Planning to Start a Business in the City of Saint John New Brunswick?

Planning to Start a business in the City of Saint John New Brunswick?

Writing a Business Plan
Why a Business Plan is so Important
Creating a meaningful business plan is often neglected despite its importance. People are usually too impatient to spend time to the process or they don’t understand how to go about putting one together.
Your own business plan is vital since it works as your compass in deciding the direction for the business. It should also serve as a reference point to verify the health of your business operations.
Most importantly however, it will make you examine the details of the business that may seem cumbersome or vague. By taking a look at all aspects of your business, you'll be able to deal with issues before they happen rather than spending time and money handling a costly mistake later on that could have been avoided.
Strategic business plans are also a key tool in acquiring financing that you may need to start or grow a company.
A good business plan should help you avoid the pitfalls that are common reasons for business failure. They include:
• Lack of Overall Vision
• Not enough capital
• Poor Marketing
• No Strategic Plan
• No Measures of Performance Established
1) Flawed Strategy
Perfect implementation and marketing cannot save a flawed business plan. Business Planning is critical to a company’s success and too many business owners attempt the DIY approach producing a bad plan and faulty assumptions. Research of more than 2,500 business failures in the last 25 years showed that almost half of the failures stemmed from poorly designed strategies.
2) Underestimating the task
Taking the time to validate your assumptions can save you billions of dollars in the long run. Many entrepreneurs overestimate their ability to enter a new market or launch something new and fail to take time to do the research prior to pressing the ‘go’ button.
3) Insufficient Governance
In a small business of just a few employees and the owner it is easy for that owner to make decisions on their own without consulting the rest of the staff. This can result in flawed making decisions practices and a insufficient accountability. Owners must always run their ideas past another employee who is actively involved in the running from the business or discuss their ideas having a business coach to ensure their idea is going to be well received and is in focus using the companies overall direction and aim.
4) Refusal to Adapt
Having the ability to foresee change in your market place and embrace it can set your business aside from your competition. Not everyone welcomes change but if you can accept it and embrace it you'll be well on your road to success.
5) Failure to Plan - “Fail to plan and you plan to fail”
An idea is just an idea unless you put it to paper and develop an implementation plan. Small business owners have a go-go-go mentality and neglect to take the time to plan out their new business venture or idea and just ‘roll with the punches’. Failing to plan properly might have catastrophic effects for example: not having enough cash flow, and not meeting industry requirements simply to name a few. It is important to consult a professional when exploring a brand new business idea.
6) Poor Leadership
Motivated and passionate employees are often a critical part to some company’s success. Failure to motivate and lead the employees can result in lower productivity and quality of work.
7) Poor Communication
A common example of poor or miss communication is the failure to communicate between departments. One department can design a launch of the new product but can neglect to communicate it to the department that will be instrumental in carrying out the plan once it's hit the market. Another example is that if the marketing departments takes months coming up with a new promotion but does not communicate it to the target market it was all for not and can end up costing the company thousands of dollars.
The Do’s and Don’ts of Writing your own business plan
• Do write the plan in 3rd person.
• Don’t underestimate your costs - many people do this and it is recommended to add a buffer.
• Don’t overestimate profits - a new business normally has a more difficult time gaining market share than anticipated.
• Do keep in mind that the reader of the strategic business plan may not be familiar with industry acronyms - wording should be concise and clear.
• Do take the time to do market research.
• Don’t make vague sweeping statements - use solid data to back up your assumptions

Consider contacting a business coach at http://www.smallbusinessnavigator.com for help with your start a business Saint John project.


Small Business Navigator helps small business owners start a business