Often you may hear about what a business plan consists of. While including the necessary items is very important, you also want to make sure you don’t commit any of the following common business plan mistakes:

1. Putting it off: Don’t wait to write a plan until you absolutely have to. Too many businesses make business plans only when they have no choice in the matter. Unless the bank or the investors want a plan, there is no plan.

Don’t wait to write your plan until you think you’ll have enough time. “There’s not enough time for a plan,” business people say. “I can’t plan. I’m too busy getting things done.” The busier you are, the more you need to plan. If you are always putting out fires, you should build firebreaks or a sprinkler system. You can lose the whole forest for paying too much attention to the individual burning trees.

2. Cash flow casualness: Cash flow is more important than sales, profits, or anything else in the business plan, but most people think in terms of profits instead of cash. When you and your friends imagine a new business, you think of what it would cost to make the product, what you could sell it for, and what the profits per unit might be. We are trained to think of business as sales minus costs and expenses, which equal profits. Unfortunately, we don’t spend the profits in a business. We spend cash. So understanding cash flow is critical. If you have only one table in your business plan, make it the cash flow table.

3. Idea inflation: Plans don’t sell new business ideas to investors. People do. The plan, though necessary, is only a way to present information. Investors invest in people, not ideas.

Don’t overestimate the importance of the idea, particularly the importance of the uniqueness of the idea. You don’t need a great idea to start a business; you need time, money, perseverance, common sense, and so forth. Very few successful businesses are based entirely on new ideas. A new idea is much harder to sell than an existing one, because people don’t understand a new idea and they are often unsure if it will work.

4. Fear and dread.

Doing a business plan isn’t as hard as you think. You don’t have to write a doctoral thesis or a novel. There are good books to help, many advisors among the Small Business Development Centers (SBDCs), business schools, and there is software available to help you (such as Business Plan Pro, and others).

5. Spongy, vague goals: Leave out the vague and the meaningless babble of business phrases (such as “being the best”) because they are simply hype. Remember that the objective of a plan is its results, and for results, you need tracking and follow up. You need specific dates, management responsibilities, budgets, and milestones. Then you can follow up. No matter how well thought out or brilliantly presented, it means nothing unless it produces results.

6. One size fits all: Tailor your business plan to its real business purpose. Business plans can be different things: they are often just sales documents to sell an idea for a new business. They can be detailed action plans, financial plans, marketing plans, and even personnel plans. They can be used to start a business, or just run a business better.

7. Diluted priorities: Remember, strategy is focus. A priority list with 3-4 items is focus. A priority list with 20 items is something else, certainly not strategic, and rarely if ever effective. The more items on the list, the less the importance of each.

8. Hockey-stick shaped growth projections: Have projections that are conservative so you can defend them. When in doubt, be less optimistic.

Source: bplans.com

Technorati : Business Plan, Marketing, Marketing Plan, Palo Alto Software, Planning

Equipment Manufacturer Marketing Plan

Mplans.com: Excerpt from Marketing Plan Pro Sample Plan

Marketing Vision:  The Road Construction industry is poised to take advantage of the Economic Stimulus package but it will be determined by the bids that the road contractors win. Private-sector spending has come to a halt. Our marketing efforts must be spent on providing existing customers with the reassurance they need so that we are his first call when searching for equipment. We also must ensure that we can provide an adequate parts supply for our present customers. These are operational issues, more so than marketing ones, but it is an important part of our sales and marketing effort to be the easy choice for their needs and to provide local support during the prime paving system.

Our marketing plan takes a conservative approach in trying out some new communications methods. We have found that many of the customers we are reaching at the present time are seeking more direct contact. Since the audience is relatively well-known and in a geographic area, we are testing how best to use the new technologies before advancing.

Click on the Mplan link above to see the entire marketing plan.

Other Related Business901 Blogs and Pages:

Marketing Plan Pro Coach Offer

News Releases and Ebooks

Marketing Plan Pro – What is in the Box

Hiring a Consultant – Can I see your Marketing Plan?

]]> http://business901.com/blog1/equipment-manufacturer-need-a-marketing-plan/feed/ 0 http://business901.com/blog1/are-you-an-ideal-customer-for-a-turnaround-consultant/ http://business901.com/blog1/are-you-an-ideal-customer-for-a-turnaround-consultant/#comments Sun, 03 May 2009 10:50:50 +0000 business901 http://WWW.BUSINESS901.COM/blog1/are-you-an-ideal-customer-for-a-turnaround-consultant/ Mplan for a Turnaround Consultant: "My ideal customer has a privately-owned company which has had negative profitability for a period of time, typically more than 18 months, or they have a recently-started company which may never have achieved profitability.

The driver of these losses is often accompanied by reduced market share, quality issues and employee morale. The reality is that, even with an infusion of capital which is difficult if not impossible to get, without intervention into how the company is being managed they are most likely to fail. If the owner still believes a capital infusion will correct their problem, they are not a likely candidate."

If that sounds like you, embedded inside the plan is an outline for an assessment that the consultant would perform, and it goes like this:

"The trial stage is a paid assessment that is based on:

1. Financial Ratio Assessment
2. Sales and Marketing Evaluation
3. Operational Assessment
4. Organizational Assessment
5. Present Cost Structure
6. Product Mix Analysis
7. Future Viability of Product(s)
8. Cash Flow Projections"

Seldom can an assessment be done without the use of a consultant and I recommend that you consider one. Objectivity is what you need at this point and seldom will you find that in-house. Take a look at the entire plan, even though it is written for a consultant it spend a great deal of time on the customer side.

This is an excerpt from a sample Marketing Plan for a Turnaround Consultant. The entire plan can be seen on Marketing Plan Pro Website .

P.S. To be completely transparent, I wrote the plan.

1. Get all of the material you have and a list of all your listings and advertising you are running.
2. Review your measurements on what is working and what is not, if you have them. If you don’t know, stop doing it!
3. Review how your product helps your customer and all the material you have to support that.
4. Create a list we can interview that makes up your buyer, present, past and NEVER. Oh, yes, interview them.
5. Separate products/services into existing sales channels and map customer buying process.
6. Use existing if applicable; create new media around step 5 to include print, media, internet and sales processes.
7. Creating a content marketing strategy based on your customers buying process and needs.
8. Create conversation officer position to support material and manage communications.
9. Make a significant web presence through social media and communication channels with stakeholders. Create local presence, online and off-line.
10. DO IT!

Inspiration provided by a post from David Meerman Scott.

In a previous post on Lean Six Sigma marketing-Explore , I had stated Explore, the data to identify a cause and effect relationship between variables, was the 3rd step in building a Lean Six Sigma marketing process. I also stated that in the Duct Tape Marketing planning system that the Remarkable Story and Product or Service Innovation coincided with the definition of Explore.

I think this is one of the most powerful tools but is the least understood. Establishing a baseline or as it is so well put in Michael Kennedy’s book Product Development for the Lean Enterprise :  “The root issues must be understood from two perspectives: what is causing them and what stands between how things should be and what they are. Failure to understand will result in widespread wishful thinking and superficial solutions.”

There is a true art to mapping and takes quite a bit of work to become proficient. However, utilizing Marketing Plan Pro will allow you to build that current state of your organization and your product or service. It is important to precisely know where you are at and be able to define that to your customer.

1. 10 ideas for marketing in a tight economy.
2. Recession proof your business.
3. How to successfully market, your small business in tough times
4. Recession-Buster

That was an afternoon check of my e-mails. Ok, aside from the dot.com era which was largely regionalized, when was the last recession that all these people have gained their experience from?  The last recession that I really remember is in the Jimmy Carter era.  When we had, double-digit inflation, interest rates skyrocketing, and long lead times or scarcity. Does anybody remember?

We have been blessed for the last 25 years, with relatively low interest rates, practically zero inflation, and next day availability. With that in mind, I think it will be extremely interesting the path people will choose to counteract these turbulent times. Just ignoring it will not make it go away. Have we decided been there, done that – doesn’t count anymore. Have the recession – busters decided to "Just say No."

I think it’s a great time to re-evaluate your strategies for moving forward. To be completely transparent, I am a gray hair myself but I would recommend adding a little age to my circle of advisors. Most importantly in the strategic side of your planning.  I just don’t think it is going to hurt to have some been there, done there talent surrounding you. Just like the IRS will tell you, ignorance of a tax law is not an excuse. Ignorance of recession, if it happens, is not one either.

Important tip: Make 3 budgets out for next year. Best, Worst and what you think scenarios. Watch  the accounts that deviate the most.

How is that possible? At first glance, I saw little synergy between these items but when you accept the fact that you are still in the strategic stages of the development of the marketing plan, the relationship starts coming together. The data to identify a cause and effect relationship between to variables can be simply put as Customer Needs and Your Solution. So, your product/service innovation must directly relate to solving the customers needs. Nothing more and nothing less. Spending time in understanding this market opportunity and more specifically as they apply to customer requirements is imperative. We must not forget to explore and evaluate these opportunities against our competitor’s offerings.

After that, we would translate the product offering into a Remarkable Story that must be customer centric and fit the organizations processes and culture. In telling that story, we must commit to something that would differentiate ourselves from our competition. It needs to be powerful and with the ability to quickly communicate that message. We must also devise and offering at each stage of our sales funnel.  Specifically describing the offering in detail so that the conversion process can be flawless.

Can everyone in your organization tell your story?  Does each and every person that is part of your sales funnel know what the specific offerings are throughout the entire process?  Do they all know the next step?

Other Related Post:

1. What is Six Sigma?
2. Lean Six Sigma Marketing
3. Lean Six Sigma Marketing – Define
4. What is Lean Six Sigma?(video)
5. Lean Six Sigma Marketing – Measure
6. Lean Six Sigma – Explore
7. Lean Six Sigma – Develop

How is that possible? At first glance, I saw little synergy between these items but when you accept the fact that you are still in the strategic stages of the development of the marketing plan, the relationship starts coming together. The data to identify a cause and effect relationship between to variables can be simply put as Customer Needs and Your Solution. So, your product/service innovation must directly relate to solving the customers needs. Nothing more and nothing less. Spending time in understanding this market opportunity and more specifically as they apply to customer requirements is imperative. We must not forget to explore and evaluate these opportunities against our competitor’s offerings.

After that, we would translate the product offering into a Remarkable Story that must be customer centric and fit the organizations processes and culture. In telling that story, we must commit to something that would differentiate ourselves from our competition. It needs to be powerful and with the ability to quickly communicate that message. We must also devise and offering at each stage of our sales funnel.  Specifically describing the offering in detail so that the conversion process can be flawless.

Can everyone in your organization tell your story?  Does each and every person that is part of your sales funnel know what the specific offerings are throughout the entire process?  Do they all know the next step?

Other Related Post:

1. What is Six Sigma?
2. Lean Six Sigma Marketing
3. Lean Six Sigma Marketing – Define
4. What is Lean Six Sigma?(video)
5. Lean Six Sigma Marketing – Measure

Your Marketing Organized

One of the most difficult tasks for small business owners, when it comes to marketing, is organization. Until you start to look at marketing as one of the core systems in your business it will always feel like a disjointed and disconnected thing that you know you must do when you can get around to it. And that’s no way to build momentum.

For the purpose of this post I’ve created what I think is the ideal Marketing organization in the graphic below. (This is a smart art graphic that new versions of MS Office can create and save as an image – click on the graphic to see full size and feel free to borrow for your organization.)

If you can begin to realize that your company’s marketing system does indeed need to perform all of the functions listed above, you can more easily grasp how to create processes that assure you are accurately moving each and every customer logically along the path to becoming a hyper-satisfied referral machine.

And that’s the way to build marketing momentum!

My opinion:

As you know I am a systems guy and a straightforward,easy to understand chart like this is a great strategy and tool. To simple for some, but that I believe is the beauty of it.

I have taken a similar list and just tried using it in my last presentation. It goes a step further or backwards which ever you may decide. But instead of a linear list like this, I have made more of a Mindmap or spoke type diagram. This way I use linking connections and over lay my “web” on top of it.

My categories were formed from this new software package I have called Marketing Plan Pro Powered by someone….

P.S. I think this linear chart is easier to understand and may use it to introduce my circular chart.

Norm Brodsky and Bo Burlingham, two of Inc. magazine’s hugely popular columnists, will talk about how small-business people can deal with all kinds of tricky business situations. This skill is something they call “The Knack.”

The Coaches Excellence Series , These guys are good!

Technorati Tags: Marketing Plan , Planning , Small Business , Inc. Magazine , Bo Burlingham , Norm Brodsky