When embarking on any new venture, it is essential to have a well crafted plan to be successful. It's no different when you're starting a new business or working on revitalizing an existing one. This living document generally projects 3 to 5 years ahead and outlines the route your business will take to reach your goals. There are generally nine areas that need to be covered in your plan in order to have a clear picture of where you want to be in the future.
Executive Summary - This provides a snapshot of your business as a whole including your company profile and goals. The Executive Summary will be your first impression for investors and company participants, so spend some time really thinking about where your business is, where you want to take it, and why your idea will be successful. Some good information to include is:
- Mission statement
- Company information
- Growth highlights
- Products and services
- Financial information
- Information on target market
- Summary of future plans
Company Description - Here is where you give more detailed information on what you do, what differentiates your business for others, and the markets your business aims to serve. Make sure and describe the marketplace needs that you are trying to satisfy and how your products or services are going to meet those needs. Also highlight any competitive advantages that your business has such as location, expert personnel, or value of offerings.
Market Analysis - Knowing who your customers are is vitally important when starting a business. This is the section where you highlight your research about your industry, market, and competitors. It should emphasize your knowledge and research about who you are going to target and how your business will deliver more successfully than your competitors.
Organization & Management - This section should include your company's organizational structure, ownership information, profiles of your management team, and qualifications of your board of directors (if applicable). A simple but effective way to lay out your structure is to use an organizational chart with narrative information. Ownership information should be as detailed as possible, even if you are a one-person operation.
Service or Product Line - You need to tell the story of what you sell and how it benefits your customer in this section of your plan. You should talk about how your product or service is going to meet a specific customer's needs, any advantages your offering has over your competitor's, and what stage of development your offering is in.
Marketing & Sales - Here is where you lay out how you plan to gain customers and how you plan to sell your products and services to those customers. The overall marketing plan should include:
- Strategies for - market penetration, growth, channels of distribution, and communication
The overall sales plan should include:
- A sales force strategy and planned sales activities
Funding Request - If your company is seeking investment or bank funding, this section should be included in your plan. Include specific requests for funding and the plan for how that money is to be distributed in your business. Having a debt repayment plan in the funding request will help assure potential investors that you have a long-term plan for success.
Financial Projections - This section should be developed after you've analyzed your market and set clear objectives for your business. Historical (if available) and prospective financial data will need to be included in this section. If you are a start-up, take a look at information for similar businesses as a base for your projections. Think critically about what your overhead and selling price will be.
Appendix - An appendix is optional, but it is a good place to include backing material to support the statements and projections for your future plans. Possible things to include are:
- Resumes
- Credit histories
- Product pictures
- Letters of reference
- Details of market studies
- Licenses, permits, and patents
- Copies of leases
- Contracts
- List of business consultants
A successful business plan is not a static document that gets written once then is never consulted again. Your business plan should be reviewed and updated no less than once a year. It will serve as a check-up on where you are compared to where you wanted to be.
If you've never written a business plan before, there are many templates available in programs such as Word or on-line. For more information on how to make your plan stand out, check out the website of the Small Business Administration.
When the idea of hiring a virtual administrative assistant comes up, the most common question that occurs is "what would I have a VA do for me?". The answer will be different for each individual client, but here's a list of possibilities to get your creative juices flowing:
Administrative Support
Email organization Travel arrangements
Voice mail response Coordinate conference calls
Coordinate appointments Contact updates & tracking
Calendar management Business card scanning
Data entry Excel spreadsheet building
PowerPoint creation Report generation
Email & mail campaigns Thank you & greeting cards
Website content updates Blog posts
Internet research Supply ordering
Management of team meetings Communication management
Mail merges
Meeting & Event Planning Support
Create & send email or regular mail - announcements, invitations, thank you letters
Set up logistics - meeting rooms, AV needs, meals, overnight rooms, vendors
Manage guest lists
Receive & track responses via phone, fax, or email
Track attendees
Follow-up with non-responders
Create meeting agendas & support materials
Collate & ship materials
Research & order giveaways
Marketing & Sales Support
Social media management Mailing label creation
Email newsletter sending Sales packet mailing
Compile mailing lists Distribute & track surveys
Follow-up calls
This list is in no way exhaustive, but you can see that a Virtual Administrative Assistant can be a valuable right-hand person in the operation of your business. For more information about how to hire a Virtual Administrative Assistant and how the arrangement works, check out the web site of Administrative Business Consulting.
Hashtags (#) have been in use on Twitter for some time, but they have become common on other social media sites such as Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr, and now even on facebook. But what are they for and how can you use them to boost the reach of your social media presence.
A hashtag is a key word (or group of words, with no spaces) prefixed with the "#" symbol in a social media message. The format would look like this: "#topic". These hashtags then become clickable text that allow users of social media to see what others are saying about that topic. People use hash tags to highlight events, ideas, conferences, products, TV shows, and many other subjects.
Any user can make any word or combination of words in to a clickable hashtag. If you open a facebook status and type the "#" followed by your chosen phrase, you'll see that the text becomes highlighted by a blue box. Once you hit post, the tag will appear in bold in your update and other users will be able to click on it which will show them a listing of all the other posts featuring that hashtag.
It is important to remember that this system is a simple form of organization and it can often have trouble with hashtags that are too complicated. For instance, you can have a tag like "#thingsididwheniwassevenonmybike", but how often are other people going to use that tag? If the answer is never, then it is probably not an effective tag to use. Try to keep the tags short and relevant to what you want your message to be. If you would like to see what hashtags are currently trending or if the tag you want to use is already being used, you can visit www.hashtags.org or hashtagify.me. Also, don't put too many hashtags in one post. Research is showing:
As a business, you can use hashtags to make an event more social, join other conversations that are trending up with your customers, boost the visibility of a promotion, or engage more visitors. Take for example an event like a customer appreciation picnic. You could announce it on your page with a hashtag of #welovecustomers encouraging your fans to bring friends with them to the event. Your customers share the information with their friends using your hashtag, and that gets passed around to and even wider audience. You can then click on your tag #welovecustomers and see who is using it and get an idea of your posts reach.
It may seem complicated or just another part of social media that you have to learn, remember that 71% of users on social media are using hashtags in their posts. 43% of those users think tags are useful and 34% use them to follow categories and brands of personal interest like your business.
As a small business owner in today's fast paced world, it is vital that you understand and utilize advanced technologies that are available to you and fit with your business. Technology, used correctly, can help increase your business efficiency and even expand your operations.
Accounting
Gone are the days where a one-man shop had to keep financial records in a hand-written ledger book. There are a myriad of options in accounting software and services that can help you see your profits and losses at a glance as well as set-up and track a budget. Even if you use a CPA or bookkeeper, it is nice to have all your records in one place to give those professionals at tax time. Some of the great options available are:
Calendar & Email Management
Most business owners are reliant on functional calendaring and email solutions. The advent of cloud-computing technology has made it possible to access your calendar and email from either your laptop, smartphone, or tablet equally well. These new services also allow you to delegate your calendar and email management to your virtual administrative assistant like Administrative Business Consulting. Here are the most popular options:
Many teams are not located in the same building, let alone the same state, anymore, but you may not have the need (or capacity) for a stand alone network solution. You may be working with clients and contractors, like your virtual administrative assistant, spread over large geographical areas and in different time zones. This requires you to have a good, central place to share files and work collaboratively. Cloud-computing has made these services easy to access and use across your different devices. Some options include:
- Microsoft Office Skydrive
- Google Docs
- Dropbox
Technology is an integral part of every successful business. There are solutions available for not only the large corporations but also for the small operations like yours and mine. Most of these services are either free (to a certain point) or will allow you to run a free trial to see if it is a good fit for your business. Embracing possibilities and new ways to be productive will help you secure your success in a rapidly changing business environment.
