The possibilities are endless
At the beginning of this series, I said that growing your business can be like cooking up a good bar of soap. I hope you now see just what I meant. A simple business plan, your base, is really the first step to growing those fabulous businesses you’ve all so courageously started. Identifying the various elements we discussed in those plans will help build the foundation for your business to thrive. Then, building on top of those business plans with values and vision will give your business that ‘special mix of ingredients’ which make it unique. And the goals you set, and achieve, will continue to mold and give shape to your company for many years to come.
Growing your business, just like making soaps, is an enjoyable and rewarding process. What you want the outcome to be is completely up to you. And once you get started on these easy-to-do steps, you’ll find that the possibilities for growing your business even further are wonderfully endless, and quite frankly, an awful lot of fun!
Putting it all together with one last day of homework: You’ve done all the work already. Now is the time to arrange it in a coherent format by typing and ordering the last 8 days of homework. Arrange it like this:
Market analysis (the research you did on day one)
Ideal Customer Profile
SWOT
Unique Value Proposition
Your Values
Your Vision Statement
5 Goals for the Year
Your dream Advisory Board
Type it all up. Put it in a notebook and title it “Business Plan for XyZ Company, 2009.” If you ever need to go for a bank loan, all you’ll need to add is historical and projected financials and you’ve got everything you need to present. More importantly, you now have your roadmap for turning your business into what you want and need it to be.
I hope you enjoyed this series and found value in it. The entire series, complete with links to individual days, is below.
Part 1 – Defining Your Business
Part 5 – Using Your Vision To Inspire
Part 7 – Put Your Goals To Action
Part 8 – Surround Yourself Well
