7 Mistakes to Avoid When Building Your Business Plan
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A business plan can be a powerful tool for any entrepreneur or small business owner. It is the roadmap that will help you achieve your goals. However, it needs to be built correctly in order to do so. Unfortunately, many small business owners make several costly mistakes in planning their business. They allow their ideas to get ahead of them, they don’t communicate their plans very clearly, or they don’t have a clear purpose for building their business. In this article, I’ll share some of the most common mistakes that small business owners make when preparing their business plans.
Not specifying the goals
Before you can define and describe your business you need to know what your goals are. What do you want to accomplish? Do you want to create a new business, change the focus of your current business, or build a bigger business? Include your short-term and long-term goals along with your strategy for achieving them.
Not defining your resources
You’ll need to realistically estimate your current assets, liabilities, and needs before you can make a financial commitment towards business development. For example, if you’re opening a coffee shop, you’ll need to calculate your equipment, floor space, advertising budget, and staffing needs. Don’t leave this all up to your accountant to work out because chances are the will make an error.
Not communicating your plan
When writing your business plan you must be sure to communicate all of your goals to your staff and business partners. You’ll also need to describe how you plan to reach all of your short-term and long-term goals.
Inconsistent plan execution
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In addition to creating a clear and actionable business development plan, one key to good business planning is regular, thorough execution. Nothing builds momentum into your company like a well-executed plan. If you don’t have a plan, get one written. A final common mistake is planning too much, too fast. Too often, entrepreneurs get caught up in the excitement of building their business that they often don’t take the time to really plan for growth.
Trying to do everything too fast
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You’ll need to focus on completing all of the tasks in your business plan in the right order. Doing things in too little order will lead to unforced errors that you’ll have to live with as you go along. Even if a task is done exceptionally quickly. Such as purchasing supplies or printing informational documents, it may still need to be processed through several other departments before it is released for use.
Not setting realistic goals
The first step towards creating a successful business is to set realistic goals for your business as early as possible. If you want to create a profitable business in the near future. You’ll need to have clear and concise goals before you can ever begin. A business without a clearly defined goal is like a ship without sails; it’s bound to fail. Planning is not an exact science; no business is ever perfect. However, by paying attention to the little details and following these simple rules, you can increase the chances that your business will succeed greatly.
Trusting your guts
The biggest mistake is to trust your “gut feeling” when making a decision or designing a new product. Your “gut feeling” is actually only a way of remembering what you did in the past and why you did it. In order to achieve your goals, you need to draw out plans and make decisions based on logic, facts, and supporting evidence.
So if you’ve been feeling discouraged about the progress of your small business because you’re making some common errors in planning, don’t give up hope! We’ll help you figure out what needs fixing. We’ll also show you how to fix it so that your company will be much more successful moving forward. Contact WJJ Brands for a free consultation on where we think things went wrong and how we might be able to make them better going forward together.
