Writing A Business Plan

The Best Reasons For Writing A Business Plan

In my business coaching experience, I’ve often find that many business owners skip a crucial step in ensuring the success of their companies – writing a business plan. This detailed overview of your company and its future is commonly overlooked – often because it’s a lot of work. However, it’s some of the most valuable work you can do when starting up a business, which is why everyone from banks to venture capital companies require detailed business plans before they will even consider lending you money or investing in your company. The process of creating the plan and thinking things through has helped many business owners learn what it takes to be successful.

It’s not just for those who are starting up a business. Even if you’ve been in business for years, creating a business plan and a strategic plan are crucial to plotting a course for business success.

Too often, as best selling E-Myth author Michael Gerber points out, business owners as so busy working “in” their business that they overlook the necessity to work “on the business”. Writing a business plan helps you do this. How can you improve the odds of success? Planning! And the way to start planning is by creating a business plan, and continuing to pull it out, look at it and tweak it as your business grows. So, even if you don’t need to raise capital or borrow money, a plan can help your business significantly.

Some questions that a well-designed plan will answer:

What does your particular industry look like right now and what will it look like in the future?
What markets are you competing in – what will they look like 5 years down the road?
What specific competition will you be up against? What are their strengths and weaknesses?
What products or services do you offer? Will they remain constant?
What value (not features) do you provide to your customers?
What long-term advantages do you have over the competition?
How will you maintain those advantages?
How big and profitable will your business become?
What are your strengths and weaknesses?
If you’re using the plan to borrow money or attract investors: How much will you need & why?
What kind of return on investment can they expect?
What action steps will you need to take to have your plan succeed?
What will happen to the business when you retire or after your death?

As you may have realized, In order to create this detailed view of the future, you’ll have to make a lot of projections, assumptions and predictions about what will happen. The more research you do, the easier it will be to make educated ones. And, the longer you’re in business the better you’ll become at forecasting the future.

What are the top 7 reasons for writing a business plan?

Make more money
Save time
Keep you on track and make it easier to be successful
Give you a chance to make mistakes on paper
Create a foundation for your company’s growth
Make running a business easy and fun
And, keep you from making the same mistakes over and over again

So if you’ve been putting off working on your business plan, please reconsider – it may be more helpful than you realize.

If you need help developing your business plan and path to success, learn more about my business coaching programs.

"Susan taught me how to think about my law practice as a business. She helped me to build confidence in my role as a business owner and boss, showed me how to use my financial records as profitability tools and focus my marketing on a select target market so I attract more of my ideal clients and cases. I would highly recommend Susan to anyone who wants to run a profitable, sane and productive business. Thank you Susan!" -Lisa Eisenberg, Immigration Attorney

"I am one of two partners in a small law firm. When I started working with Susan, I was completely wedded to the idea that I was a "practicing attorney" rather than a small business owner, which meant that I often failed do any long range business planning or to maintain solid control of my firm's profitability and finances. Susan cured me of that and has helped me create a business plan for myself and for my small firm, and the results have been dramatic." Erica Bell, Esq., Weiss, Buell & Bell

"Susan has helped me gain confidence in my role as a boss and to understand what I really need from my employees. She walked me through the hiring process and helped me to create a hiring and interviewing strategy. She has also helped me to see situations from the big picture perspective. Because of this, I'm able to be both firm and empathetic when dealing with difficult employee and client situations, which has been very useful." -Chris Page, Century 21 Solutions Property Management

"I had been running my own business for about three years with mixed results. While I had a great client base, I had trouble managing employees and was terrified of growing too much too soon. I was putting in way too many hours with little result. With Susan, I've reduced the amount of time I devote to management issues, so that I'm working less and enjoying it more. Now I can devote more time to providing better service to current clients, and have the confidence to let my business grow again!" Ean Murphy, Moxie Bookkeeping

"When I started to work with Susan I did not have a coherent marketing strategy or proper marketing material. Susan helped me re-conceive how I presented my service to potential clients. And it worked. Within a few months I was getting more business as a direct result of the actions she recommended that I take." -Edward Antoine, Antoine Education

"Before we worked together, my clients would often start to clear clutter but never stay around long enough to set up the systems to stay organized. I needed a way to get them to commit to the whole process for both of our benefits.With Susan on my side, I created packages that were met with immediate and overwhelmingly positive results. In fact, I have gained three new clients in the two weeks since I started offering them! My clients are happy and so am I. Thank you Susan!" -Matt Baier, Matt Baier Organizing

"Before working with Susan, I did all of my business online, never feeling comfortable enough to pick up the phone and speak directly with customers. Her sales coaching helped me helped me get out of my shell, to understand the difference between sales and marketing, and the importance of reaching out and focusing on people. Because of our work, sales are up, I'm more comfortable dealing with clients and new prospects and profits have increased 50%." -Martin Cross, Patent Translations

"Before I hired Susan, my business was suffering because I didn't know what to do next or how to do it. After working with Susan, and through her gentle but firm support and holding me to my goals, I have moved forward by leaps and bounds. My subscriber list has more than doubled ...I've produced a new product, re-designed my web site and have more balance and confidence in the future." Dale Kurow, Career Coach

"It's one thing to have services to offer. It's another to understand how to shape those services into a viable business. And Susan has helped me in every aspect of developing my business - from big picture tasks such as financial planning and maintaining client relationships to dealing with day-to-day challenges. She's perceptive, candid and intuitive, and has provided support that I can count on. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend her to any friends looking for business assistance."-Richard Staub, Richard Staub Marketing Services

"During the course of working with Susan, my approach to business has changed. She helped me to refine my professional and personal goals, and I've been able to deal with problems that had long gotten in my way. In a few months, I've seen my business and my confidence grow significantly. Thank you Susan." -Ruth Seidler

"Business Coach Susan Martin has helped me to manage my time, build structure and become more disciplined. Because of our work I have more business, improved relationships with clients, and learned how to better balance my work and personal life. If you have any doubts about the benefits of working with Susan, please don't hesitate to call me." -Carl Navarro, JCI Graphics

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Writing A Business Plan

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