Small Business Plan
When it comes to starting your own small business, there are many things to consider when it comes to a business plan.
Plan A offer a full business plan service to help create your business from scratch, but before you get the ball rolling, here are a few things to consider when planning your business.
Define your business
It’s important that you define what type of small business you are. Your plan should include:
- What your business will do
- The products or services it will provide
- How customers will access your products or services (eg in a shop, online or by phone)
- Your approach to pricing
- A unique selling point or approach
Know your customers
Make sure you know as much as possible about your target market. For example, if you’re customers are consumers, here are some questions you might want to ask. Knowing the answers will help you promote your business much more effectively:
- Are they young or old? (The demographic)
- What do they do for a living?
- Their disposable income?
- What are their lifestyles like?
- Do they already buy the product or service?
- Why will they buy from you and no one else?
- How will you tell them about our business?
Naming your business
The name you choose for your business is important, it should reflect the image you want to project to your market. Choose one that’s easy to pronounce and easy to remember, but do some research first. Also consider using good key phrases in your company website URL. e.g. www.squeaky-cleaners-essex.co.uk this helps a lot with your google results. For help with digital marketing and keyword research please visit our partners iTec32 Marketing Essex
Taking on staff
If you take on employees – even part-time – you’ll need to familiarise yourself with employment law and know how to get the best out of your staff. Plan A offer a full payroll service to help take care of all the administration and back end work.
Writing it all down
When you consider writing your business plan, remember to be clear, realistic and concise. Use research to support your conclusions and include an action plan. Business plans are dynamic documents – meaning that you should adjust your plan as your business develops and your goals are fine tuned.