Business Bricks

Roz Jones says:
My experience with many businesses is that when the busines plan is in the head, critical questions get overlooked. We ignore the little voice (Mummy voice)
Q “what will you do if they say that?”
A ‘they won’t ask that!’
Q “how did it go?”
A ‘don’t want to talk about it!’

I agree that keeping it simple is important but your plan is your MOT Test: is it safe? is it legal? does it work? Make your plan a mind map/cartoons/a scatter board - but do take some time to MOT Test your gut feeling.
by Roz Jones on 9 Dec

Paul says:
Also, I found the process of writing a business plan helped me get clear exactly what I would be doing and how - it helped me ensure the specifics matched the vision
by Paul on 9 Dec

David says:
Hmmm I agree and disagree.

We started off with a business plan which defined the product our customers wanted. Problem is - they didn’t. So we went back to it and reviewed it, and we continue to go back and review it (usually over a pint) to make sure we’re still doing what our customers want. BUT we don’t write it down and spend a day working on a new document, we just thrash it out until we agree, adjust our course and make sure we are all moving in the same direction.

So we did as Roz suggests and MOT’d it (which we couldn’t have done as well if we’d never written it down), but essentially it’s ‘in our heads’ so we don’t get bogged down as it’s a simple ‘deviation’ from the original route… At some point we will need to write a new version to take into account those changes, but it’s not a priority at the moment and doesn’t stop the growth of the company.
by David on 11 Dec

Jon says:
I have a Business Plan that I have used in starting 2 service based IT ventures, it reads like this.
Year 1 - Survival
Year 2 - Survival
Year 3 - Survival
The reality is when you start a business you really don’t know where you revenue is going to come from and you WILL do lots of things that may conflict with your original vision, but will ensure that the mortgage gets paid. If you’re still going after 3 years that likelihood is that you have an established customer base , have developed things that you’re very good at and can then develop a vision based on a position of strength. My “mistake” in this plan is the lack of a marketing plan - how am I going to get new customers - and I’ve tried things that have quite frankly been a complete waste of money. Allocate some (even if very little) to marketing your business.
by Jon on 17 Jan

Paul Heyworth says:
If you don’t set yourself goals, how will you know when you have reached them? Writing your business plan down on paper will ensure that 6 months down the line you will have a checklist of everything that you intended to do. If you don’t write it down you will only remember the stuff that you said you would do that you have done, and the rest will be lost in selective memory.
by Paul Heyworth on 18 Jan

Roz Jones says:
I agree with all the comments above, what a business plan in itself does not always do, is cover specifics. Market research - “is there really a customer for what I want to do?” is a separate focus, which does need to be carried out; as I said before the science bit to justify the gut feeling. Marketing is a whole separate activity. I like simple; and Jay Conrad Levinson has a simple, workable, marketing plan in his book “Guerrilla Marketing for Free” The marketing plan is 7 sentences (I figure one evening and a bottle of wine to complete) and he also recommends a Marketing Calendar - the ‘when’ and ‘how’ for the ‘what’ you identified in the Marketing plan. No more guilty feelings of “should I be doing some cold calling?” If you also work out a cash flow for break-even, you then have the drive to make the marketing happen, because you know how many widgets equals profit and how many equals a loss and how well you are on target to achieve your long term goals!
by Roz Jones on 12 Jul