Planning is Key (Part One): Business Plan

In my town I see businesses come and go so quickly I almost miss them. One week there

In my town I see businesses come and go so quickly I almost miss them. One week there will be a great little shop selling the most amazing hand-made items but the next time I drive past it, it houses a team of lawyers. Many businesses die within the first six months of opening mainly due to a lack of forethought and planning. How can you potentially avoid that mistake and make a success of your business? Well, before you consider setting up a business, any business you must think  about budget, goals, clientele etc while at the same time being careful of unrealistic expectations. What you need is a business plan.

A home-based business differs a great deal from a regular business but that doesn’t make the planning process any less important. All the while you’re putting pen to paper, don’t get bogged down with perfecting your business plan and sticking to its rigid schedule of what may be impractical goals. Your business plan should determine what you hope to achieve in the short term and also where you want to be in a years time. You should also consider start up costs, expected profit and honestly think about whether this venture is the one for you.

Since there are so many points to consider, I’m going to break this subject down into various posts.

What should my Business Plan include?

As mentioned, there are a number of points to cover and over the next few posts they’ll be elaborated on. Basically we can look at the following:

  1. Business Goals
  2. Legalities
  3. Services
  4. Company Name & Branding
  5. Market Analysis
  6. Market Strategy
  7. Costs

That will give you something to chew over but don’t miss the next part as we’re going to look at the first item on the Business Plan list, “Business Goals”.

 

Updated in 2016: Purchase my “Business Plan Template e-Book” from the Canary Admin Services’ Victory Store.

PORTADA BUSINESS PLAN TEMPLATE

About Sabrina L. Williams

Although I was born in the UK, I moved to the Canary Islands, Spain at a young age and I haven't looked back. The Canaries is a fantastic place to live, I mean you can do all types of outdoor activities practically all year round because of the great weather. Horses are my poison but the islands are also a superb spot for water sports so they do attract a lot of attention from people around the world. Anyway, enough about that. Back in 2011, I made one of the biggest, scariest yet best decisions I'd ever made and set-up my own business in the middle of a recession. I love what I do as no two days are the same, plus Spanish law keeps me on my toes as it is constantly changing (often without warning!) so there is always something new to learn. As I've branched out in the world of Administrative Consultancy, I decided to create a blog to discuss topics of interest to others in my industry and my clients, share tips and experiences, to see what new ideas people have for improving their businesses and the like so I hope you'll find the time to join me on this venture...

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