business planning

If you have a business then you should take time-out to plan forward and prepare a business plan together with a cash flow forecast.

Most people tend to use Microsoft Excel or Open Office Calc and start from scratch - however, there is a lot to be said for using ready made software designed for preparing business cash flow forecasts.

One such product is Cash Forecaster and this has five versions and depending upon the size of your business or the extent to which you want to forecast, will dependupon the version you require. The versions are as follows:

The Cash Forecaster - Basic version has most of the features of the more expensive versions but it will only give you a forecast for the next 12 months. If however, you need a more comprehensive version, then I suggest you buy at least the 'Standard' version.

The 'Basic' version of the Cash Forecasting Tool is very easy-to-use and will help you to plan forward for your business and it will help you gain greater control over your cashflow.

Have you ever stopped to think about what your customers really want?  Small business success is achieved by satisfying customer needs and wants, so it makes sense that the competitor who really understands what the customers want and makes sure they give it to them is the one most likely to succeed.  And don't make the mistake of thinking that all customers want is a lower price.  If that is what you focus on then you are leaving a lot of profit on the table and a lot of customers unsatisfied.

Customer Service

When the idea of starting an airline business was first suggested to Richard Branson, he did some very basic market research to discover a need that was not being met by competitors in that market.  He conducted a simple exercise of phoning the People Express customer reservation line and discovered that it was almost impossible to get connected to a customer service operator.  He surmised that either the major competitor for the type of service they were planning was either very poor at customer service or so extremely popular that they had excess demand for their service.  Either way, Branson thought that this situation presented an ideal opportunity for the entrance of a new player in the market.  Branson's start-up company, Virgin Airlines has done pretty well by identifying an unmet need in the market.  Why didn't the existing companies understand what their customers really wanted?

Technical Expertise

It's not new and you've probably heard it before, but I want to reiterate the truth that if you want small business success, you've got to work more ON your business than IN your business.  But I also want to take it further, because even though you may have heard that statement a thousand times, have you ever really figures out how to achieve that goal and understand what to work on when you are working on your business?

Working IN Your Business

In my experience, around 95 of every hundred people who own their own business approach it in entirely the wrong way.  Think about this.  If you can imagine the last business meeting you were in and there was 5% of people in the room that appeared to be more successful than you, then you are more than likely one of the great majority that is getting it wrong in business.  Here's a quick quiz to confirm whether that thought is right.

• Do you ever worry about your competitors' prices?
• Do you ever wish your employees were more productive, or worked more like you?
• Do you work more than 35 hours per week on average?
• Do you wish you felt less stress from your business?

If you answered yes to any of those questions, you are probably spending more time working in your business than on it.  The question is: what do you do to work ON your business?

If being in business is not exciting, enjoyable, and rewarding, then why be in it?

It is exciting and rewarding for the few who are really successful. The difference is that they have a vision, a clear idea of where they are going, and each day they can see their business making progress towards achieving their clearly defined goals.

This vision stems from your purpose, or what it is that drives you to do something. Your purpose as a person translates into your vision for the business. The vision is what you see the business becoming. The more clearly you see how the business will be, the more likely you are to create it that way.

Putting your business together is a bit like constructing a jigsaw puzzle. Each piece of the puzzle falls into place to form a perfect picture. Imagine how difficult it is to put a jigsaw puzzle together if you don’t have a picture of what it should look like when it is finished. You have to guess where each piece should go with nothing to guide you. How would you expect your business to turn out if you operated like this? Incredibly, this is exactly how most business owners try to construct their businesses. Is this how you work in your business?

If you do not start out with a clear vision, or lose sight of it at some point, the business continues aimlessly. Without a vision there is no real meaning. Having a vision allows the owner to define the business’s purpose and what the business will look like when it is fully developed. Without a

In the normal business there is often the expectation that the sales inquiries should come because the business has a good product and a good position in the Yellow Pages. Perhaps in the good old days of the twentieth century that was enough. Today’s marketplace is different. There is greater competition, and the consumer is better educated. The recession has added even more pressure to the market, in many industries decreasing demand and increasing competition. The key to success in your small or medium size business is to be proactive in marketing, rather than hoping sales will happen as they always used to.

Today you cannot wait for a customer to come looking for you. You have to be able to first attract their attention, and then communicate why they should choose you over your many competitors. You need to be proactive in marketing. Being proactive is about making things happen. The really successful businesses make things happen; there is no waiting and hoping something will happen, like hoping a customer may call with an inquiry. The really successful business is always working to generate a customer response through powerful, proactive marketing methods.

Many business owners are afraid of growing their business too big, fearing that it will create issues and stress they do not want.  But the cost of small business success may not be as bad as the costs of staying small.

Fundamentally, there is nothing actually wrong with wanting to maintain a business in a small state, if that’s what you want.  The only issue is that you must realize that the decision to stay small comes at a cost which is often unanticipated.  The most frequently expressed reason for wanting to maintain a small business is along the lines of, “I don’t want the headaches that come with having a large business.”  This statement actually comes from a lack of knowledge about how to grow a business effectively and is often made without the understanding of what the alternative costs of running a small business are.

Many entrepreneurs go into business with dreams of success which include wealth, financial independence and freedom to do whatever they want.  There’s nothing wrong with those dreams.