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!

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 »

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

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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 »

Part of the challenge of growing a business or your professional brand is developing a system to organize all of the mountains of information that you receive daily.

• Emails sent with upcoming events.  Can I attend?  What’s on my calendar that week?
• Tweets with cool links that you want to read…but you’ll need 20 min and that’s going to derail you from your other work.
• And let’s not forget webinars and video content with their funny stories or valuable information.  They are great but who has 20-30 min to sit in front of a screen and watch and listen?

This was my story yesterday.  And it’s pretty typical daily.  Before sitting down to work, there are 50 emails and 2 voice mails.  And many of them do deserve my attention.   That’s a minimum of an hour  -  not counting the research to answer the questions.  How are you supposed to fit it all in?  Continue Reading »

Wikipedia: Change- The process of becoming different.

Allan Volcy, owner of a small videography business asks: I have been in business for over five years and would like to make some drastic changes to my business strategy. What factors should influence my change, and once the factors are realized, how can I predict if the change(s) will be a success or not?

Over the last five years, I have had several conversations on this topic with my clients.  Today, it still seems to be one of the most dominating concerns lingering in the minds of small business owners. News Flash: There is no reason to panic! This is definitely not just a small business concern.  In fact, many big businesses are also faced with this kind of challenging question.

There are an unlimited number of reasons why a business owner may decide to switch gears and head in a different direction. Whether that change comes in the form of showcasing a new product, updating  a website design or management re-structuring, timing will play a paramount role in the way things play out. Continue Reading »

Wikipedia -A marketing plan is a written document that details the necessary actions to achieve one or more marketing objectives. It can be for a product or service, a brand, or a product line.

I often hear many small business owners say, “I always thought strategic planning was something meant only for big businesses.” Not true at all. In fact, implementing different strategizing techniques, such as business and marketing plans, can be adopted by any business regardless of the size. Remember, all a strategic plan is, is a well thought out goal that is accompanied by a series of detailed steps on how to achieve them.

A marketing plan can be written as part of an overall business plan or it can be written individually.  In an earlier post, I shared with you the importance of having a business plan.  Today, I would like to guide you through the basic steps of writing a marketing plan.  Continue Reading »