Tag Archives: Business Advice

Down to Business: What to Consider When Writing a Business Plan

Posted on by
Reply

Remember writing term papers in high school or college? You had to prove a point using evidence provided by your research of the topic. In many ways, a business plan is proving the following thesis: “I can successfully operate a sustainable business.” So what research do you need to prove this idea?

  • Market Research – Who are your competitors in the area? What are their prices for comparable services? How will you differentiate your product/service from theirs?
  • Financials – Create realistic projections for the money you will make and lose over the next 3 years. Explain how you came up with these figures, and how they will figure in to the growth of your company. Also include the amount of money you, your partners, and your investors (if applicable) are contributing to the start up.
  • Biographies – Who’s who in the organization? What skills, experience, and talent does each of the business owners/partners bring to the proverbial table? Understand how each person will make the business successful.
    • What are the duties of each person employed by the company?
    • Each person should provide a personal financial statement
    • How will matters be resolved if the partners cannot agree on an issue?
  • Marketing Plan – How will your potential patrons know about your business? How much of your budget is devoted to marketing? Depending on the type of business, will you do traditional advertising, or organic word of mouth marketing?
  • The Company Itself – What product or service are you providing, and how will you be doing this? How did you originally get involved in the industry? What makes this industry a worthwhile use of your time, energy, and money?

These are only a few of the aspects to consider when creating a business plan. You can find many seminars on how to write a business plan for little to no cost at local libraries, local community colleges – particularly Brookdale Community College, and of course at First Financial Federal Credit Union. Formal templates can be found at www.SBA.gov or www.SCORE.org. Use these questions provided, along with one of their templates, to prove your thesis – you can, in fact, operate a successful business…once you have the right plan!

For more information about any of First Financial’s business accounts and services, you can contact Business Development by emailing business@firstffcu.com 

Down to Business: Has Your Mission Statement Changed?

Posted on by
1

Questions and Answers signpostAwhile back, we wrote about how an important part of starting your business is creating a mission statement identifying the proverbial “who, what, where, why, and how” of your business.

Now that your business is up and running, however, have you noticed that the snapshot vision you created for your future doesn’t align with the reality? If this sounds familiar, ask yourself the following questions:

  • Am I reaching the target audience I thought I would?
    • Perhaps you were targeting Baby Boomers and ended up servicing more Millennials instead – have you updated your vision, plan, and marketing to reflect this adjustment?
  • Who runs the business?
    • Have you added new employees to your leadership team whose decisions add value to your business?  Do you need to?
  • What is the business? What is the product?
    • Ultimately these might not have changed significantly since the launch of your business.  But should your company or product be altered to meet new demographics you did not realize you would reach?
  • Why does the business exist?
    • You started this business because you had a dream and a market to enter.  But now that you have been operating for awhile, what makes you competitive enough to stay in the marketplace?
  • How does the business operate?
    • Is it time to hire a new manager?  Are you solely an online business and would like to move to a storefront – or vice versa? Could you cut costs or do you need to develop your inventory more?

Admittedly these are a lot of questions; however, it is crucial to question your business several times per year to justify the sustainability of your company.  If you aren’t questioning it, someone else could be, as well as developing their own company that might be your direct competitor.  Questioning your mission statement that you created with the original bullet points gives you a chance to look at your business as if you were your own competitor.  The best way to maintain your mission is to stay ahead of it!

Have a question about business planning, products, or services? Contact Business Development or leave a comment below.

No Business Owner is an Island – Tips for Getting the Right Advice from the Get-Go

Posted on by
Reply

Starting your own business is one of life’s most exciting and harrowing experiences.  Good planning is essential to helping you stay on course and deal with unexpected hurdles. Research is the first step in the planning process and you don’t have to go it alone.

While you should be an expert on your industry, products and services, there is no way that you could be an expert on everything that running a successful business requires, particularly the financial, legal and tax requirements.   You may waste precious resources – your time, energy and possibly money- in the long run trying to do things yourself that you are not qualified to do.

Outside experts can include bookkeepers/accountants, lawyers, web designers and business coaches.  Too often, we think we have all the answers and are the only people who can really get things done.  The reality is that we are in danger of stretching ourselves too thin, and can risk the potential success of our business by not utilizing outside expertise.  Consider hiring on a consulting basis to keep costs low until your revenues start growing.  Look to your industry for references – the ideal professionals are those who have specialized in yours.

Unless you are a numbers whiz or have a degree in accounting, it is advisable to get a professional to set up your accounting system.  Each start-up is unique but generally most start ups can begin with a bookkeeper.  The bookkeeper will help start you off with a good record keeping system, handle financial transactions, and produce financial statements.  An accountant will cost more, especially if you plan to aggressively grow.  To keep costs down, you can use an accountant for year-end tax planning; the right accountant will not only help you with tax returns, but also with longer term tax planning and networking.

Good legal advice is worth its weight in gold; bad advice can destroy your business.  A good business lawyer will provide vital assistance in almost every aspect of your business, from basic zoning compliance, copyright and trademark advice, to formal business incorporation, lawsuits and liability.

Hire a web designer who can design both your logo and website.  You want a website focused solely on your company that is easy to navigate and full of useful information.   Before the designer gets started, think about exactly what you want someone to do and how they should feel logging onto your site.

Get a coach.   Even if at first you don’t get a business coach to help you and guide you in your planning and operation, get someone who is objective and outside of your business whom you can rely on for nitty-gritty business advice and to hold you accountable for getting results.    Another set of eyes can work wonders for how you operate both for you and your business.  An outsider can also make sure you are getting the numbers you need both on the top line and the bottom line to survive.

Working with these professionals from the start will not only increase your business success factor, but also free you to thrive in doing what you do best – your business!   Remember no successful business owner is an island; plan to utilize financial, legal, technical and marketing professionals from the beginning.

Have a question about business planning, products, or services?  Contact Business Development or leave a comment below.

Disaster Recovery for Small Business

Posted on by
Reply

It’s a good idea for any small business to take a look at what can potentially happen & how to plan for a disaster at any time. Follow the steps below to make sure your business is prepared for any emergency.

 Start by minimizing the risks:

  • Develop a sound Disaster Recovery Plan – review and test it annually. This will help insure that systems are in place to help minimize the interruption in service that you provide to your clients and also providing valuable information to your employees that will give them both direction and peace of mind during a crisis.
  • Go out of your way to take care of employees
  • Make deposits in the bank of good will
  • Monitor industry news coverage, conditions and situations
  • Set up systems for early detection and warnings about crises
  • Identification and/or reduction of eventual risks
  • Establish good contacts with media and community
  • Conduct a vulnerability audit

When and if a crisis occurs, carefully evaluate the damage and prioritize your responses to employees, vendors, media and the community at large (or any other critical audiences).

What can we learn in terms of planning?

  • Create employee and business evacuation plans
  • Review remote office resources
  • Consider cloud-based client and project management systems
  • Make employees a first priority
  • Ensure an uninterrupted payroll
  • Establish a mobile work environment

What should we consider in regard to technology?

  • What tools are best for communicating? For example, cell vs. satellite vs. text messaging
  • Phone system: do we have voice activation, an 800 #, forwarding, online voicemail?
  • Do we have remote-access to an e-mail server?
  • What if we need to transition to a virtual office?

Some other advice:

  • Be proactive and routinely discuss, practice and implement your plans ahead of time
  • Ensure you have established clear, defined tasks and functions for everyone
  • Prepare strategic messages for every problematic, hard question imaginable
  • Be able to track and communicate with employees, clients and vendors
  • Realize planning is a best case scenario: what you least expect will happen, and most often what you think may happen may not.

Turning Your Customer Database into Business Growth

Posted on by
Reply

There are several ways to build your business, but you must know what’s strategic for your particular business, and you must execute this well.

Loyalty cards can be effective because they draw your customers into your business with discounts and/or rewards programs, and will keep them coming back. Many of the cards are able to do more than just earn loyalty through discounts. They can help businesses understand the buying habits of their customers and market to them more effectively.

Social media can also be a very beneficial tool, and allows you to engage your customers. In one innovative promotion we saw, a store invited customers to comment on the store’s Facebook page about their experiences with the store, and those who did were automatically entered into a sweepstakes competition. In another, a restaurant invited customers to post photos of their meals and comment on them for a chance to win a prize. There is almost no limit to what a business can do using social media. A clothing store could invite customers to post photos of themselves in their new outfits. It’s the sort of thing that can generate energy and buzz, and the best part is that the customers do most of the work for you!

Email is also very effective if you use it correctly. You don’t want to constantly invade your customers’ inboxes, but when you have something that is truly of value to them, email lets you get it to them directly. You can offer them coupons and promo codes for birthdays, anniversaries or other special occasions – or even just for the season at hand.

Speaking of promo codes, there’s no reason not to add them onto the back of your business cards as well. You hand them out all the time, after all. Give recipients an easy way to try out the experience of doing business with you.

Of course, so much of modern communication is now happening in the mobile environment, it also makes sense to communicate with people on their mobile devices. Again, you have to be careful because they may not respond well if they’re constantly receiving promotional texts from you. But there’s a right way to do it, says Derek Johnson, CEO of SMS marketing software Tatango.

It’s all about getting permission to capture customers’ information, and then making sure they understand how you’ll use it. And of course, quantity is not what gets results. Quality is – and that means useful, relevant messages that offer value to the customer, including worthwhile discounts, deals and other offers the customers have already told you they want.

Finally, customer referral programs offer a win-win, as you can reward customers with discounts when they refer a friend – and of course, you get a new customer in the process.

Customer referral programs can keep your customer focused on promoting your business. Referring a friend can not only benefit the customer but also the business as well.  If they tell their friends and offer them an incentive, customers will be more engaged and more likely to keep spreading the word.  The business will make more money as a result.  It is a win-win for everyone.

Your customer database is a tremendously valuable asset! But like any asset, you have to use it wisely and effectively to get the value out of it.

Have a question about business planning, products, or services? Contact Business Development or leave a comment below.

 

Creative Business Strategies to Drive Summer Sales

Posted on by
Reply

Summer is certainly a time when people get out of the house, so owning a local business presents a chance to get them into your store. What’s more, our area tends to attract additional population during the warm parts of the year – so there is more business to be had! A good strategy could be the difference between attracting them to your space and watching them go to a competitor.

What are some effective ways to attract customers during the summer months?

If your business is in a strip mall, you might consider joining with your fellow tenants to host a summer block party – complete with games, prizes, coupons, and gift cards. Maybe a guest could win $5 off their next visit to your store in a spin-the-wheel game.

People are drawn to spectacle, and there are lots of low cost ways to create them. A well-planned spaghetti eating or hot dog eating contest can generate traffic via word of mouth, not to mention possible media coverage. This is a great fit for a restaurant, but it might work for other businesses as well.

Other businesses can come up with concepts that fit their particular specialty. A salon can generate attention by staging special makeover nights, while a printing company can offer free wedding invitations – something that is sure to find plenty of takers during the summer months.

Any special event that attracts an audience is also an opportunity to build your mailing or email list, or to find new Facebook fans and Twitter followers, so it’s important when people show up for an event to get their contact information. That might be accomplished through raffle entries, with a charitable component as a possible incentive for people to participate.

There are also usually plenty of events already being planned, such as city street fairs or Chamber of Commerce events where individuals can sign up and participate – often at less cost and with less preparation required than you would need to stage your own event. Within the context of these events, you can often do something creative that helps people to remember your business.

Summer brings the crowds to shopping districts, but it’s your creativity that will bring them through your door – and keep them coming back!

Have a question about business planning, products, or services? Contact Business Development or leave a comment below.