Business planning is all about running a business better and it is not the set-in-stone standard format coil bound quasi-PhD treatise. It does not have a standard outline and any defined format.

The better the plan, the better be the market analysis, good focus, good cash flow, and it has concrete dates, deadlines, budgets, and assigned responsibilities.

There could be many reasons when your business plan is being ignored:

• If you are writing a research report instead of strategic business plans and filling dozens of pages about markets, competition, SWOT analysis and detailed financial projection, then forget to measure any results of your so called business plan. Though the written points are relevant but you need to know whether the market is big enough and is having enough space to let you achieve financial goals.

• A strategic foundation of a plan is what:

o Sets your vision specifying goals for your business.

o Describes target clients and their present situations

o Gives a different prospect to your business

o Crafts your positioning statement to attract new clients

If any of the elements go missing then the plan may never be implemented.

• Remember a plan for your business is different from both the angles. It is different in view of investors and lenders and different for the owner. For the owner it is more of a process of generating business and plan for investors persuades them to your strategies which are on right track.

• The plan should only be designed to achieve your projected numbers. You cannot generate billions within a year. Anticipate only n number of new clients and grow with the prospects of your business.

It is recommendable not to buy any business software plans or any such tools who make unreasonable promises as you cannot use somebody else’s plan and just use it as your own. It is worse than having no plan at all. Though it involves a lot of hard work still do make a plan of your own.Business plans can only be made and not bought.

The conclusion of the above could be one of a story of Alice in Wonderland where your plan will be like Alice at the fork in the road, not sure of where to go and how to go. So stay out of the rabbit hole and build an effective business plan to grow your business to heights.

Internet Business Plan Soup is a hearty, no frills recipe designed to maximise you chances of succeeding online. If you are in the early stages of starting your own online business then you may be experiencing the internal ‘fear and doubt’ dialogue that can often take place in one’s mind. Internet Business Plan Soup will help ease some of the heartache – ensuring that you ‘keep the faith’ all the way to success. The key to this recipe is to revisit it often, making minor adjustments along the way – especially during those challenging Winter months.

Ingredients A good quantity of Passion

Two tablespoons of Niche

An ounce of Leverage

A pinch of Lateral Thinking

Two cups of Testing

A clove of Efficiency

2 bunches of Lag

300g of Timing

4 tins of Action

Serves: Internet Business Startups

Directions 1. Passion (a.k.a Do What You Love) The number one ingredient in Internet Business Plan Soup is Passion. You must ensure that you are working in a business that interests you. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to be in love with the product or service that you sell; however, you must enjoy aspects of the business otherwise you won’t be motivated to give it 100% of your focus. And it will need a lot of your focus and energy, especially in the early stages!

To help determine this point, you could ask yourself the following types of questions:

• What do you really like to do (in a business sense)?
• Are you an ideas or action type of person? Or a bit of both?
• In which 20% of your talents do 80% of your results come from?
• In other words, where do your key skills lie?

It really all boils down to one question though – what are you really passionate about?

2. Niche Another critical ingredient in Internet Business Plan Soup is the ‘spice’ Niche and it goes a long way to determining success. Without exception, the majority of successful online business owners I know can tell you in a couple of sentences exactly what it is they love to do and why it has made them wealthy.

Without a precise understanding of your Niche your chances for success are greatly diminished. After all, it’s very difficult to hit a target which doesn’t exist or to win a game when you don’t know what it (winning) is.

Ask yourself what you are trying to achieve in this online business venture:

• Do you want to make quick cash?
• Do you want to develop and grow a sustainable online business?
• Are you interested in high cash-flow or developing assets? Or both?
• Do you have BIG aspirations or are you just looking to develop a hobby for some part-time cash?

Keep in mind that your Niche can always be adapted down the track if your situation or the market changes.

3. Leverage You need to become a master of Leverage. It is one of the most powerful principles in online business. The majority of people who are successful in business and life use Leverage in a significant way.

To use the concept of Leverage you need to continually examine how you can access other people’s skill, resources and money more effectively. Furthermore, consider less obvious assets such as systems, marketing and time.

Leverage is about duplicating a high-value item or skill at a lower cost.

I will explore this topic in depth in future articles; however, at this point it is important to remember the following points:

• Focus on Money-Making activities
• Delegate to others as much as possible

By doing this you will see an immediate increase in your ability to work ‘on’ your online business, rather than getting stuck ‘in’ the day to day running of it.

Lateral Thinking shares an implicit relationship with Leverage…

4. Lateral Thinking This is the concept of looking at things from a different point of view. You can increase profits significantly by doing simple things to “Add Value” in ways that others are not.

In other words, continually look at you business and ask yourself questions such as:

• How can we do, what we do, better?
• What do our clients want that they are not getting currently?
• Could we use affiliate marketing to grow our online business?
• Do we currently use the internet to effectively market our business?
• Could we join forces with another online business to cross-promote our products?
• Could we use our knowledge to create another product?

What I am suggesting here is to take some time out to brainstorm ideas around your online business. This is a difficult for most small business owners to do because they see it as wasted and unproductive time – nothing could be further from the truth…

Some of the most successful companies in the world allow themselves and their employees lateral thinking time – Google, Apple and 3M immediately come to mind. Many of Google’s most successful products have originated from this process.

Now, I’m not suggesting that you have to take 1 day a week (as Google does) to undertake this process – they have high operating margins and significant leverage. However, I would encourage you to consider ‘opening your mind’ for at least a couple of hours each week.

I am sure that you will find it a valuable and profitable experience if you stick to it!

5. Testing If you can start your online business with a clear idea of how you are going to monitor your systems, resources and assets then you will be well ahead of the pack. When most business owners are confronted with questions about their average transaction value, sales conversion ratios, enquiry and lead generation rates – they come up with varying excuses or reasons as to why they don’t know this vital information.

DON’T MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE!!

You need to be able to calculate your ROI (Return on Investment) for everything that you do on a regular basis.

To do this develop a set of KPI (Key Performance Indicators) that are appropriate to your online business – don’t go overboard – just focus on the information that you need. Remember that 80% of your results come from 20% of your activities! The key is to discover the 20% and keep improving them…

The other benefit of testing is that it encourages us to acknowledge mistakes and move on – this is a vital part of the growth process. Without action, mistakes and growth we stagnate and/or wither at the vine!

6. Efficiency Hard work doesn’t guarantee success or profits – look at how wealth is apportioned in the world and this soon becomes apparent – 80% of the wealth is controlled by less than 10% of the population.

Personally, it took a long time for this penny to drop! The first offline business I owned was really just a job in disguise. I was caught in a trap that confronts many small business owners – working IN rather than ON my business. Hence, I found it very difficult to grow.

This is a critical distinction…

If significant profits and growth are what you desire then it is critical that you become efficient and develop systems that will allow your business to work for you and not the other way around.

7. Lag Lag is the concept that you ‘reap what you sew’. In other words, if you follow the principles suggested here and persist – you will succeed!

However, your online business life is going to provide you with numerous challenges and obstacles to overcome. The biggest difference between successful people and the rest is that successful people look at upsets as a chance to grow and learn, rather than as failure.

When confronted by a setback, rather than giving into fear and quitting you must continue to persist. Why? Because if your principles are sound, all you have to do is keep adjusting your methodology until you have a formula for success.

You will have a much greater chance of success in online business if you keep the principle of Lag in the back of your mind, stay focused and never give up!

8. Timing Timing is an essential ingredient in Internet Business Plan Soup. It also shares a close bond with decision-making and action-taking. If you continually use Lateral Thinking and Testing then you will certainly discover further opportunities for your online business. The key to successfully implementing and taking advantage of these opportunities is Timing.

As the old sayings’ go:

“If you wait too long, you miss the boat…” (e.g. someone else capitalizes)

“If you jump right in your fingers may get burnt…” (e.g. misjudged enthusiasm)

You need to find a middle ground when it comes to Timing, because it is very difficult to time things perfectly. Combine focused analysis, gut feeling, enthusiasm and decision making and you will be well on the way to mastering Timing and the next Principle…

9. Action Successful business owners are Masters of Action. They know that Action always beats inaction. They understand that it is better to try, make a mistake, refine and re-implement than to do nothing at all. That’s because in online business:

INACTION = A SLOW DEATH! (Or in some cases a quick one!)

Unsuccessful online business owners are Masters of Excuses. Fear provides them with an endless stream of seemingly logical reasons why they shouldn’t act.

You need to make a decision right now – will you accept as doctrine your negative internal dialog and the nay-sayers – or will you take chances and trust your experience?

I would suggest the latter…

To take action, it is critical that you take responsibility for your situation. If you are not where you want to be, then justifying or laying blame on others will not remedy the situation – it will just add fuel to your negative mindset.

A better way to respond is to focus on ‘the gap’ – the 20% of activities in your business (or life) that will take you from where you are to where you want to be.

Goal setting is one of the best ways to define the ‘gap’ and taking Action is the best way to reduce it.

The Key Ingredient

The most important ingredient in Internet Business Plan soup is Passion (a.k.a. Do What You Love) – it will play an enormous role in defining the success of your dish. Furthermore, when shopping for ingredients – ensure that you find a Niche that you are comfortable with. Follow this recipe, adjust and embellish as required, and you will be well on the way to creating a successful and profitable online business. I mean soup…

Are you thinking about approaching a Bank for finance to support your business? If you haven’t already gone to see the Manager then you may not know that the first thing he will want to see is your Business Plan.

Perhaps you are not convinced that all the time and effort needed in preparing a plan is essential If so then here are the main benefits for both you and your business.

1. No matter how good a communicator you are, you will never be able to convey your vision for the business as successfully as a perfectly put together Business Plan. It provides a clear understanding as to what you want to achieve. It allows you to express your ideas in a clearer manner.

2. Too many times business owners try to sell their idea verbally and at the end of the interview with the Bank the Manager is none the wiser than he was at the start. I think you can guess the outcome of many of those requests!

3. A Business Plan will help convince both you and the Bank of the project’s feasibility and viability. There’s nothing like having all the facts in front of you to clarify the key issues

4. There’s no getting away from the fact that a business owner who plans ahead comes across as being more ambitious and more focused. A well prepared Business Plan demonstrates you have vision and that you know what you want

5. With numerous ideas floating around in your mind, the pitfalls or stumbling blocks to success are never that visible. A mind buzzing and full of ideas will rarely achieve clarity. A Business Plan forces you to put your ideas down in writing and in an orderly manner. The result of this could be you going in a completely different direction than you initially thought of, or even abandoning your idea altogether. Not a pleasant thought, but which would you prefer? The loss of your hard capital or the opportunity to re-think your idea?

6. It is an ideal tool to monitor progress against the objectives you have set yourself (we will cover objective setting later). By checking progress against your Plan, you will be able to spot if you are moving away from your original vision and so you will know what has to be put right

7. Imagine if you didn’t have this check in place; an unnoticed change in direction or a slippage in achieving your objectives, if left uncorrected for too long, could be fatal to your business. On the other hand, it may transpire that a shift from your original vision could be a better alternative, but at least recognising this change allows you to adjust your course in a planned, structured and controlled manner

8. Every action you take has a consequence, and a Plan helps make these consequences much clearer. Being aware of the possible effect of your chosen direction allows you to plan ahead, leaving you better able to cope with whatever the world of self employment can throw at you. This is one thing that “mental planning” would not achieve

9. Putting your thoughts on paper may make you realise that you need to do more research on the demand for your product or service. It could also highlight that more investigation on your competitor’s products or services is needed. Additional research could help avoid a potentially costly mistake or even uncover a hidden advantage, which you had not seen before!

10. A Plan will guide you as to how much money is needed to make an idea work. In your mind you may have a rough figure of what you’ll have to commit, but until you do a Cash Flow Forecast you may not realise that an overdraft limit will be required, in addition to a loan for your equipment. If the mention of preparing a Cash Flow Forecast brings you out in a sweat, don’t worry as later in the book I’ll be showing you exactly how to do one

11. A Business Plan will help you get funding. One of the main reasons Banks turn down requests for loans is a lack of information to assist in making an informed decision. If the Manager doesn’t have enough knowledge about your idea or business then he won’t feel comfortable enough to support you. He has to understand your business before he can say yes. Some time in the future he may have to justify to his superiors why he lent you the money, so he needs as much information as possible to back up his decision. A Business Plan will make him feel much more at ease and so more able to say yes

12. By the time you have finished writing your Business Plan you will have a total understanding of your business; its strengths and weaknesses, the environment it operates in, what could potentially go wrong, and what you can do to ensure your success. Doing your planning on the back of an envelope is not going to achieve this

You should realise by now that it’s essential to have a Business Plan; it could be the difference between success and that dreaded “f” word – failure! It’s all about understanding the importance of planning ahead.

Spend time putting your thoughts on paper in a structured and logical manner. It will pay you dividends, both in getting the Bank to take you seriously and securing the future of your business.

Robert Warlow
Small Business Success