Business Planning Creates Positive Results for Success

When you plan to run a business of any kind, you should always create a complete business plan to run your enterprise from, before you ever get started in business. The reason is, that business planning creates positive results for success by giving you a road map to start from. As with all strategic planning, creating a business plan can uncover things that you didn’t know might factor into your business in the beginning. A business plan will change many times as the business operates and other important factors arise. Knowing where you started and where you are projected to end up, can keep you on track to meet your goals.

To complete a business plan, you need to make sure to include the most important aspects of it in order to create a clear picture of the business. You will need to know where the enterprise is aiming to go, how it aims to get there, as well as all of the details in between. Make sure to include the following:-

• Your vision statement, mission statement and operational goals.

• Analysis for your business strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

• The short term and long term goals of the business, 3 to 5 years out.

• Who the target market is and what their wants and needs are.

• An analysis of the industry to determine whether it is growing.

• An analysis of the competition, defining who they are, as well as their strengths and weaknesses.

• Marketing planning to determine how to attract the target market.

• Financial planning in order to project financial needs for the goals set.

Although it seems like a lot to begin with, when you have it spelled out in front of you, it will leave little room for distraction. This can be important as the business starts to grow in new directions throughout the year.

You should expect to create or revise your business plan annually, in order to make changes to better achieve your goals. During your strategic planning, make sure to spell out your goals very specifically, so that you know what you are working towards. Studies have shown that businesses who had clear goals spelled out, came closer to meeting them than businesses who didn’t bother creating a business plan at all.

Many times a business plan is an internal document that is only going to be seen by the organisation itself. However, in some cases, investors and financiers also need to see the business plan prior to approving additional funding for the business. Either way, the business plan should be complete and detailed in order to increase the chances of positive results and to measure the organisations successes.

By planning out the strategies that your business will utilise, you will be able to recognise what the most important wants and needs are for the target market. By doing this it will allow you to concentrate your efforts on meeting and exceeding those wants and needs for your customers. Once you become experienced in determining your target markets’ changing needs, you can aim to satisfy them before the competition does.

This post was written as part of the Nollett Business Solutions blogging program, which provides businesses with the tools, expertise and solutions they need to become dynamic engines in an ever-changing world. Like us on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter.

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Establish Change Management By Hiring Consultants

For many business organisations, establishing change management may not be possible if it is being performed by an internal member of management. The reluctance to actually make the changes that are necessary to improve the areas of concern is greater when the person proposing those changes is close to the situation. For this very reason, it is recommended to establish change management by hiring consultants. This can have both a positive and negative affect on the people within the change. They can, in some instances, view the consultant as a hero if they gain something from the change, or as a villain if they lose something during the change.

Change management consultants know that there are several popular models of change management that are used successfully in business today. Every model has drawn its steps from the same basic principles of change management. Those principles are;

·         Every person who experiences change will react differently as an individual.

·         Everyone seeks to fulfil their own basic needs regardless of what position they hold.

·         In most cases for change to take effect everyone will lose something that is comfortable to them.

·         Individuals have many different ideas about change management efforts, so the plans must be pragmatic.

·         The fear of change is very real and must be dealt with in effective ways.

By taking these principals into consideration with every change, the consultant proposing the change has a higher likelihood of success.

Establishing change management needs to be accepted by all employees in the business in order for it to be successful. Change management can be made less traumatic on the organisation if different levels of peer groups are formed to train employees on the changes and help deal with the changes as they occur. Change should never be delivered quickly without warning. There are steps to implementing change to make it effective with the employees.

·         Inform the employees that there are going to be changes made.

·         Help them to recognise that the changes are necessary for the business to advance.

·         Provide the appropriate training for the employees prior to making the change.

·         Help to meet the employee’s needs during the adjustment period after the change.

·         Gain the approval and support of the employees for a successful implementation.

When a consultant proposes a change management solution, it has been drawn from the facts formed by the data provided by the business. Balancing the steps to migrate the company through the changes successfully is completely the choice of the businesses management. However, if the proposed steps are going to be overlooked, then hiring the consultant would be a waste of time and money. The consultant can direct management on how to sell the proposed changes to the employees by providing best practices in most cases. For a successful migration, management should approve the proposed steps and implement them accordingly.

If your company is serious about making the changes that need to be made to move your business forward in an ever changing marketplace, then hiring a change management consultant is the way to go.


This post was written as part of the Nollett Business Solutions blogging program, which provides businesses with the tools, expertise and solutions they need to become dynamic engines in an ever-changing world. Like us on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter.

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Cash is King; Keep it Flowing

Every year, many profitable businesses will learn, very painfully, that cash is king. When people create their business plans prior to starting a business, many underestimate how much positive cash flow they really need in order to keep their business running through difficult periods. It is important to take into consideration, that even the smallest enterprise could experience difficulty unexpectedly. When large businesses use small suppliers, they don’t always pay for their products or services in a timely manner. Many times, this can put small or medium sized enterprises into a financial bind. Regardless of money that is late, or that may be coming in the future, businesses need cash on hand to pay the bills when they are due.

Some small businesses can find themselves stuck in a routine of borrowing money for much longer than anticipated in order to meet cash flow needs for the moment. By failing to anticipate these difficulties, businesses find themselves in a negative cash flow situation and end up spending more and more profits on interest rates, just trying to stay afloat. Not only does it impact their immediate cash flow, but it can cause them to be late with payments because of it. When this happens, it can cost them with higher interest rates in the future as well. It just goes to prove, even more so, that cash is king in any business.

For larger businesses that are usually more established, they use holding out on paying their bills to smaller and medium sized companies for their own benefit. If it will help them to keep their own interest rates low, or give them more cash flow for their own purposes, many will take that advantage. This vicious cycle will play out many times, which may result in the need for the smaller businesses to raise their prices to compensate for the negative cash flow. Often times, this practice can cost smaller suppliers their businesses if they can’t get a handle on it quickly.

Thankfully, there are ways to deal with the slow or late payments. Rather than breaking down and hiring a full time CFO to handle the accounting for the business, which most businesses can’t afford, technology steps up and fills the need. Because cash is king, there are now companies that offer virtual CFO’s for hire. These CFO’s can be hired on an as needed basis and can help any business get their finances back on track in a few short hours per week. They can help any business to set themselves up to maintain a positive cash flow, so they can face the needs of the business as they arise.

As well as virtual CFO’s, there are new smartphone apps that have been created to simplify the billing and payment process for businesses. With the help of these apps, many small businesses can easily keep an eye on their invoices and payments. They not only allow the customer to effortlessly pay in a few seconds, but they allow the smaller companies to stay on top of the late payments as well. Any small or medium sized businesses would be wise to take advantage of these ways to manage their finances before they find themselves in a negative situation.

This post was written as part of the Nollett Business Solutions blogging program, which provides businesses with the tools, expertise and solutions they need to become dynamic engines in an ever-changing world. Like us on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter.

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The many faces of Procrastination

When you are trying to operate a business, getting caught up in procrastination can cost you. There are a number of things that you can lose out on if you procrastinate for too long. You might find that your profits take a nose dive while you procrastinate about various business decisions. As a business owner or CEO you don’t get the luxury of procrastinating for too long. If you don’t get that loan application in on time, or you don’t hire that tax accountant in time, there could be serious consequences to those delayed decisions.

There are so many reasons that someone might procrastinate, and every one of them has been used countless times by someone telling themselves, it’s not a problem. The most common reason for procrastination is that the person doing it feels that they have too many other important tasks to complete to dedicate time to just one task. They may tell themselves this while they take time to dawdle and flit from one small project to another, then when crunch time arrives, they could kick themselves for not concentrating on the main priority first. This person needs to concentrate on one thing at a time. The most important things need to be done first, then, if there is time left, tackle the smaller less important items on the list.

Many times people will just feel overwhelmed with a project or task and put off starting it because they just feel it is too involved for them to complete. These people should break the project up into bite sized pieces and take care of each one until they are all completed. If being overwhelmed is an issue, they may want to talk to the person who gave them the task and see if they could assign it to someone else. If you happen to be in charge and need to complete the project yourself, then you will need to do it one small piece at a time until it is finished. If you can’t do this, either delegate it or hire someone who can do it for you.

While someone may put off a project related task, it may be because something else is required to be done first. This type of procrastination can be caused by poor planning in the beginning of a project. If this seems to be the problem, then go back to the planning stage and set attainable tasks for the people involved. You can also assign different pieces of the project to more people so the tasks get done quicker and are less stressful on each person.

Nearly every business in the world suffers from procrastination at some point in time. There seems to be very different views on procrastination among various business types and while some businesses see it as a form of creativity, many effects of procrastination can be viewed as negative, and can be measured simply by looking at the end results. When everyday tasks are not being completed on time, something has broken down in the process somewhere. When you examine the evidence, it usually ends up being that someone in the process has gotten distracted or feels overwhelmed. Procrastination doesn’t necessarily have to be about laziness, but is often seen like this. Some people put things off for very specific reasons but take too long to get back to them. If this happens too often it can be a serious problem for business.

This post was written as part of the Nollett Business Solutions blogging program, which provides businesses with the tools, expertise and solutions they need to become dynamic engines in an ever-changing world. Like us on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter.

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Why export is important for growth and essential for the economy

Exports are directly related to economic growth and recovery in the UK. When products are exported, not only do the individual industries increase their sales and profits, the increased income is then fed right into the economy of the country. With a renewed export strategy to both developed markets, and emerging markets, there is a much higher demand for additional workers in the UK to meet the growth in demand for products and services. Not only does this need equate to additional workers in those industries, it will also create an increase in spending by the new workforce. The local shops and other businesses will earn more money from the workers. In turn, the need for more domestic products rises as does the need to spend more for their products. This influx of revenues all helps to further stimulate the growth of the economy.

By making changes to the tariff barriers, and lowering transportation costs, it allows and encourages more companies to export their goods and services worldwide. This makes way for exports to become a greater share of the GDP in the UK. Although the UK has been in a position of deficit in % of GDP for a while, export does help the country to reduce that deficit. With policies in place to encourage new industry export strategies, the hope is that the UK will gain strength in the global marketplace as an exporter of goods and services. This can cause an increase in competitiveness among industries and eventually someone may lose out. However, the hope is that during this shift in industry it will still increase the overall health of the economy.

The UK quickly took aim at increasing export once it realised the impact that it could have on the country’s economy. In 2009, the UK was exporting to the EU countries and non-EU countries at equal rates as it had been doing for some time. By 2012 UK Plc recognised the changes taking place with emerging markets demands for more products and quickly positioned themselves to meet the increased demands. By utilising this export strategy, UK Plc began exporting significantly more to non-EU countries and emerging markets than they did to EU countries. This was a wise move. However, by changing their products to meet the new emerging markets demands it will decrease their ability for growth without exporting.

Growth into the future will require a strategic export strategy between the government and the industries that export. In order to make a greater impact on the UK economy there should be additional incentives in place to encourage growth in exports worldwide. Some incentives could include such things as tax incentives as well as reductions in governmental regulations over exporting. 

This post was written as part of the Nollett Business Solutions blogging program, which provides businesses with the tools, expertise and solutions they need to become dynamic engines in an ever-changing world. Like us on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter.

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Why You Need an Exit Strategy

Most successful businesses start out with a sound business plan that spells out every detail of the endeavour, from how it will operate to where funding will come from, so why don’t all entrepreneurs also include an exit strategy in their business planning? When you undertake any enterprise, you should always include a plan on how and when you will be selling your business, as a matter of course. By doing this, it allows you to set and meet goals that can significantly increase the value of your investment. Whatever you do, you never want to wait until you are in a position that requires you to sell your business quickly, because then there is a very high probability that you will lose out on potential profits that would have been available, had you of worked and sold to a plan. Therefore, it is important to remember that if you don’t keep track of your efforts, it most probably won’t matter in the end anyhow.

By making a plan to pass the business on to new blood, it gives you a goal to work towards for the entire time that you are in operation. Having an exit strategy will also help to motivate you to meet financial goals, as well as performance goals and is great as a measure of success to date. By following the plan, you will know if you are on target to meet the planned exit date, but more importantly, you will know if you are on target to maximise the value of your asset, by leaving some additional growth for a prospective buyer. This way, when you sell, your creation can go on to bigger and better things without you.

Some who go into business for themselves, do it solely for the challenge of creating something from scratch or solving a problem that exists, where they may not have an interest in maintaining the business long term, yet others may do it strictly for financial gain, where their whole plan is to work for themselves and make as much profit as they can within the business. Either way, if you do not have an exit strategy in place, you may not feel the need to challenge yourself to do a good job within the business and you most probably will not maximise the value of the business.

In general, there are three main types of exit strategy that are embraced, situations permitting. Firstly, there are entrepreneurs that will start a business with their family in mind, where they will build up the business and make sure that it is running and established before turning it over to family members. Secondly, there are business owners who prefer the option of selling to the existing management, as they are, and have been, running the place already and deserve the option to receive any additional value that they can create within the business. In this case it would require finding that manager that loves the business as much as you do in order to have them take it over and run it successfully. Finally there is an outright sale to an interested third party, where you may not know what their intention is for the business, and it may not matter, as long as you can come to an agreeable price where it all works to your plan in the end.

The need for an exit strategy exists long before the business ever opens its doors. It needs to spell out exactly what your goals are for the business, from the timescale to the investment and from the profits to a host of other attainable goals. By constantly tracking the progress of the business over time, it will allow you to measure the value of your investment and hopefully get out of it what you have put into it, but all being well, much, much more. In some cases, the effort that you have put into the business far outweighs any price that you are able to realistically ask, but if this is the case, then there should be some valuable lessons that you should take away from the experience, especially if you are planning on doing the whole exercise again.

This post was written as part of the Nollett Business Solutions blogging program, which provides businesses with the tools, expertise and solutions they need to become dynamic engines in an ever-changing world. Like us on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter.

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Why Businesses Should Train Their People

Training your employees is imperative if you wish to improve your company’s growth and in-turn, achieve greater success. It is a strategy that you must employ. Effective training has many benefits, which can include increased productivity and improved quality of work, to name but two. Following their training, staff tend to feel a sense of pride and responsibility for the business, as well as heightened motivation, where increased productivity is often reflected through this. Training also reduces staff turnover and absence, due to a greater sense of belonging and respect that they have for the business. Providing training for employees also gives you a competitive advantage over other businesses and provides staff with an assurance that you are willing to invest both your time and money into them, thus creating a sense of increased job security and job satisfaction.

Before you begin, it is always important to perform a training needs analysis (TNA), essentially assessing the current level of skills or training throughout the business, as this will help you to identify areas of training that your business needs, or any skills that need evolving further, and develop your training from there. Your staff will have much more direct experience with your business and probably already know where some of these areas of weakness are, so ask for their input.

It is also important that you ensure that the training programme you provide is linked to your businesses performance and objectives, as this will give a clearer focus. At this point, you should bear in mind that the objectives that you set for your employees are both measurable and attainable, as this will ensure that staff can measure their successes towards the end goal. A regular analysis or evaluation will also help to monitor changes in developments and help to tailor your training programme to ensure that it remains effective.

All of these things obviously help to increase profits, due to both staff and customer satisfaction, but to ensure that you get the most out of the training that you provide, you really need to consider a few additional factors. These would include an element of mentoring, so that you focus on helping your employees to carry out their existing tasks more efficiently, otherwise the training could prove counterproductive, due to employees not having the time to implement the new skill set that you have given them. It is also worth investing in the right person or team who will be responsible for the planning and implementing of the training to the staff. Essentially, the most effective training will produce the most effective results.

Act now and help your people rise to peak performance and deliver the results that your business deserves.

This post was written as part of the Nollett Business Solutions blogging program, which provides businesses with the tools, expertise and solutions they need to become dynamic engines in an ever-changing world. Like us on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter.

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