Start-Up and Strategic Planning Guide For Small Business
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What do you do?
This is a vital question and you want to be able to answer it as clearly, and simply as possible. This will be your mission statement. Take your time. Talk with people who have a vested interest in what you are hoping to do. Role play with them. Share your mission with them and ask them to speak to you as if they were explaining what their friend’s new business does.
Who do you want to become?
This is your vision statement. It is incredibly important that you think through and write down what you desire your company to become over the long term. Make sure you consider how your company fits within a certain industry, or if competition is irrelevant (Read the book ‘Blue Ocean Strategy’), then clearly state the uniqueness of your company.
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What problem do you solve?
You will need to help people understand what problem you solve in their life. What value will your company bring to the people and community that you serve? Use this space to brainstorm the customer experience with your product or service and then write 1 to 3 sentences clearly stating what problem you are able to solve for the consumer.
Brutal Honesty
In this section you will want to involve at least 2 to 3 trusted friends, family members, or colleagues. We often times have blind spots, especially when we are excited about a new business venture. You want to honestly, and soberly, evaluate where you are right now. Stick with the process, you are drastically increasing your probability of long-term success. DO NOT let the negative aspects of the evaluation discourage you, rather, use it as an opportunity to strengthen those areas of weakness and make choices for the business that minimize the probability of adverse effects.
Strengths:
What do you have going for you that will give you an advantage in this business? Consider experience, skillsets, finances, relationships, other resources, etc.
Weaknesses:
What do competitors do better than you? What resources do they have and you lack that could result in a hinderance to your success? Consider experience, skillsets, finances, relationships, other resources, etc.
Opportunities:
This is the fun part! Where do you see opportunity for your product or service to take the market by storm? Is there an underserved market that you are aware of? Perhaps you see a new niche emerging in some area and you want to meet a need that makes people’s lives better. Explain all those opportunities in this section.
Threats:
At General Media Consulting, we are passionate about building strong, fruitful businesses. We want your business to be viable over the long term, so taking a brutally honest look at the things that could hinder or threaten the very existence of your business is important. That way, in the planning process we can use risk management tools to reduce, or remove, threats, and we can evaluate and choose strategies that will have a higher probabilty of long-term success.
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Short-term goals
Consider and write down 2 to 3 goals you hope to achieve over the next 12 months. These goals should be in alignment with your stated Mission and Vision and they should be S.M.A.R.T. goals: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely. Example: We want to secure a $50k commercial credit line with a local lender to add flexibility to our financial position with an annual interest rate no more that 12%.
Long-term goals
Consider and write down 3 to 5 goals you hope to achieve over the next 5 to 10 years. These goals should be in alignment with your stated Mission and Vision and they should be S.M.A.R.T. goals: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely. Example: We want to purchase a free-standing office building in Palm Beach county with warehouse facilities as a place to headquarter the business for between $750k and $1 million.
Corporate level strategy
Your CLS is your high level approach to doing business in your field. Example: We are going to focus on delivering premium interior design services to homeowners in the Fort Lauderdale area. We are going to win against our competition by establishing strong relationships with realtors working for our sister company so that every new home purchase that occurs will have our services exclusively offered as part of the home purchasing process. You should write out and evaluate several strategies and select the one that fits your mission and vision best given the results of your SWOT analysis and goals.
Implementation and Evaluation
How are you going to implement this strategy from start to finish? Think of this as a road map for a long distance road trip that will require you stop and check the oil, look over the systems, make sure there is air in the tires, and fill up the gas tank at regular intervals along the way.
Business level strategy
Your BLS is how you are going to deliver a worthwhile, satisfying product or service. Example: We are going to establish ourselves as a unique, premium provider by attracting talented interior designers with strong reputations and portfolios, thereby allowing us to charge premium prices that can be rolled into the buyer’s financing package. We will make it so easy for them to deploy the best in the business for their new home, that they will have no reason to want to use an outside interior designer. You should write out and evaluate several strategies and select the one that fits your mission and vision best given the results of your SWOT analysis and goals.
Implementation and Evaluation
DO NOT get discouraged! You are doing great. You will need to think through and write down your road map for each strategy. Make sure you have pre-determined places to stop and evaluate systems and progess. In this way, you can make any necessary adjustments BEFORE problems occur and check to see that you are still on the right road.
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Functional level strategy
Your FLS is where you are getting into the nitty gritty, day to day of things. How are you going to successfully market the business? How are the operations of the company going to function? How are you going to approach vendor relationships, and human resources, etc.? How are goals going to be tracked and evaluated, and so on and so forth? You should write out and evaluate several strategies for the various departments and business functions and select the one that fits your mission and vision best given the results of your SWOT analysis and goals.
Implementation and Evaluation
A strategy without a plan to implement well and no set way to evaluate is, in most cases, doomed before it’s launched. That is true at the high level of corporate strategy and it’s true of daily department action plans. So, how are your FLS’s going to be implemented and evaluated? (You’re going to need more paper...)
Now that the preliminaries have been addressed... 1) Choose the business enitity that is best for your situation (C-Corporation, S-Corporation, Limited Liability Partnership, etc. - You may want to bring in a tax accountant to discuss what the best choice would be). Register your business with your state. 2) Obtain a Federal Employer Identification Number (EIN) This is like a social security number for your business. 3) Set up a company bank account and fund it. 4) Obtain a business license or business tax receipt from the county and local municipality from which you are operating, along with any other required licensing or tax receipts. 5) Formalize your business plan as a living document to operate and plan from. 6) Obtain and set up accounting and payroll software such as QuickBooks and/or outsource it to a company like Paychex, BenefitsMall, or a local accountant. 7) Design and deploy a website and social media channels for the business. 8) Begin operations...
Notes
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