How To Create Your Life Affirming Business Plan

Whether you have a big business idea or a small one, or even if it’s just a side hustle, you should plan. Planning ensures your best path to success, no matter what you want to accomplish in life. Your business may be the most significant investment you’ve ever made. Rest assured this article has everything you need to know about How To Create Your Life Affirming Business Plan.

Business dreamers can be resistant to the idea of planning because someone they know was successful winging it. If you feel like that, it’s okay because you’re here and you’re going to create your business plan. Keep reading to learn How To Create Your Life Affirming Business Plan!

The Areas of Life You Need to Design for Success

Let’s start strong and talk about the areas of life you need to design to ensure your success. Often people never think about how each decision affects how their life will actually look and be in practice. If you want a particular lifestyle, you must think about how each choice impacts your desires. 

There are eight areas of life that you need to design purposefully for success:

•  Career and Business – What you do for money will have a massive impact on your life. It will inform every single choice you make. It will make the difference on whether you can afford the lifestyle you desire or not, and even whether you can maintain your health or not realistically.

•  Health and Fitness – Your health and fitness level are important because if you’re unhealthy and not fit in the right way for the life you want to experience, it’ll be hard to do. For example, if you want to spend the weekends camping and boating, you’ll want to maintain a healthy weight so you can keep doing it.

• Relationships and Social Life – What kind of social life do you envision, and can you afford to have that life? What about your significant relationships, such as your life partner, spouse, or your relationship with your children? These are all impacted by the rest of your life choices due to how it affects your health, finances, and so forth.

• Finances – Did you choose the right career or business to fund the type of lifestyle you desire? What about time? Do you have enough time left after earning money to do the things that are important to you?

• Personal and Spiritual Development – Do you have time to work on your personal life and spiritual and emotional development? Everyone needs time for self-care, including learning about themselves and taking care of themselves through eating right, exercise, going to the doctor regularly, and even doing things that are considered optional, like getting facials or massages. 

• Hobbies and Fun – What type of things do you want to do for fun, and what hobbies, if any, would you like to participate in? Does your business or career allow you to accomplish having fun and doing your hobbies too? 

• Home and Environment – What type of home do you want to live in? Do you want to live in the city in a condo, a house, or do you want to live in the country? Do you prefer to rent, or do you want to buy? What type of environment do you want? 

• Community Involvement – Where do you see yourself in terms of your community? Do you want to be involved in your church, or do you want to feed the poor or take care of stray animals in your area? What do you want to have the time and funds to do in your community? 

Go through each of these areas and write a summary about how you envision your life in each of these areas. Then be very specific about what it will cost you in terms of time and resources to achieve the ideal life you’re designing for yourself. Do not make assumptions. Look up how much something costs, ask people who have done it how long it takes, and get real information so that you’re not just guessing. The idea is to design a life that you really want to live, but that is realistic for you to achieve. 

Why Every Business Needs a Business Plan

It’s not that unusual for some people to start a side gig without any notion of what they’re doing, including a business plan. They just notice something they like doing and do it and start earning money. But understand that you’re much more likely to experience success if you create a business plan. 

To Show That Your Business is Possible 

You may think you have a great idea to make widgets for the masses, but only through research can you ensure that your idea is possible. When you study all aspects of your market, you can avoid the mistake of starting a business with no chance. 

Just because you think your idea is a good one doesn’t mean it is. You’re not your market even if you think you are. There may indeed be ten people who need your widget but are there enough people to support you as you need to be supported? 

To Understand Your Competition 

One really cool fact about discovering your competition is that competition proves your idea is a good one. If there are no competitors, this is not necessarily a good thing. It’s hard being the first to market with a new idea. In fact, it can be costly to be first. 

If you study businesses, you’ll note that it’s not always the first to market that makes it. It’s often the copycats that come later that truly make it work after a known market for the product. You can use your competition to avoid mistakes as well as find your audience. 

To Know Your Customer Better

When you develop your business plan, it forces you to find out not only who your exact ideal customer is, but where they are, what they need, and how you can best communicate with them about their problems. 

When you really know who your customer is, you can create marketing and advertising content that is more effective as well as create better solutions for them too. Study the customer through their buying journey to ensure you know exactly who they are and how they make decisions. 

To Document Your Revenue Model 

The thing about business is that it’s supposed to earn money. Therefore, part of creating your business plan is to ensure that the business idea you are going with can possibly earn enough money for your intended lifestyle and purposes but also what type of accounting you’re going to need.

Most small businesses are relatively simple to set up, but you really need to understand how to keep track legally so that you don’t pay one more penny in taxes and fees than you need to. You’ll need to know how you’ll collect the money, what happens after you collect it, and follow all the rules and regulations based on the type of business entity you choose. 

To Reduce Risk and Judge Potential Success

When you put everything down on paper, from how you’ll set up your bookkeeping to how you’ll process each customer’s order, it’s a lot simpler to figure out if success is possible. You’ll definitely reduce risk by setting up everything in advance of starting. When you can see how the process works, from attracting a customer to converting a customer to serving a customer, you can fix any problems before they start, ensuring your success.  

To Develop an Operation Roadmap

When you create your full business plan, you will also create a how to do everything you need to run your business step by step process. For example, if you’re starting a reselling business on Poshmark.com, you’re going to need to figure out your process for purchasing, a purchase price point, a markup formula, and also cleaning, packing, photographing, and posting procedures. Everything that needs to be done needs a step by step plan written out. 

To Reorganize During a Crisis

Sometimes a business plan can also help you get through a crisis. If you write your business plan right, you’ll know your break-even point, the minimal resources you need to make it work, and so forth. This information will make it simpler for you to figure out what to do if business slows due to outside reasons such as health or political turmoil. Everything is taken into consideration while developing the business plan. 

To Develop and Document Your Marketing Plan 

The business plan covers everything you need to do to actually do your business with your customers, including how you’ll get the word out. The marketing plan is an essential part of your business plan that will help ensure your success. 

To Forecast Business Needs 

As you develop your business plan, you should end up with a list of resources, staff, money, equipment, software, and so forth that you need to be successful. You’ll know exactly what you want and need and how much it’s going to cost you. Even if you note things that you cannot afford right now, you can set up a plan to get around it until you can afford it. 

To Highlight New Opportunities 

As you are creating your business plan and going through each of the steps and areas of the business plan, the brainstorming gives ideas for more products and services aligned with what you’re planning to offer. These new opportunities can help you grow your business bigger and better than you may have thought to start with.  

To Set Up Your Daily Tasks 

The business plan is so robust that you can use it to set up each day full of tasks that build results. You should come up with due dates, timelines, and more with your business plan so that you can insert the tasks into your calendar. 

Many small business owners think they don’t need a business plan because they aren’t going to borrow money from a bank. However, the business plan helps you set up your business in an organized way to work step by step on building your business. 

What Really Makes Your Life Good?

As you are deciding the type of business you want to start, it’s crucial to think about what, in your opinion, makes your life good and how will this business help you achieve the things that make your life good for you? In some circles, this is called lifestyle design. Lifestyle design basically holds that you are in full control of your own life and your own choices. 

Most people don’t start off thinking about actually constructing their life intentionally. Due to that, they end up suffering the consequences. If you genuinely want to create a life that is precisely what you want, you can, but you need to know what that is first. 

Ask yourself the following questions:

• Why are you here? – This question is really about what your purpose in life is to you? It can help you to create a mission statement. Your purpose should spell out what really matters to you in life. 

• What do you want to achieve? – To answer this question, many people have found it helpful to write their obituary. If you die at the ripe old age of 120, what do you hope you have accomplished? Spell it out as if it happened.

• What energizes and animates you? – When you’re doing things, what can you point to that you do without complaint? Is there something you’ve been involved in that makes you excited and even forget that you’re working? 

• What do you love to do most? – Can you name one thing you love to do the most out of anything else. Don’t think about money making things when you answer. Think about what makes you feel happy. When you exude joy, it’s obvious you like what you’re doing.  

• Where will you do it? – When you think about doing what makes you most happy, where do you want to be when you do it? Do you envision a lovely home, or do you imagine a penthouse apartment, or do you see something else? 

• Who will you do it with? – What type of people do you want to surround yourself with? Think about partners for work but also think about your personal life and how you see it. Even if the person doesn’t exist, you can describe their personality, principles, morals, and values. 

• What sort of impact do you hope to make doing it? – Ultimately, what impact do you hope to have on your world doing this thing you want to do? What impact will it have on you, your family, your friends, your customers, and the world at large? This is vital information for you to figure out. 

Before you can design your ideal business, you need to define your ideal lifestyle and life. Create a vision board for every single aspect of your life so that you have set goals to work toward. When you know what success looks like to you, it will be a lot easier experiencing it. 

Create a Lifestyle Vision Board

Vision boards are visual depictions of whatever you want them to be. You can create a vision board for the family you desire, the job you want, or even the hobbies you hope to have soon. 

The vision board can consist of images, words, and symbols that represent a particular goal. You can make a vision board using craft materials to create something physical, or you can use software like Canva.com, MindMovies.com, or just use your MS PowerPoint software and keep it digital. You can invest in vision board software or use the software you already have. It’s up to you. 

Usually, people make vision boards to inspire them to achieve a particular goal. The tangible representation of the future as you wish it to be is a great way to give yourself motivation and help you set up steps to achieve the vision. In lifestyle design, the best vision board considers all eight areas of life that we talked about before.

Eight Areas of Life to Design: 

1. Career and Business 
2. Health and Fitness 
3. Relationships and Social Life
4. Finances 
5. Personal and Spiritual Development
6. Hobbies and Fun 
7. Home and Environment 
8. Community Involvement

You can start with one section at a time, finding images, words, and items that help define and depict what it will look like if you have the most success in life. This is supposed to be your big dream or your goal in life. You’ll want to think long term, ten years or more into the future as you design and create your vision board. 

To get started using each of the eight areas to develop a list of goals you’d like to achieve in the next year, five years, or ten years into the future. Using that list of goals, you can find images, words, and even tactical items if you’re doing it with real materials to help build the vision board. 

Once you find pictures and visuals representing how you see the future and what best represents your goals met, you can start making each section of your vision board. It’s important to note whether the business you choose can actually lead to reaching the goals you set for other areas of your life. The practice of creating the board can help you figure out whether what you want is even possible or not. 

For example, if you realize to experience your hobby of flying your own airplane costs a certain amount of money and requires a certain amount of resources, does your business have the ability to provide it? If not, you may find you want to adjust some of your assumptions or goals to match your resources, principles, morals, and values. 

What Resources Do I Need to Live the Good Life?

As you plan your future business and get ready to create your business plan, you need to understand what resources you need to live the good life you want. You don’t want your business to interfere with it. In fact, you want your business to provide the good life you want. It’s not an either-or choice if you think about all this in advance. 

What is a resource? A resource can be either internal or external. For example, you have internal resources such as your own knowledge, skills, qualities, habits, techniques, your own funds, and things you’ve learned over time. External sources may include your access to people in the know, books, software, funds, and so forth. 

When you look at your vision board and the goals you’ve set for each of the eight areas of life, what resources do you really need? Some resources you come across will be required, and some will be desired but not out and out required. 

Let’s remember the eight areas of life and show an example of the possible resources you need for each area. I included some ideas for you to get you started. This is not comprehensive because it’s hard to know what any one person may have or need as this is very individual, so try to answer this for yourself using the example. 

Career and Business

Resources I have:

• Coaching Certification
• Time Management Skills
• Networking Skills
• Writing Skills  
• Computer
• Coaching Software 
• Online Communities 
• Mastermind Group
• $5000 Start-Up Funding 

Resources I need: 

• Programming Skills 
• Email Marketing Software
• A Website 
• An Office Space
• Clients 

Health and Fitness 

Resources I have:

• A Good Mindset
• Gym Membership
• Good Shoes
• My Best Friend (Motivation)
• $400 Monthly Budget 

Resources I need:

• Medical Insurance
• Regular Dental Care
• Healthy Grocery Budget
• Full House Water Filter   

Relationships and Social Life

Resources I have:

• A supportive spouse
• Three great kids
• Backyard Pool
• A Healthy Outlook
• Good Communication Skills

Resources I need: 

• Bigger Dining Room Table
• A Vacation Home 
• Time 

Finances 

Resources I have:

• $5000 Startup Cash
• A Business Idea
• A Personal Budget   

Resources I need:

• Bookkeeping Software
• A CPA
• A Business Plan
• A Retirement Plan  

Hobbies and Fun

Add what you have and what you need to ensure you can do your hobbies and have fun. 

Home and Environment 

What do you have already that makes your home environment the way you want it, and what do you need to improve it based on your lifestyle goals?

Community Involvement

The same thing goes here, list all the resources you have and that you need to achieve the results you desire.

Some of the resources you need you may not have yet, or you may not even be sure what they are yet, but as you move along, you’ll discover what is needed, and you can add those to the list of resources you need. Make sure you create your resource list based on what you have available first and then what you need to acquire for each of the areas of life you want to design and improve.

Understanding exactly what you need for success in each of the eight areas of life will help you ensure that you are working toward your goal in a way that makes it possible to succeed. If you don’t have the resource yet, you can use the information you’re gathering to set up a plan to get those resources. 

Why You’re Not Alone Even When You’re a Sole Proprietor

While exciting, starting a business can be lonely. This is especially true for small business owners who traditionally start “home” businesses that they plan to run independently. But the exciting thing about this is that today you’re not alone even as a sole proprietor because today, there are many resources that you can tap into right from the comfort of your home via your computer.

Take a Class 

If you need to know something to help improve your business or life, taking a class is a great way to do it. Participating in the class with the other students and the instructor is also a great way to network with other like-minded people. Most of the time, the people taking the course and you will have something in common if only the reason for taking the class. 

Join a Mastermind 

If you need motivation, sometimes a mastermind group is the way to go. Not only will you be able to network with others, but you’ll learn something and potentially acquire a new resource to use to meet your goals. 

Find Your Community 

There is a community out there for you to join as a solopreneur that can help you learn, socialize, and grow your business. It may be local to you, or it might be online via a forum, message board, or private group on Facebook or another platform. 

Build Your Team 

Just because you are a solopreneur doesn’t mean you have to do everything. To acquire a skill (a resource) fast, pay for it. For example, if you don’t have financial knowledge, you may want to hire a CPA to guide you, or if you lack time to provide the proper customer care, you may want to employ a customer service expert or pay for a chatbot to help. 

Find a Coworking Community 

Locally to you, there are probably coworking communities already working together and helping each other grow. You can also find coworking communities online too through groups and forums. It can be very motivating working alongside other movers and shakers. Plus, once again, through networking, you may be able to fill your need for a particular resource based on your list. 

Go to Live Events 

An enjoyable and lucrative way to avoid being alone is to go to live events. Live events will stand out for you as a networking tool that will introduce you to new people to fulfill your resource list. 

Connect with Your Customer 

Also, don’t forget that you have customers, or you will once you start your business. You can connect with them on many levels. For example, use your hobbies and interests to build rapport when you can tie them to your business and work. Your customers are essential, and the more you can get to know them, the better.

As you can see, you’re never alone. As the owner of your business, it’s up to you to fill all your needs, but you don’t need to do it alone. You can network and build your team and remember to delegate and outsource so that you aren’t doing it all alone. 

Outsourcing: The Key to Success for The Life Affirming Entrepreneur

When you set out to build your business, one thing was clear. You wanted a business that provided the income you needed while not overtaking your life. You want time to live all aspects of your life to the fullest, and you don’t want to work all the time and miss out on the joy of life. You want business success, and your success includes living a full and rich life in all ways and all aspects. In other words, you want to build a successful business while still enjoying life. The key to being able to do that is outsourcing. 

There are many reasons to outsource, but the two most important that come to mind are the ability to free up your time so you can focus on your goals and business planning and also to add key resources and skills to your offers. Well planned outsourcing can improve your efficiency, cut costs, speed up product creation, and give you time to focus on the important planning and directing that a business owner does aside from doing the actual tasks in the business. 

Outsourcing helps your business: 

• Scale Up Faster – When you use strategic outsourcing, you can scale up when needed, but you can also shrink when needed without affecting your business. Outsourcing means you use a contractor that is not an employee, so you only use them when you need them, which is after you get the work. 

• Boost Resources – If you need a resource that you don’t have yourself, you can use other people to gain it. For example, if you realize you need to redo the coding on your website outside the basics, you can hire someone to do it and keep them on speed dial whenever you need them—no need to learn to code when you can outsource. 

• Free Up Your Time – As a business owner, you have a lot to do, and you need to save your talent for doing things only you can do. If someone else can do it without sacrificing quality or anyone noticing it’s not you, then you should seek to let someone else do it, so you free up your time to do what you do best or to spend time with friends, family, or doing fun things. 

• Improves Your Offers – The truth is someone else can probably do some things better than you. Because of that, if you outsource to the right people for the right things, you can improve your offers, thus improving your customer satisfaction exponentially. 

To Outsource Successfully:

• Define the Scope and Schedule Clearly – Before you even search for the person, define what you want them to do. It’s better to work with someone who is already an expert, so you just hand it over, but you don’t want to outsource an entire project to one person. Instead, define it and choose each step along the way.

• Evaluate Contractors Carefully – Look at references, examples, and always make sure they are who they say they are. Even if you are recommended a particular person by someone else, check them out thoroughly to avoid problems. 

• Choose Based on Skill and Expertise Over Price – Don’t always hire people based on the least expensive price. Sometimes a lower price is indicative of inexperience, and it may take them longer. Sometimes a higher price ends up being a lower price due to time and expertise. 

• Start Small – Don’t outsource an entire massive important project to a new contractor at first. Instead, choose a small thing to work on to find out how well they meet deadlines and stand by their work. 

Outsourcing is the biggest key to your freedom. Remember that anything you need to be done can be done by someone else. You really can hire experts remotely for a lot less than you think and increase the capabilities of your business fast. 

You Really Can Design Your Life the Way You Want It

When most people grow up, they end up with about the same finances and lifestyle as the family they are raised with. Very few people do better than their parents or change that much about their lives compared with their folks. 

It’s not a bad thing, but if you want to do something different, it can seem daunting. However, you really can design your life the way you want it. It doesn’t matter who you are now or where you are from, or what situation you were born to. If you understand who is really in control of your life, (you) you can do amazing things. 

Begin Where You Are 

Some people are born with more resources than others due to their family or place in life. Others are born with more challenges. In the scheme of life, this only matters if you don’t believe you can improve your life based on your birth. If you believe you can, and take the steps necessary to do it based on the situation’s reality, you will be more successful. Maybe you have to work two part-time minimum wage jobs while working your side hustle to pull it off for five years – it doesn’t matter – whatever it takes to reach your goals is what’s important. 

Figure Out What Your Morals, Principles, and Values Are

No one can make good choices in life about anything if they have no idea what guides them. When you know who you are deep down, you don’t need any outside forces to guide you. Try writing a mission statement for your life and your business to help set up that guide. 

Summarize What You Want 

Take the time to go through the eight areas of life that you need to design and write a summary of the ultimate end goal that you want to achieve in each of the areas. As you develop your goals, you may need to get more in-depth with each area for the goal to be well thought out with steps set up for achievement. 

Set Realistic Goals 

Based on what you want from life, set goals using the SMART Goal setting technique. Each of your goals must be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound. Instead of something like “I want to get rich and retire,” you will explain what this means. “I will have 2.5 million saved by the time I am 45 years old. I will do this by saving a specific amount each month that I earn by doing a specific thing each day.” Write it out exactly as you will do it.  

Figure Out What You Have

Develop a resource list of all the resources you have as they’re related to each of your goals. For example, if one of your goals is to be fit and healthy at 80, what steps are necessary to be more likely to experience success with that goal? Probably time for self-care, money for regular health care appointments, funds for dental work, gym membership – whatever it is that you have that will help you succeed, list it. It may be a person, place, or thing that is the resource, or it may just be a skill you possess. 

Figure Out What You Need

As you determine what resources you need to achieve each goal, you’re going to realize that you already have some of the resources but that you don’t have some of the others. When you identify the resources you need that you don’t have, it’s time for you to search for them either by paying for them, outsourcing, or creating them. 

Create a Resource List Associated with Your Goals

Now that you know what you have and what you need, make a resource list. Define what you have, what you need, and the budget for the things you need to pay for. For example, there is a budget associated with healthcare, groceries, and the like. There is also a monetary number associated with every single thing on your resource list. And remember, time is money. 

Set Your Daily Schedule for Success

Once you know what you want to do and have identified the resources to get you there, it’s time to set up your daily schedule for achieving the goals you’ve set. If you have more time available due to more resources, you’ll experience success faster, but even if you take twice as long, you will make it if you set it up and follow your plan. 

Evaluate Regularly

As you age, you’re going to change. Those changes will be more than physical they will be mental, emotional, and spiritual. You cannot even imagine the type of changes you’re going to experience in the next 20 to 30 years of your life. Due to this fact, take the time to evaluate your plan regularly to ensure you’re on the right path that makes you feel happy about your life. 

Designing a life that works for you and gives you the balance you want in terms of work-life balance requires that you first accept the truth of where you are, what you have to work with, and where you want to go. It might take you longer than someone born on third base, but you can still accomplish whatever you set your mind to if you understand what it takes to achieve the results you desire. 

Components of a Business Plan

A business plan is an important document that was traditionally designed so the business owner could apply for and receive financial help through loans, venture capital, and other investments. An excellent online platform to create your business plan is at liveplan.com. 

However, the other reason for the business plan is that it will help you determine before you invest too much time and effort if your business idea is viable or not. Plus, it can be the beginning of a roadmap with daily operation tasks and activities that lead to building and growing a successful life-affirming business. 

Executive Summary 

This section includes the name, location, and the overall mission of your business that you want to start. You’ll want to include a full description of the product or service, how it’s situated within the market, and why yours is different. To write an excellent executive summary, you need all the information described in the other components below first. It should encapsulate everything you prove in the sections below. 

Business Description 

In just a few paragraphs, write an overview of your business operations and what you do. What you do, who you do it for, and why you’re different. You’ll need to research your industry and the competition, describe how the industry is right now in the current climate, and provide basic information about your business such as your name, the location, the type of structure you set up, and so forth. It should be clear to whoever needs it what you do. A good way to approach this is to describe the problem you solve for your ideal customer. 

Market Analysis and Strategy 

This is the section you will include your overall analysis about your industry, where you fit in, the target market, your competition, and how you will enter the market with your product or service based on what you know. Be very specific. Include the size of your audience, trending information, and info about your target customer. This is the info that you can create a customer avatar with. 

Marketing and Sales Plan

This section may be one of the most important because it will define how you will do business. It will define your method for gaining customers and the like. You’ll want to discuss your product, the price of your product, the place you’ll sell it, how you’ll promote it, to whom, and mention what profit you want to achieve and how you will reach your target profit potential. 

Competitive Analysis 

To create this section, you’ll need to find out who your competition is, who exactly their target audience is, how they do their targeting and pricing, and marketing. You should understand how they differentiate themselves from the market so that you can find another entry point. 

Management and Organization Description 

In this section, you’ll want to describe and summarize your business structure, who is on your team, whether they’re employees or contractors, and so forth. This section is not actually needed unless you plan to talk to venture capitalists or seek grants. However, it is helpful for you personally to describe how your organization will work and who will do what, when, why, and how. 

Products and Services Description 

This area is very straight forward. Simply list and describe every product and service you will be selling. This is how you will earn money. Use all your descriptive words to describe your products and services fully. You’ll want to include cost, features (and always the benefit of that feature to your ideal customer), how you’ll distribute the product or service, and information about the target market and competition too. 

Operating Plan 

In this section, you need to be very detailed about how you’re going to run your business. What day to day tasks will be completed, and by whom, in order to be successful in this business? How much time will it take? What equipment will you use? What will change if times get hard or something happens, such as a natural disaster? Your operating plans consider possibilities so that you hopefully have a plan already in place when you need it. 

Financial Projection and Needs

Not only do you need to know exactly what each part of your business costs you in terms of investment but also what it is going to earn you. This is an integral part of the plan because it will help you understand what it takes to achieve the goal you want: work-life balance and enough funds to accomplish the life you want to live. 

Exhibits and Appendices

In this area, you’ll include all the documentation that goes with the summaries that you created for each section. This is the area you want to back up anything you said above with proof. Include copies of your ads, copies of your headlines, tagline, logo, and anything you use for marketing that helps support your words above. 

It really does depend on the type of business you plan to start, whether you need to write a full business plan with the components mentioned above. If you are starting a home business, you may not need some of the financial projections that enable you to get a loan or venture capital, for example, but in general, you need at least to know what your goals are and how you’re going to reach them. When you put it in writing, it will provide a roadmap that will enable you to achieve the success you seek.

What You Really Want to Know to Get Started Fast

Once you learn about yourself, figure out what you really want from your life, choose the type of business you’re going to build, and decide how you’ll run the business, you’re going to want to get started fast. Get to know who you are so that you can start a business that thrives. 

Realize Who You Are Really 

While you may change as you learn more about the world, you’re mostly who you are. You like to get up early, or you like to sleep late, or you’re naturally organized, or you need to practice – it’s all fine as long as you are honest with yourself about it. Nothing you know about yourself is wrong. Knowing yourself will enable you to ensure that you set up your life for success. 

If you know that you need an extra hour each morning to fully wake up and be ready for company, then you can make sure you do just that. If you know you get nervous speaking in public, you can work on it and practice. 

Don’t deny who you are or think you’re wrong for being who you are. Instead, work around your challenges to reach the success you desire by knowing who you are and being honest with yourself about it. 

Understand What You Really Ultimately Want and Need from Life to Be Happy

Part of knowing yourself is knowing what you want out of life, not what society or your folks told you that you wanted or even needed. As long as you’re a kind person who doesn’t use others or oppress others, there is nothing about you that is wrong or bad. If you want a traditional marriage and kids, that’s great. If you want a nontraditional life, that’s great too. It’s up to you.

Remember to focus on tangible things you want and need like healthy food, shelter, medical care, recreation, and so forth. Be very specific about what makes a good life for you so that you can ensure it happens. 

Know the Fundamentals of Starting a Business

Don’t assume you understand the laws and rules about starting a business. Educate yourself about your particular industry and niche so that you understand the way things are done. There is no need to create a new way to do things for most businesses, as someone else has already designed the best way to succeed. All you need to do is figure out how to emulate them.

Know What Your Best Average Day Will Look Like 

Take some time to imagine what a given day might look like if you lived the life you wanted to live. What does it look like? What time do you usually get up in the morning, and what do you do? What do you do for work? What are you doing when you’re done with work? Describe an average day, week, month, and year so that you can work toward that ideal realistically. 

Know What Resources You Have and Need 

As you design your life, make a list of the resources you have and how you’re going to use them, and the resources you need. Brainstorm ways to obtain the resources you need. You’re either going to have to pay for them, create them, or otherwise work around these needs you don’t have yet in order to succeed. If you know what you have and know how to use it and know what you need and how to find it, you’ll be prepared. 

Your Business Plan 

Don’t skip the process of writing a business plan. The business plan will help define your business as well as the day to day activities you do that make up your business. The business plan will also help organize all the marketing, advertising, and other information you need to attract your ideal customer to your offerings. It’s a necessity. Some studies indicate that creating a business plan increases the likelihood of business success. 

The Legalities 

One thing you’ll discover as you create your business plan is the legal parts of your business that you must get right before you get started. You may need a business license, or there may be other legal requirements that you must follow. You may need to set up sales tax payments and regular quarterly tax payments to keep your income tax up to date. You won’t know what you need until you go through the process. You need to go through that process. Don’t assume. 

The Action 

You need a fabulous and effective schedule of daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly tasks that you will implement to ensure that you reach each goal that you set. Without acting, nothing will happen. You can talk about having a business, and you can work on your business all you want, but until you make sales, you don’t have a business. You have an idea. 

When you know what type of business you want to start and what type of life you want to live, it’s just a matter of doing it. Live your life and build your business joyfully, knowing that you are the one in control of your destiny. 

Setting Boundaries: It’s Not Selfish to Go After What You Want

As you work on designing your life and business to match your version of a fulfilling and happy life, it’s imperative to realize that it’s not selfish to go after what you want. While it’s not selfish to make yourself happy as long as making yourself happy doesn’t include criminal or unethical activity, there are times when being so-called—selfish is good for you and good for business. 

Stick to Your Budget 

When most people think of sticking to a budget, they think of only money. While yes, you need to create and stick to your well-thought-out budget so that you keep your bank account healthy and can go after other things you want, remember that you have other non-money resources like your health, time, and so forth. 

Follow Your Schedule

When you set up a schedule with real planning and thought about fitting in the things you want to do in life, it’s important to mostly follow your schedule. If you are having a hard time sticking to the schedule, maybe you’re not putting your plans first, or maybe you need a new schedule that is more realistic. When you develop a schedule that includes everything, including lunch with your four-year-old, data entry, exercise, and so forth, you’ll have a much more balanced life. 

Say No (or Yes) with True Thought and Consideration

Don’t say yes or no to any request without thinking about it first. You need first to ask yourself if you even want to do it, figure out why you want to do it, what the benefits are, and then check to see if you even have time to do it. If you don’t want to do it, you can say no without guilt. 

If you do want to and can’t, due to time or other constraints, state so and do not feel bad. If you can do it and want to do it, then you’re in the clear. But it’s imperative that you really think about it and study each question well. 

Take Care of You First 

This is probably the hardest for females. Women tend to put everyone else first but feel bad when they put themselves first. When it comes to your needs, always put needs before wants. Your needs come before your wants. Your needs come before someone else’s wants. This is how it should be. If you aren’t happy, healthy, and living the life you really want to live, what’s the point? 

Prioritize Tasks, Especially Money-Making Tasks

As you create your schedules for your business activities, remember to prioritize any money-making tasks. The main reason is that without money you can’t do all the things you want to do that make your life worth living. 

However, this doesn’t mean that you work 20 hours a day on money-making tasks. Instead, you’ll simply spend some of your time each day hard at work making money. When you designed your life, you discovered how much time you have left to make money. Use that time wisely. There is no point in spending time, for example, chatting with people on social media before you send offers to your customers. 

Creating Your Executive Summary Is Not Just for Investors

The executive summary is an important component of your business plan. It’s the part of your plan that is first, but it is often created last. You need all the other information collected, studied, and analyzed to create the executive summary. This summary will explain in a concise yet thorough way what you do, who you do it for, and why you will be successful doing it.

To complete the executive summary, include:

• Information about your research – The research you conduct will inform business decisions and help you develop your strategy for achieving your goals. 

• Results of said research – The research produced results that need to be analyzed for the executive summary. 

• Suggestions about how to do business based on the research – Based on what you learned during the research, what steps will you take, when will you take them, and how will you take them? 

Your executive summary is mostly an informative piece of writing that doesn’t need to be very persuasive other than you should point out the research methods and why they’re accurate and explain the results thoroughly. 

It should be interesting, grab attention, and give you the info it needs to in the case of needing a business loan or angel investors. If it’s just for your use, you still want to continue creating the executive summary as if someone from a bank might read it. Try capturing your reader with a thought-provoking statistic or tell them about a quote you love that relates, or a book.  

The executive summary should be able to exist without the rest of the business plan as its own document to use when needed. However, you’ll want it to be concise and short. It’s a summary by nature, but it should give all the information the reader needs. You’ll be able to use the document in other aspects of your business to come up with content marketing ideas, to remember your mission, and more. 

You can write your executive summary in the same way as normal article writing. Create a title for each section. You can use this order to keep it all straight in your mind as you develop your executive summary for your business plan. But remember, you should not even start writing it until you’ve collected the information for each section. 

Start with an overview of your business; include what you do, who you do it for, why, and how you do it. Next, add information about your target market, your competition, and at least three points about the marketing strategy you plan to use. Now add in information about how you will operate the business. Will you be a sole proprietor, or will you be a corporation?

Will you work in a brick and mortar atmosphere, or will you build your business solely online? You also want to include information about your projections based on your research. Give information about finances now, a year from now, two years from now, and up to five years. Be sure to include your break-even point and concrete ideas about when you’ll finally produce a profit. If you need an influx of money, this is also when you mention the type of financing you will get or venture capital you’ll seek. All your numbers should align and make sense. 

Can You Describe Your Business?

One of the things you need to do to write a useful business plan is to describe your business. It might seem simple on the surface, but you want to be careful how you describe your business so that it is crystal clear what you do, who you do it for, how you’ll do it, and why you’re the right one to do it. 

• Be Specific – When you choose the wording for your business description, you want to ensure that you are as specific as possible. You must use the right terms that the audience understands best to get the information to them clearly. Hint, you may need more than one description if you have created more than one client avatar, to ensure that they truly understand. 

• Describe Your Customers – Your customers are your business. For this reason, it’s imperative that you can succinctly describe who your primary ideal customer is. You need to be able to describe them as if they’re a person sitting right in front of you. Include demographics and even how they look. You can even give them a basic name. It also helps to learn your customer’s buying journey so you can describe your customer at each stage of their decision-making process. 

• Describe Your Products – Do the same thing about each of your products. List them all and describe who the product is for what problems it solves, and how and why it will work. Do this for all your products, whether it’s a paid product or a lead magnet. One trick is to list the features of each of your products and then connect that feature to how it benefits your ideal customer that it’s meant for. 

• Describe Your Services – If you have services and products or instead of products, you will want to describe each service fully. One way to do this is to focus on the result or impact that the service will have for them and their ideal customer. 

• Describe Your Talents as Related to Your Business – Include information about your education and expertise related to what you do in your business. If you have others involved, you’ll include their information too. You can even ask them to write their own short description, especially if they’re contractors since they likely already have that ready in their own business plan. 

• Describe Other Experts and Tools That Will Work With You – If you have contractors, employees, or other resources that help you do what you say you will for your ideal customers. Whether it’s people, specialized software, or something else, describe what you will use to get the job done and why they’re right for it. 

• Why Do You Want to Do This? – Why are you the right person to do this and to create or make these solutions? This is a great time to talk about a pivotal moment in your life that made you want to do this.  What unique insight and talent set you apart from the competition? 

The more you can make this section complete, the more you can feel proud when someone wants to know about your business. The act of creating the executive summary solidifies in your mind what it is that you do, who you do it for, why you do it, and how you do it. 

What Methods Work Best to Ensure You Make Your Goals?

As you work through developing goals for your business and your happy life, you may notice that you need to change what you’re doing now. In fact, as you move along in your business, whatever is in your business plan now might change. As you gain experience, some of the assumptions you made in the past will be thrown out for the reality of what really works and what doesn’t work per your metrics. 

Learn How to Create SMART Goals

The main issue with goals is that many times excited entrepreneurs don’t set goals that will work. A goal needs to be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely. If it’s not all of these, more than likely, you will not succeed. It might seem like extra work for you to focus on the minutia to set goals. However, the proof is in the pudding. 

Did you know that, according to SCORE.org, businesses that create well-researched business plans and then use those plans to develop each goal and the steps to reach each goal are 80 percent more likely to experience success? Because of this, SMART goal setting for your life and your business will be one of the practices that pay off for you the most. 

Write Specific Goals 

For a goal to be specific, it needs to spell out the result and how you’re going to do it. For example, if you want to list 100 products a week on your Poshmark and 100 on your eBay platform, you have to set it up so that it can happen. “I will list 20 products each evening from 8 to 10 PM.” Describe what constitutes done, so you know when you met the goal. Remember, if you don’t set aside the time to do it, it won’t happen. 

Make Sure Each Goal is Measurable

As you noticed, the specific goal above mentions numbers. It states that you’ll list 100 products within five workdays by listing 20 products each day Monday – Friday between the hours of 8 and 10 PM. Knowing this information, you also need to set up the rest of our day to ensure you have the time to devote.  

Work Only for Attainable Goals 

If you want to list more products because you know that getting more listings up means that you have the opportunity to earn more money, it’s important to be realistic about the number. 

If you don’t have the funds to buy 100 products a week, you’re not going to be able to list them. If you don’t really sit down each evening to process the products, it won’t happen. Don’t make the goal so impossible to reach that it doesn’t take into consideration the reality of your life and the goals you’ve made for the rest of your life too. 

If you really only have 2 hours, it’s possible you will not have enough time to list 20 products, so you’ll have to lower your goal so that it’s actually attainable. Also, there may be outside influences that make your goal impossible, for example, if it’s against the terms of service or somehow against the law or other rules. 

Ensure Your Goal is Realistic in The First Place 

Don’t make impossible goals. It’s fun to dream about being a billionaire but don’t start with that goal. Start with a goal of making enough money to maintain your current lifestyle, then add to that as you go. Also, think about other aspects of your life that might make the goal, while attainable, unrealistic for you. 

For example, if you have a chronic illness, you may need to modify some of your goals to ensure you can meet them. The easiest way to succeed is to stop trying to do things that can’t be done and do things that can be done by studying the situation to make sure it’s real and a sensible goal to set for your situation.

Always Assign Yourself (and anyone who works with you) Deadlines to Make Them Time-Bound

No goal will ever be done on an ongoing basis to see real results if you don’t set deadlines. When you set deadlines, always take the time to understand how long it really takes. Don’t try to be faster than others. Take the time it really takes to do a good job, regardless of what it is. Some people have found success using something called Block Scheduling. This is where you state you’ll do XYZ during a particular block of time.

When you learn good goal setting technique, you’ll be amazed at how much better you become at succeeding. It doesn’t matter what you want to do. Using SMART goal setting techniques will make a difference. 

How to Analyze Your Market and Why It’s Imperative to Do It

One thing you will notice about your business plan development is that there are lots of parts. You’ll have to do a lot of research to get the answers that enable you to create your business plan. Analyzing your Market is one of the things that you need to do to gather the right information. If you don’t go through this process, you may make decisions based on erroneous information. 

A market analysis answers the following questions:

• Who Are Your Ideal Customers? – Depending on your business, you may have several ideal target customers. Make a list of who your customers are. Describe them and give them a name so that it’s easy to know who you’re targeting with each new offer.

• What Process Does Your Ideal Customer Go Through When Shopping? – In marketing, this is called the “buying journey.” It’s basically standard depending on where they are in the marketing funnel. Understand this so that you can differentiate the content you use to target them. 

• How Big Is Your Target Audience? – If you don’t know how many people are out there needing your solution, how do you know you can earn enough money. Pricing depends on many factors, such as how many people you can attract plus your production cost or time available to perform the services. If there are only 100 people who need what you’re offering, can you profit? 

• How Much Is Your Ideal Customer Willing to Pay? – Understanding who your customer is helps you also know how to price your products or services. Knowing their budgets and what keeps them up at night is enormously helpful. 

• Who is Your Competition and What Are Their Strengths and Weaknesses? – Understanding who and how your competition does business is also helpful. If you don’t have customers yet, you can learn almost everything you need to know by immersing yourself in studying them. 

To get the information, you need to make good choices for your life and your business. Don’t try to skimp market research. Not only do you need to research before starting your business, but you should also continuously research your ideal customers over time. 

While your customers may stay the same demographics, they can change their principles and values over time. Imagine creating a commercial for DOVE soap today compared to the 1940s and 1950s. Many old ads offend people today. You don’t ever want to offend your audience, so keep studying them and your market so that your communication with them fits. 

• Know Why You Are Doing the Research – Before you start researching, have a reason to do it. For example, if you want to find out where your ideal customer in the awareness stage finds their information, you should  search for it; don’t just look at the information randomly, have a point for your research. 

• Stay Up to Date on Your Industry’s Outlook – One thing some business owners forget to study is the overall industry. You need to be on the lookout for killer technologies that might end the need for your product or service or otherwise change something drastic in your business. Remember, no one is still making VHS tapes. (Those used to have movies on them.)

• Focus on Finding and Identifying Exactly Who Your Ideal Customer Is – You may think you know who your customer is already. If you do, it’s because you decided who they are before you even created your product. But if you already have a service or product, you may need to work a little harder finding the customer, but it is still possible. 

• Study Your Competition Regularly – Don’t just study the competition one time. Join their lists, get to know them. Become members of their community. The truth is, you never know when the competition might become a wonderful colleague.

• Use the Data You Discover – Don’t just do all this work for nothing. Use the information you gather. Once you’ve collected the data and analyzed it make changes based on the facts. Then do it all again. And Again. 

There is no point doing all this work researching if you’re not going to make changes and adjustments to your ideas. Once in a blue moon, your assumptions may be right, and your research confirms it, but often assumptions can be wrong, so always match your assumptions with the metrics and data that show the truth. 

What Type of Business Do You Really Want?

As you work on your business plan, one of the things you’re going to have to figure out is what type of business you really want. The type of business you start will inform many of your choices due to legalities and simply traditional practice. Whether your business is part-time, full time, a sole proprietorship, or you decide to incorporate depends on the rest of your research and your goals. 

Determine Your Business Entity Type 

The simplest type of business to start is a sole proprietorship, and it is the main type most people start, especially if they start the business part-time as a side hustle or while they are still working at a full-time job.

Before choosing your business type or entity type, you need to know what type of business you’re starting. Then you’ll need to review the legal and financial requirements for your type of business. The entity will help you by informing operations and tax advantages and implications and other legal issues surrounding your business type. 

There are many things to think about, such as whether you’ll keep inventory on hand or whether everything is digital or not. You’ll also need to educate yourself about income taxes and sales taxes, not to mention business licenses and so forth.

The best thing to do is to talk to a professional such as a Certified Public Accountant (CPA), Enrolled Agent (EA), or another business professional that understands this topic and knows how to give you good advice. You can get free help from local SCORE.ORG offices and potentially via your local community college or University. 

Determine How Many Hours You Can Put In 

One of the other things you need to think about, mentioned above, is how much time you want to put into your business. If you want a business that allows you to have time freedom and a more balanced lifestyle, think about this before choosing your business entity or type. 

You can still achieve your dreams even if you only have a couple of hours a day, but you have to make sure your dream is possible first. Also, this is an excellent time to discuss being realistic as you make your daily schedule. Think about how much time you have. Don’t overschedule, which can create roadblocks that don’t need to exist. 

Know Whether You’ll Hire Employees or Use Contractors

The other important thing to know is whether you’ll do everything yourself or if you’re going to hire employees or contractors. One thing is clear: people who know how to delegate end up with a much better quality of life and a more successful business. The type of business you build will inform whether employees, contractors, or a combination is best. Even if you have to do it all yourself today due to lack of funding, set up your business to know when you reach a certain profit point that is when you’re going to find someone to delegate to. That way, you don’t become reliant on the income you’re producing yourself and trap yourself into a job instead of a life-affirming business.  

There are no wrong answers when it comes to choosing the type of business you want to run. It can be part-time, full-time, more than full time – if that’s what you enjoy and what makes you happy – that’s all that counts. But don’t mistake being busy as being productive or happy. 

How Will You Find Your Customers and Clients?

As you research your customers, you’re going to figure out where they like to hang out, what keeps them awake and worried, and more. It might help you to know some of the processes of finding your customers and clients as you move forward with creating your business plan. 

• Create Products and Services They Need and Want – Before you design any products or services, you need to know who it’s for, why they need it, and how they can afford to pay for it. When providing your audience what they want, it will sell itself. 

• Know Where Your Customers Hang Out – The reason you need to know where they like to go for fun and work is that you can then go there too. You can run ads where they are, and you can network with them and speak at their events. The more you are around your customer, the more you’ll appeal to them. 

• Know Where Your Customers Like to Get Information – Which magazines, publications, and shows do your customers like to find out the facts of something? Wherever they go is where you need to go as well. Again, you can pay for ads that they’ll see where they go. You can sponsor events. Speak at events and more to get to know them better.  

• Optimize Your Website – Learn about search engine optimization or hire someone to build your website in a professional way that helps bring people to your marketing funnel so that you can get more customers. 

• Be Present on Social Media – Expanding your branding by using social media platforms is important and a good boost to your website SEO. It provides backlinks and an opportunity for you to network with and get to know your customers better. 

• Network and Get Referrals – Online and offline spend time wherever your audience spends time. Try to stand out, so they notice you but don’t be a salesperson at the wrong time. Give them the information but do it professionally, focusing on providing value to your customers. 

• Partner with Complementary Business Owners – One great thing about networking and studying your competition is you will meet some fantastic people who will want to work with you. You can find Joint Venture partners even who are your competition to work together to serve the customers better. 

• Form Strategic Alliances – Another way to expand your reach is to join forces with others, including your competition or anyone in your industry, to raise money for a cause you all care about. 

• Study Your Competitors – Always study your competition so that you can learn what they’re doing right, what they’re doing wrong, and also notice the gaps in their coverage. The gaps are where you may find the sweet spot. 

• Advertise – Once you know who your competitors are, who your audience is, where they hang out, and understand the point of your product or service, it’s time to start investing in paid advertising. You can boost your business much faster if you set up an advertising budget. 

Use this information in your business plan when you talk about your customers. Showing that you know who they are and how to find them is an integral part of crafting your business plan. It shows that you can get your products or services in the hands of the people who need it most, which also shows that you can earn the money you want to earn that will enable you to live your best life. 

What Do You Sell? Really?

As you work through your business plan, one of the things that come up is what do you sell. Well, it may seem easy to list products and services by name, and that’s enough. But the truth is each product or service has a reason it’s selling that has nothing to do with what it’s called but instead what it does, namely, solve problems or provide exceptional value. 

At this point in your business plan journey, you’ve likely heard the idea that you need to focus on benefits over features. But sometimes, this can feel unnatural and maybe even a little tricky as the business owner. After all, you sell a product or a service, and how it benefits the person who buys it might vary – but you do need to know this information. 

Knowing this information will help you not only advertise your product but will also help you create new products and services. To figure this out, it will help you first to list the features that your product or service offers, then describe the benefits and value of the feature in words and terms that your ideal customer will appreciate. 

When you write clear benefit statements for each of your products and services, it shows your audience that you relate to their needs, you understand their pain, and you know what they need. For example, if you’re a virtual assistant selling customer care services, what is the benefit in the mind of the person buying your service? If you can put yourself in their head, it helps.

If you already have customers, send them a survey and ask them directly how they most benefited from your product or service. This can help you get the words right. You can use these words in future advertisements or sales pages. 

To write your benefit statements for your products, do the following:

Know Which Problems the Product or Service Solves 

Make a list of the problems that each of your products or services solve for your audience. You might want to take a look at your customers at different stages in their buying journey to differentiate each benefit and whom it benefits.  

• Highlight the Feature That Provides the Benefit – Make a list of each feature and the corresponding benefits that the feature offers based on where your customer is in their buying journey. 

• Explain How They Garner the Benefit When Using Your Product or Service – As you know, the benefits offered don’t just come from the purchase in most cases. They come from an action that the buyer takes too. Make sure you explain that. 

• Prove, Qualify, and Quantify the Results – The more sources you can use to showcase the facts that your product or service does what you say, the better. Use stats, studies, and testimonials to prove, qualify, and quantify the benefit’s results.

Focusing on the value and benefit your products and services provide your ideal customer takes a little practice. You’ll need to put yourself in their shoes and see your offering from their viewpoint. It can take a little practice, but once you get the hang of this, it will not only improve your business plan, but it will improve product creation and the entire selling process. 

Describe Your Ideal Customer or Client: Create a Customer Avatar

One of the parts of your business plan that is essential is to describe your ideal customer or client. As you get to know your customers, you’ll find answers to questions such as: Who are they? Where do they hang out? What do they want? What do they need? What are their pain points? What keeps them up at night. Where do they get their information? 

One practice that has become popular due to the fact that it works is to create a customer avatar from the information you collect that best describes your ideal customer. When you first begin, you’re going to create one avatar that best describes your most ideal customer. You’ll use that information to inform all the products that you create. 

A customer avatar is simply one document that succinctly describes who your customer is, how they live their lives, and what they want and need in terms of your expertise.

The information you need to complete a customer avatar is as follows:

• List Places Your Customers Get Their Information – Make a list of websites, journals, magazines, blogs, newspapers, books, and so forth that comprise where your ideal customer likes to get their information. These are all excellent options for networking and advertising. 

• List Your Ideal Customer’s Goals – Make a list of your customers’ goals for the solution you are trying to sell to them. The goals have to be in line with your expertise and your offers. For example, if you’re a Keto Coach, their goals will be about succeeding on a Keto way of life. 

• List Your Ideal Customer’s Values and Principles – Most people make decisions based on their morals, values, and principles. It’s the way they judge if something is true or not. The more you can relate to these values and principles with your words and actions, the better. 

• Describe Your Ideal Customer’s Demographics – Demographic information includes things like age, race, income, education, and so forth. Include everything relevant that will help you with targeting ads and content.

• List Your Ideal Customer’s Pain Points or Challenges – As it relates to your experience and offering, list their pain points and challenges. What wakes your customers up at night? If you’re a Keto Coach, maybe your customers have diabetes, but maybe they just want to lose weight. You may have more than one ideal customer, too, but you should differentiate them so you can laser target the information you provide. 

• List Any Objections Your Customer Might Have at The Point of Purchase – Take the time to go through and make a list of each objection your customer may have based on who they are. When you list the objections, find facts and information that can overcome the objection. 

You’re going to have to ask and answer numerous questions to fully gather all the information you need to create a well thought out and effective customer avatar. Once you do that, you should give your ideal customer a true persona and name. You can draw a picture of them, or you can cut out pictures from a magazine or use clips online to build your customer avatar. It’s up to you, but you want the avatar document to be as specific as possible. Once you start your business and start to collect more data information, you’ll be able to create more avatars based on their buying journey. 

I work from home. Do I still need a business plan?

Home business owners often underestimate their business. If you start a home business, respect the importance and value of your home business. A home business is not a fake business. A home business can be more stable than a wage job. A home business can earn millions. Where the business is located really doesn’t matter as much as you may think. The location doesn’t define either legitimacy or potential. 

Many people think of business plans as a document you create if you need a bank loan or investors, but the truth is, the business plan is a lot more useful than that. A business plan helps you evaluate whether your idea is feasible or not. 

Plus, your business plan will also inform your marketing, operations, and pretty much everything you do. Not only that, but the business plan can also be used every single year as you update parts of it to make it even more accurate. 

So yes, the short answer is that if you’re going to start a successful business that you enjoy, you need a business plan. Studies show that if you have a well-thought-out business plan, you boost your chances of success by more than 30 percent. Since most businesses that start from home either go nowhere or do not succeed, this is a big deal. Because here’s the truth, businesses don’t fail for no reason. 

If your business fails, most of the time, it will be due to a lack of planning. More than 70 percent of successful businesses had a plan before they started. The other successful businesses usually develop a plan after the fact for the future, or else it’s hard to replicate success. Understand that a business plan that boosts your success potential is not something you will make in one day. It takes time and effort to create a quality business plan that truly sets you up for success.

However, as a home-based business, you can create a smaller plan where the summary and outline fits on one page with attachments (appendices and supporting documents) making up the rest of the business plan. 

The important parts of the business plan that you need include:

• Your Business Vision – Answer the question about what you are building. Include specific information, including time, expertise, and the who, when, what, why, and how of the business and customers you’ll serve. “Build a worldwide network of support for women who need to get healthy and lose weight.”

• Your Business Mission – Develop your business mission statement. The mission statement needs to include your target audience, the product or service, and what makes this product or service different. “Motivate overweight and unhealthy women to become healthier by teaching them how to change to a healthy Keto diet.” 

• Your Business Objectives – All the goals and objectives you develop need to have a number attached to them. List everything you plan to measure, from reach, to list members, to sales, and so forth. For example, if you’re an author who wants to sell a specific number of books, you’ll state how. “Speak about once a week for a target of at least 40 speaking events this year.” “Generate revenue of $75,000 in 2021.” 

• Your Business Strategies – At this point, you’ll want to describe fully in chronological order each milestone and success you’ll experience over time. For example, “I want to become known as the go-to source for Keto Diet information.”

• Your Action Plan – This is one of the most important parts of your business plan as a home-based business. This is the work you’ll do. Make a list of each thing you’ll do over the next year, at least including deliverables, deadlines, and results. “Develop a Keto Cookbook for Two by 3/21.” “Complete building of my studio kitchen by 2/22.”

As you can see, the point of the plan is to help you know what you need to do to build and grow your business. Without the plan, you may be very busy all the time, but your busywork may not be accomplishing anything without a plan. 

Information You Need to Know for Your Business Plan

There are many reasons to write a business plan. You may need a plan to borrow money, attract investors, or to validate your ideas. Plus, creating a business plan helps work out operating procedures and can put your business at a strategic advantage over other businesses. 

To create your business plan, work on collecting the following information and documentation.

• A Description of Your Business – This is simply what you do, who you do it for, why you do it, how you do it, and when you do it. 

• Describe the Problem(s) Your Customer Has That You Solve – Make a list of each problem you solve for your customer. Describe them fully and why they need to be solved. It can help to attach the product to the problem for reference. 

• Describe Your Solution – Explain how this solution solves the problem for your ideal customer. Try to write this from their perspective to ensure that you are putting the customer in a central place.

• Describe Your Target Customer – You may need to describe more than one target depending on your products and services, especially if you have different levels of products, depending on their place in the customer buying journey. This is a good place for customer avatars.  

• Describe Your Competitive Advantage – This is all about how you are different from the competition. It may be due to price, service, innovation, operation, or something else. Some people also describe this as a unique selling point or unique selling proposition. It’s all about your place in the market and how you can leverage it to your advantage. 

• Describe Your Selling Process – Website, storefront, affiliates, distributors or salespeople, door-to-door, or something else? For example, perhaps you’ll set up a squeeze page with a freebie to build your list then nurture your relationship with them in email. Be specific and thorough.

• Describe Your Business Model – This is a list of your revue streams and how you’re going to make money. If you have no revenue stream potential, you have no business. For example, starting a blog is not a business until you monetize it.  

• Describe Your Start-Up Costs – What are the funds you need to get started? List each expense and why you need it. 

• Describe Your Goals and Benchmarks – If you don’t set deadlines, it won’t happen, so make sure you match a deadline or benchmark to each of the goals you’ve set for your business. For example, “I will get 100 new customers each week by hosting two-hour long webinars each week.” 

• Describe Your Business Setup – For example, if you’re a sole proprietor who outsources to contractors, state that; if you are an employer with a management team, state so. If you plan to buy human resources, as time goes forward, mention those benchmarks so you know when this will happen. 

• Describe Resources You Have and Need – Make a list of the resources you have available now and how you’ll use them and a list of resources you need to buy, and when you’ll do so based on benchmarks. 

As you work on creating your business plan, it can help to understand fully all the information and data that you need to complete a business plan that is useful for you. Use this list of information you need for your business plan to guide you as you create the plan and build your business.