing project she’s been working on.  Since I’ve been privy to some of her former business start-up ideas and had a good sense of her strengths adn skills,  I thought it would be a good opportunity to challenge her – why did she want to start this business and where did it fit into her overall life plan?

She was slightly stumped when I asked her the question.  She just thought about it as an isolated business idea that could generate revenue – rather than where it fit in her overall goals.

Continue Reading »

In this day and age where salaries are down, expectations and job requirements are high, it’s tempting to start a business on the side.  Not only can it fulfill a passion that might be missing from your full time gig – but the truth is that is can help pay some bills. I know I’ve read a few articles recently (check out http://bit.ly/ci4R4R and http://bit.ly/bXWYTm) that suggest even white collar workers who traditionally worked only one job are taking on side gigs or even starting their business in their off hours.

For some, it will be impossible to go this route.  If you have a high level executive position where you can run away with the company secrets, it’s highly unlikely that you could (legally that is) start a business outside of your full time employment.  There is probably a clause in your employment contract prohibiting it.

But for those who are not under those guidelines, there are many benefits.  Here are a few to get you started brainstorming your ideas: Continue Reading »

I left work after 10pm one evening this week with my head spinning with ideas – new clients to reach out to, contracts and proposals to write, and wondering how I was going to manage all of it with limited time.

I was approached by a woman on the train platform.

For those who are unfamiliar with NYC subway etiquette – you don’t approach strangers.  And you certainly don’t approach them and hand them anything.  But she was dressed in professional work clothes and didn’t seem like she might be harmful so I glanced down at what she handed me.

It was an Avon catalog. Continue Reading »

A friend recently shared details about a new client.  She landed a contract to market the services of an expert in her industry – alongside several trainings that she already promotes within her target market.

I congratulated her on landing the client and asked how she was using social media to market her client.

She openly admitted that she hadn’t used it much within her own business.  However, she was interested in learning.  Her biggest concern was where to start.  The amount of options was overwhelming to her as she manages the day to day logistics and now realized she needed to learn several new marketing platforms.  She asked for advice on where to start.  Continue Reading »

I recently taught a business plan class and was blown away by the number of students who had not yet started their business.

The course was at the half way point and all of the students had amazing business ideas.  New products to import and export, new services they could enhance, online applications that could save time or create new communities and even a not for profit that targeted a new client niche.  They had constructed their ideas on well thought theories, were in varying stages of market research, and had outlined their first year of income and expenses.

Yet none of them had actually started the business.

They gave me a host of reasons

• Not enough cash
• Finalizing legal structures
• The need for venture capital of other financing options
• Selecting potential partners

These were all good reasons.  But none of them could answer why they hadn’t started testing the ideas on a few select customers and getting feedback. Continue Reading »

For many of you who are considering starting a business or are in the early days of running it, the last thing you are probably considering is how it will end.  I’d like to challenge you to consider it and decide now what options you want to create.

It’s like Life Insurance – no one wants to talk about it but you need to buy it.

I share this because recently a good friend had the unfortunate incident of being placed in charge of running the family business.  She is the spouse of a successful business owner.  He stepped down due to health conditions and had to have his legal dependent, his wife, take over the reins of the company.

Many of his workers are not happy.  The wife lacks many of the management and leadership skills that her husband had and is not familiar with the day to day operations of the business.

I blame poor planning.

All business owners  – regardless of the size of the business – need to consider how they want to leave their business.  Whether it’s due to Father Time or unforeseen incidents you need to consider options.

It’s also a good to consider an exit plan if you should decide one day that you want to try another industry or are interested in starting a new business.  It’s not just for someone who has worked in one business for 25 years.  You need to consider if you want to sell to another firm, offer shares to your current employees or dissolve the entity completely.  There are pros and cons to all options and I advise you consult with a lawyer and experienced entrepreneurs who have been in the position to exit their business for advice.

The key take-away – The exit plan is not just designed for some fancy smancy high tech startup looking to be bought out in 2 years.  There is huge value for businesses of all sizes and purposes to consider it well in the early stages of planning.

Looking for more information – check out these articles

http://bit.ly/ddgxnj

http://bit.ly/4m5tC4

http://bit.ly/9Uu75M

Many entrepreneurs use a Board of Advisors  when starting a new project or venture.  It can be helpful to have a group of people who can share insight or feedback for the idea and provide a sounding board for the entrepreneur.

But it’s hard to know who to approach when you are first starting.  And you may not have the “people capital” established yet to know how to ask a group of talented entrepreneurs, bankers, accountants, lawyers and other small business experts to support you with your business.  (Plus it takes time to coordinate schedules and plan the agenda!)

So I’ll recommend using an accountability partner as you start your business. Continue Reading »

I started using a new strategy this year for my business – Focus on Three.

Yes, that’s correct.  I’m setting three goals.  Three big goals for the year where I can review at the end of the year the impact that they made on my business.   Three focused one liners that are already starting to make a difference how I spend my free time, my resources and where I focus my energy.

Why? Because there is so much a great information out there and it’s easy to become overwhelmed.  I sat on Twitter the other night and just counted how fast the info came in on my news feed. And that’s not counting my RSS feeds, Facebook and email.  Everyone has great info and great ideas.

But the problem is how to use the ones that work – and spend less time debating about the ones I “should” try. Continue Reading »

If you’ve ever attended a networking event, you’ve probably been asked this question “So tell me what do you do?” Seemingly simple, this question strikes fear in the heart of many – how do you answer in a memorable way ?  In other words, will they REALLY remember at the end of the evening when they are staring at a stack of new business cards? Or does your card get tossed because they don’t remember what made your business valuable to them?

If you are an employee, you can share your company, title or industry.  Whatever you think someone will find memorable or impressive.  And it’s no sweat if it isn’t – unless you are a sales person. Continue Reading »