While a business plan is very important, there’s nothing more important than a game plan to guide your success in launching your business. Below are some of the key elements to developing a successful game plan.
You must decide what your overall vision is and what you expect your business to provide for you. You must determine what your income expectations are and what your time frame is for achieving them. You need to start with a one month schedule then a three month schedule, then six months and twelve months.
Although your vision will require a more detailed plan, focus first on your immediate actions. I realize that this is very time consuming but it will make you do some thinking and keep you focused on what you’re trying to do and what you need to do to get there. Spend some serious time asking yourself and then answering the following questions:
- How far can you go in your business?
- How long will it take you to get there?
- How much earned income do you expect per month?
- When do you expect it?
- How much monthly volume/sales will you need to create that income?
- Do you need to partner with any other businesses to bring this about?
- What goals will you attain by month one and how much income will it provide if any?
- What goals will you attain by month three and how much income will it provide if any?
- What goals will you attain by month six and how much income will it provide if any?
- What goals will you attain by month twelve and how much income will it provide if any?
- What resources will you need to accomplish those goals?
- How much time will you need to invest per week?
- What type of supplies do you need to order, including product and support materials?
- What kind of educational and training materials will you need?
- Who will work with you to support you?
- How will you develop your list of prospects?
- Will you advertise?
- When and where?
- What training and personal development seminars will you attend?
-What other resources will you need?
If you answer these questions properly, you will be able to use them as a guide to set up your game plan. Then you’ll be well on your way to launching your business with the least amount of problems possible!
To Your Health, Wealth & Happiness!
Pam Lawhorne
Pam Lawhorne is a serial entrepreneur, small business expert and creative marketing consultant, who provides advice, guidance, and encouragement to aspiring CEO's around the nation in her popular seminars and publications. She is the Chief Empowerment Officer of Empower U, Incorporated, a training and consulting firm that specializes in interactive workshops, seminars and coaching programs.
Ms. Lawhorne is the author of “From Minimum Wage To Getting Paid! - How To Become A Successful Entrepreneur With No Money, Education Or Experience!" and she is also a syndicated columnist who writes articles on empowerment, entrepreneurship, personal development, creative marketing and real estate investing. Her articles appear nationally in newspapers, magazines, and on numerous business websites and on-line publications. For additional information please visit her website: www.PamLawhorne.com.
The above article is copyright 2003-2008 by Pam Lawhorne. Permission to repost is freely granted so long as the text is not altered in any way, and the copyright and links are included.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Do You Have A Back Up Plan?
One of the great things about being self employed is that you don’t have a boss. The bad thing about being self employed is that you can’t take off when you are ill. I never realized just how critical this could be until I needed surgery in late 2006. For several months, I was on complete bed rest and life as I had known it literally came to a screeching halt!
I was fortunate because I have a great business partner – my husband Chris, who literally worked from sun up to sun down and beyond to get “our” work done and to keep things moving. But even still, my illness caused quite a few complications. A few years ago we made the decision to downsize our office from having a large staff to basically us and a couple of people. At that time we never thought about what would happen if one or both of us got ill, or hurt. Or what we would do if some other major family emergency came up that would require one or both of us to be off and away from our businesses.
Well this recent bout of the head colds, flu’s and sinus infections has brought us back to the same issue. What is our back up plan?
When I had to take off for surgery, it was a rude awakening for us because we have realized that we do not have a sufficient back up plan. We always assumed that the other one will take up the slack if one of us ever got sick. We did not account for the duration of a long term illness. The other thing we never thought of was how that illness would affect the other partner. Obviously after I’d had my surgery, it was hard for my husband to work knowing that I was in this tremendous amount of pain. And it was also difficult for me to get to all of doctor appointments because he was unable to take off for 4 hours every few days.
The good thing is the incident from 2006 prepared us a little better for the last few weeks because we had a plan in place… but it also made me realize that we really need to automate our businesses a little more because even with having a plan… someone has to be present to execute it!
So what would you do if this was you and your business? Do you have a back up plan in place? I know several of you are independent business owners like Chris and I and unless you have a business that creates residual income you too need a back up plan.
What’s a back up plan? Well for us, we realized the importance of hiring an assistant. Someone who could assist us as needed, not on a daily basis. That way in the event we needed to leave we’d have someone who was familiar with our office, work and what we do. This way things could keep moving without any interruption.
We also determined that for our training and consulting firm that we needed to out source some of the work load. It would cut down on some of what I needed to personally be responsible for but also bring other people into the picture who could “pick up” when I am either swamped or unable to handle the load by myself.
And last but not least, disability insurance. We had this years ago when we had a large office and tons of overhead. We figured that once we moved the business home and we no longer had all of those expenses that we no longer needed disability insurance. WRONG. We probably need it now more than ever because with a large staff came additional income so if we needed to be off for a few days, we still have a staff generating income for us. If we need to take off a couple of days now, there is no staff to replace that income so it would be more important to us at this stage to have insurance.
Luckily for us, we dodged the bullet this time; there was no real setback and we did not suffer financially. But what about next time? We’ll be prepared but will you? Just something to think about.
To Your Health, Wealth & Happiness!
Pam Lawhorne
Pam Lawhorne is a serial entrepreneur, small business expert and creative marketing consultant, who provides advice, guidance, and encouragement to aspiring CEO's around the nation in her popular seminars and publications. She is the Chief Empowerment Officer of Empower U, Incorporated, a training and consulting firm that specializes in interactive workshops, seminars and coaching programs.
Ms. Lawhorne is the author of “From Minimum Wage To Getting Paid! - How To Become A Successful Entrepreneur With No Money, Education Or Experience!" and she is also a syndicated columnist who writes articles on empowerment, entrepreneurship, personal development, creative marketing and real estate investing. Her articles appear nationally in newspapers, magazines, and on numerous business websites and on-line publications. For additional information please visit her website: www.PamLawhorne.com.
The above article is copyright 2003-2008 by Pam Lawhorne. Permission to repost is freely granted so long as the text is not altered in any way, and the copyright and links are included.
I was fortunate because I have a great business partner – my husband Chris, who literally worked from sun up to sun down and beyond to get “our” work done and to keep things moving. But even still, my illness caused quite a few complications. A few years ago we made the decision to downsize our office from having a large staff to basically us and a couple of people. At that time we never thought about what would happen if one or both of us got ill, or hurt. Or what we would do if some other major family emergency came up that would require one or both of us to be off and away from our businesses.
Well this recent bout of the head colds, flu’s and sinus infections has brought us back to the same issue. What is our back up plan?
When I had to take off for surgery, it was a rude awakening for us because we have realized that we do not have a sufficient back up plan. We always assumed that the other one will take up the slack if one of us ever got sick. We did not account for the duration of a long term illness. The other thing we never thought of was how that illness would affect the other partner. Obviously after I’d had my surgery, it was hard for my husband to work knowing that I was in this tremendous amount of pain. And it was also difficult for me to get to all of doctor appointments because he was unable to take off for 4 hours every few days.
The good thing is the incident from 2006 prepared us a little better for the last few weeks because we had a plan in place… but it also made me realize that we really need to automate our businesses a little more because even with having a plan… someone has to be present to execute it!
So what would you do if this was you and your business? Do you have a back up plan in place? I know several of you are independent business owners like Chris and I and unless you have a business that creates residual income you too need a back up plan.
What’s a back up plan? Well for us, we realized the importance of hiring an assistant. Someone who could assist us as needed, not on a daily basis. That way in the event we needed to leave we’d have someone who was familiar with our office, work and what we do. This way things could keep moving without any interruption.
We also determined that for our training and consulting firm that we needed to out source some of the work load. It would cut down on some of what I needed to personally be responsible for but also bring other people into the picture who could “pick up” when I am either swamped or unable to handle the load by myself.
And last but not least, disability insurance. We had this years ago when we had a large office and tons of overhead. We figured that once we moved the business home and we no longer had all of those expenses that we no longer needed disability insurance. WRONG. We probably need it now more than ever because with a large staff came additional income so if we needed to be off for a few days, we still have a staff generating income for us. If we need to take off a couple of days now, there is no staff to replace that income so it would be more important to us at this stage to have insurance.
Luckily for us, we dodged the bullet this time; there was no real setback and we did not suffer financially. But what about next time? We’ll be prepared but will you? Just something to think about.
To Your Health, Wealth & Happiness!
Pam Lawhorne
Pam Lawhorne is a serial entrepreneur, small business expert and creative marketing consultant, who provides advice, guidance, and encouragement to aspiring CEO's around the nation in her popular seminars and publications. She is the Chief Empowerment Officer of Empower U, Incorporated, a training and consulting firm that specializes in interactive workshops, seminars and coaching programs.
Ms. Lawhorne is the author of “From Minimum Wage To Getting Paid! - How To Become A Successful Entrepreneur With No Money, Education Or Experience!" and she is also a syndicated columnist who writes articles on empowerment, entrepreneurship, personal development, creative marketing and real estate investing. Her articles appear nationally in newspapers, magazines, and on numerous business websites and on-line publications. For additional information please visit her website: www.PamLawhorne.com.
The above article is copyright 2003-2008 by Pam Lawhorne. Permission to repost is freely granted so long as the text is not altered in any way, and the copyright and links are included.
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