Frank Goley - Business Success Consultant

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Frank Goley, business success Consultant for ABC Business Consulting, has over twenty years experience helping companies start, grow, turnaround and succeed. This website is dedicated to providing information on Business Plans, Marketing Plans and Strategic Plans. For more information on Business Planning, Business Management, Business Finance, Business Financial Management and Company Growth Strategies check out Frank's FREE Business Success Articles and E-books and Business Success Strategies Blog.  

Business Plan for Business Success

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A Business Plan is Important for Business Success

A good business plan is the most important but often overlooked part of running, starting and expanding a successful business, and obtaining finance for a business. If a business plan is written properly, running a business and obtaining finance is much easier, leaving less room for error and failure. While you cannot predict everything that can happen in a company’s future, a good business plan helps you avoid certain pitfalls and overcome obstacles, while anticipating and creating opportunities.

There are different business plan formats for various circumstances. A comprehensive business plan will help you run your business venture or project more successfully. There are also specialized business plans for various purposes, such as a funding plan for a bank, investor or venture capital firm. Other types of specialized business plans include a sales plan, turnaround plan, customer plan, marketing plan, strategic plan, joint venture plan, strategic alliance plan, public relations plan, government regulatory plan, financial strategy plan, among others.

The business planning process is very important. It is a building block system that is continuous, systematic and comprehensive. It involves the entire company, produces effective decision making, and executes those decisions effectively in a strategic plan. A good business plan also measures the relationship between expectations and performance. It evaluates your company’s progress or lack thereof.

It is said, writing an effective business plan is more art than science. It is good to have a proven process and format, but you can’t just fill in the blanks on a master planning program or document. It is a matter of asking yourself the right questions within the proven process and format that brings about a successfully written business plan.

The comprehensive business plan that I develop has eight sections: the executive summary, company overview, management and operations, marketing strategy and plan, strategic and sales plan, financials and appendix. I amend the eight section plan for specialized plans, like the funding plan.

The organization of the business plan is quite important. The eight section business plan is in a specific order from which each section builds on the previous section. There is fluid thought and reasoning employed to achieve a business plan which reaches its specified purpose. Although I wrote that the executive summary is the first section, it should be written last. All the other sections should be written in the order they are listed. A plan contains a very precise and concise format and is organized into numbered sections and sub-sections, which contain specific information in short, paragraph form.

A business plan is a dynamic document, as it changes on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. By being able to access it on your company computer network and online, various key people within the company can use and update it easily and effectively. For a Business Plan to be successful, it must be intertwined into the fabric of your business, have a detailed implementation schedule and be carefully tracked. Implementation is key to the success of a business plan- put your plan in action and track it!

A well written and implemented business plan can do a lot of things, including: running, expanding or starting a successful business; be readily changed, adapted and updated to suit market conditions; be a fantastic sales tool; obtain funding; react quickly to market changes; give you the ability to make realistic forecasts and projections; seize market opportunities; establish and sustain your competitive advantage; and more.

Always consider hiring an experienced business consultant and planner to help develop, write and most importantly, implement your business plan.

Marketing Plan for Business Success

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A Winning Marketing Plan

Developing, writing and implementing a successful marketing plan starts with solid industry and market analysis and concludes with an implementable marketing strategy and program. A marketing plan is not developed and implemented independently; rather, it should be developed in close coordination with your company’s products and services and ultimately implemented through a strategic plan.

There is a certain approach and building-block process to developing a marketing plan. The place to start is analyzing your industry: its current state; who the major participants are; changes in the industry; opportunities; economic modeling forecasts; and examining who else may enter the industry. Then move toward determining how distribution works in your industry and how technology affects its distribution systems.

After your analysis on the industry level is complete, it is time to narrow your focus to analyzing and defining your market segments. Some example determinants are demographics, geography, customer needs, buying pattern and psychographics. With these segments defined and analyzed, analyze each market segment and determine how the market needs lead these identified groups to buy your products and services. Focus not on what you have to sell but more importantly, on the buyer needs you satisfy. Determine why customers buy from you.

You can now narrow down your target markets, determining what market groups are more important to your operation, along with, the market niches you can effectively target. It is vital to determine what your target customers’ needs and characteristics are, along with, what makes certain target groups more advantageous to market than others.

The next step in the marketing plan development process is to analyze market trends from a strategic standpoint. Look at market trends as a way to get ahead of the market direction, knowing with a probability of certainty where it is going. You can now realistically project your market growth and specific growth rates. The growth rate projections should identify in detail the relationship between your potential customers, sales, revenues and ultimately, profits.

Explain the nature of your competition, why customers choose one provider over the other, and why customers will buy from your company instead of these competitors. Provide a detailed competitive summary of your products’ and services’ variables, ranking them in comparison to your competition. Example variables include pricing, sales, trends, positioning clarity, quality, value, reputation, packaging, advertising, customer service, target market focus, innovation, brand awareness and so forth. Determine your top five competitive strengths and weaknesses, as well as, identifying your top competitive gap threats. Finally, determine how competitively positioned your company will be in the market.

Two parts remain: your marketing strategy and marketing program. The marketing strategy consists of positioning statements, pricing strategy, promotion strategy and distribution strategy. These are closely linked as your marketing programs will implement the marketing plan’s underlying strategy- the program puts the strategy into action, bringing “life” to your marketing plan.

A great marketing plan development process understands it is a companywide endeavor between product and service development, market analysis, marketing strategy, marketing programs, the marketing plan, the strategic plan and the sales plan. This all adds up to happy customers and financial success.

Consider hiring a marketing pro to help you develop the best marketing strategy and plan for your company and don’t forget the online marketing component! Online marketing can be highly targeted and cost effective per customer acquisition, with high profit margins and tremendous growth possibilities.

Strategic Plan for Business Success

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How to Develop an Effective Strategic Plan

A strategic plan and sales plan puts your marketing plan into action and is the implementation work horse of a business plan. This article on the strategic and sales planning process is divided into ten sections, which are presented in a particular, building-block order.

Potential Problems and Company Objectives: First identify and rank your potential problems in your company operations. With your problems identified and ranked in importance and severity, you can develop company objectives to minimize and manage the identified problem areas, emphasizing your company’s strengths.

Risk Analysis: When are Problems likely to occur? What can you do to mitigate the potential risks and problems? How will you deal with these problems? The risk analysis looks at how you can turn problems into opportunities, which parlays into the next section.

Company Strategy, Strategic Tactics and Programs: First develop your strategy, then the relating strategic tactics and then the resulting strategic programs. Strategy is focus and consists of key factors that distinguish your company and are most expected to contribute to your success. It is important that your company strategies complement each other so you are not sending your business in separate directions. Strategic tactics are used to implement strategies and relate to a specific strategy. Strategic programs are specific business activities which have concrete dates, assigned responsibilities and developed budgets. Programs relate to specific tactics of a specific strategy.

Sales Strategy: Develop the sales strategy as it specifically relates to the marketing strategy. Establish the different sale methods and channels. Determine your sales process and goals.

Sales Program: The sales program addresses how your sales strategy will be implemented. You should have systems in place to measure the strategy implementation and to support your sales efforts.

Strategic Alliances and Joint Ventures: Define your keystone alliances and partnerships. Develop cooperative marketing and development opportunities. Identify any inherent risks.

Rolling Basis Operating Budget: The operating budget is a planning and control mechanism which helps you develop the sales forecast. It should be on a rolling basis, outward looking for one year, and the format on a monthly basis. It is important your operational budget reflects your strategic planning goals.

Sales Forecast: Based upon your sales strategy and programs, and considering your operational budget, develop a three to five year projected sales forecast. This sales forecast will be used to develop your detailed profit and loss statement of your business plan. It is very important to correlate how your sales forecast relates to your market analysis, market segments, marketing strategy and sales strategy.

Milestone Table: Provide your future company goals, milestones and corresponding strategies, along with your marketing and sales program rollout.

Control Mechanisms: What mechanisms for control of each critical skill and resource are available to you? Is direct ownership necessary for your resources and skills or can they be outsourced and at what cost savings? These are just some of the questions to address when identifying control mechanisms for your strategic plan’s resources.

Strategic planning is such an important part of running a successful business, I highly recommend retaining an experienced business consultant, ensuring your strategic plan is effectively developed, and most importantly, effectively implemented throughout your company operations. After your strategic plan is implemented, an experienced business consultant can also help you ensure the strategy stays on track, reaches its goals and is adjusted as necessary due to market changes and unforeseen problematic events.