Once you know what business you are in, it’s time to figure out who’s going to buy from you and why. You are just someone with an idea until you develop a business plan. In other words, if you haven’t written your plan yet, your business is still in the fantasy stages.
In Part II, of how to write a business plan, we get to the heart of the matter about your business your marketing analysis and your marketing plan. You will now need to define your target customer, niche, competitive analysis, the secret sauce or differentiator and how you are going to tell the world you are open for business. Most importantly, you will need to know how much money you’ll need to do that.
Your Marketing Plan should answer the following questions:
- What is/are your product(s) or service(s)?
- Who is the target market customer?
- What is your placement strategy?
- How will your product or service be distributed?
- How will you price your product or service?
- How will you promote your product or service?
- What are your budgetary needs to execute your marketing plan?
This information is a key part of your business plan. In fact, it is the foundation upon which you build your business. Anyone who reads this part of your plan will not only understand who’s buying and why, but also your plan to get sales, your pricing strategy, profitability and projected growth.
Market Analysis The market analysis starts with a market summary outlining the business opportunity, then drills down what share of the market you believe you can capture. Then determine how much each customer segment is worth to your business in terms of revenue. It should also include a trend analysis which is about your industry and where the market is going. Is it growing or shrinking? The reasoning is that if you are not in a growth industry you need to understand how long you can pursue your business strategy before the market moves or is saturated. Then you need to identify and explain your target customer and the market segments you plan to reach. When identifying your target market, you should make sure you have three things:
a) Meaningful – you need to know the problem you will solve, and be a real solution.
b) Sizable – you need to make sure the piece of the market you want is large enough to turn a profit.
c) Reachable – you must make sure that you have the resources to reach your target audience. Remember, your network is your net worth when starting a business.
Who’s the Competition? Your customer’s need is already being met somehow. Describe your top three competitors and discuss their strengths and weaknesses. Then explain why their customer will buy your product or service over theirs.
The Customer Profile Identify your customer is in painful detail. Your description should enable anyone to see the face of your customer. Based on this information, you can now create a strategy on how you plan to market to each customer segment. Your sales plan should also be a part of this section of the business plan.
The Niche Webster’s Business Dictionary defines a niche as a “particular market or specialty area where a company finds it profitable to concentrate its selling efforts. Niche marketing offers a concentration of clients in an area of limited competition. You have limited time and resources as a start-up small business, so you need to pick a lane and be disciplined enough to stay in your lane.
So in other words, there are thousands of graphic design firms out there… what specific market will you serve exclusively? Will it be small business, nonprofits, educational institutions, etc?
What Is Your Signature Move? Michael Jackson was famous before he became a solo artist, but once he did the moonwalk on stage during Motown 25, he became the King of Pop. What is your moonwalk? Defining your secret sauce or signature move will enable you to stand out in the market place. A signature move could be uniforms, an extra free service, how you say thank you, a discount coupon for the next time. Here’s a great example, a funeral home sending a gift clock to a bereaved family with the inscription “Always remember the good times.” People will always remember how you made them feel while doing business with you.
Marketing Budget Now that you know who you are selling to, your niche, and signature move, you need develop a budget to execute your marketing plan. Once you have a 30-day revenue goal, you need to determine how many sales leads you need to generate to hit that number each month. Then you need to figure out how many resources you need to put those leads in your pipeline (website, sales people, call center, tradeshow, facebook ads etc.) That’s the easiest way to develop your marketing budget.
If you are someone who would like to read further about writing a business plan here’s two books I suggest: Plan As You Go Business Plan by Tim Berry and The Successful Business Plan by Rhonda Abrams are quite good.
Next week in Part III, we’ll deal with the operations, budget and financials projections.
How is this series on How to write a business plan working for you? Need a Part I refresher?
Melinda F. Emerson, known to many as SmallBizLady is one of America’s leading small business experts. As a seasoned entrepreneur, professional speaker, and small business coach, she develops audio, video and written content to fulfill her mission to end small business failure. As CEO of MFE Consulting LLC, Melinda educates entrepreneurs and Fortune 500 companies on subjects including small business start-up, business development and social media marketing. She has been featured in the New York Times, Washington Post, Entrepreneur, Wall Street Journal and Black Enterprise Magazine. She hosts #SmallBizChat weekly on Twitter for emerging entrepreneurs and publishes a resource blog www.succeedasyourownboss.com Melinda is also the author of the national bestseller Become Your Own Boss in 12 months; A Month-by-Month Guide to a Business That Works. (Adams Media 2010)
Every small business needs a plan for success. Simply stated, a business plan is your strategy for bringing your product or service to the marketplace. I am so fed up with people starting businesses without a road map for reaching their business destination. That said, I am going to walk you step by step through writing one. No more excuses! This is the first of a three part series on how to write a business plan.
An executive summary provides a snapshot of the business. It is essentially a sales document that highlights the main points of an in-depth business plan and is written for people who want to understand quickly whether or not your business idea is worth their time. The executive summary should contain enough information for the reader to get interested in reading the full plan; thus it should be the most compelling part of the business plan.
January is my favorite time of year. The start of a new year is always exciting. There are new year’s resolutions to lose weight, save more money, get more sleep and to make it your best year yet—and I am for all of that. Well, this year you should work toward accomplishing your financial resolutions. I feel that the best way to do that is to start your own business. What I want everyone to focus on is finally getting a side hustle or full-time business going in 2011. The world is still waiting on a better mousetrap and in the absence of that, even silly ideas with great marketing will sell (Think “Keeping up with the Kardashians”). Despite the economy, now is the perfect time to start a business if you have three important things.
Since my book, 
At the end of each year, I like to supply a list to the best small business book resources I have found on how to start a business. 2010 was a great year for entrepreneurship and next year will be even better. I have found some terrific authors whose books and e-books will help would-be and start-up entrepreneurs avoid having to learn so many expensive lessons. Enjoy!
As a business consultant, I believe our biggest concern is to get our clients to understand that the planning before starting the business is more important than how they actually run the businesses. Everyone has good ideas, but the business of running a business is what gets most entrepreneurs in trouble. Making the leap from doing three jobs in corporate America, to doing 10 or so jobs as a small business owner, is overwhelming for even the most organized project manager. So what should we do to help small business owners?
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Have you had it with the daily grind? You may be ready to become your own boss. I remember when I knew my next career would be as a small business owner. I had the job I thought I always wanted, but getting headaches on the way to work in the morning just wasn’t right. I knew I was capable of doing so something more that would allow me to make a difference and where I would also make money. So, I used every spare moment to start planning to become my own boss.
I often attend events to see what I can learn from other business owners. At a recent panel presentation featuring five seasoned women entrepreneurs who had been in business ranging from 8 – 25 years, I was appalled by the bad and overly simplistic advice these women shared. So in that vein, I will set the record straight on what start-up entrepreneurs need to know about how to start out the right way in business. Here are four questions that I want to clarify for start-up entrepreneurs.
The History of Mastermind Groups: Napoleon Hill founded the principle of the mastermind group in the early 1900s. He studied Andrew Carnegie, who was known to use the concept of the mastermind to keep his businesses growing and prosperous. Andrew Carnegie kept 50 men on staff just for the development of ideas to grow his steel business. In 1937 Napoleon Hill wrote the now legendary “Think and Grow Rich” book based on these ideas.
I had such overwhelming response to my recent radio interview with Shelley Lieber @
One of the great things about having a small business is that you get the opportunity to learn every day. Hopefully you are not learning too many expensive lessons. I thought it would be helpful to share a few important lessons that I have learned over my years in business so that you can benefit from my mistakes. Now, there are plenty more where these came from, but here’s what I would call my top 5 entrepreneurial lessons.
