In theory we would all like to sit down in front of our computers and spend weeks planning our new business and come up with the perfect plan. If we were on a university business course we would certainly do this and then attempt to put our plan into action.

Although business plans are absolutely essential and will help you develop financial and marketing plans that will help steer your business ship through the startup phase murky waters, the theory associated with folks that believe 40-50 documents are a must are just that – theory.

Plus, with these services people do actually sit down and contemplate and mostly write a plan. There are so many people who start a business without a plan and then go onto fail so anything that helps them actually create a business plan, even if it’s only 80% complete, is better than no plan at all.

The other side is that many new entrepreneurs simply don’t know where to start with their planning and if they are presented with a complicated business planning software system that has (for example) 500 + sample business plans the volume of information is just far too great to comprehend and digest.

And that’s why pre-written plans are simply the best tool there is.

With these plans a new entrepreneur can:

• See at a glance what they need in their plan in the actual format they need if for example they need to get a bank loan
• The plans are laid out in the format that anyone lending is expecting so there are no surprises
• Most of these pre-written plans are 20 pages which really is enough for most small business owners and are therefore usable (if you have ever written a 50 page business plan you’ll know how often you have referred to it – ie: never)
• Getting hold of research data can be extremely expensive or hard work if you don’t know where to look so with pre-written plans there is enough research to show if the market is developing or declining and help and resources to get the most up to date information and how to conduct your own local research if required
• As these plans are in Microsoft Word they are easy to adapt for most circumstances. Certainly for most people who have never written a plan before this is great news because they don’t need to start from scratch. They can easily add in their own information and more about themselves where required
• For the all important finances there are examples and of course everyone has to build their own because every business is different. So our plans have a financial forecasting model which is easy to use and forecast sales and costs for the next 3 years

What could be easier ?

So when you see people saying pre-written plans are a waste of time it’s like university professors saying how businesses should be run where they have never run a business in their life. It’s all theory and great if we could all spend the time; but time we don’t have and anything that helps people actually write a plan in the first place has got to be good.

You can download our pre-written plans online here – for a modest investment you’ll be ahead of almost all other new business owners.

My business plan knol is a knol on how to write a business plan (which unfortunately has been deleted by Google )and covers the basics of business planning plus some more information and a business plan structure.

I thought I’d get something out there to see what happens to it. All the SEOs seem to have developed something and their knols rank in google. If you think it’s a good service why not start your own knol. You’ll need a google account first of course, but please let me know what you think about my business plan knol and what you are doing.

Knowing your market size and trends from the past few years and expert opinion on how the market will grow or contract over the next 12 months or so is critical to the success of your business. A market place is simply made up of customers purchasing all products from your business and your competitiors so any new entrant is really looking at taking market share off existing companies and perhaps growing the market itself.

Your business plan needs to have reasonable market research to show that you are starting a business in a place that will actually provide rewards for you and your new business. It can seem hard to get data but there are a number of ways to get good information.

1) Your own research: If you are opening up a shop on a high street you can easily devise a questionnaire and stand in the street and ask passers by what they want and how they are thinking with their spending. Whenever you develop a questionnaire always make sure there are only 6 or 7 questions otherwise people will get bored and not give proper answers. Ensure you are asking your target demographic audience but also ask people who you don’t think are you audience just so you don’t discount potential customers.

2) Friends and family: Perhaps these are your new customers perhaps not. Perhaps they know of a company that has the data you are looking for. Always ask people you know for opinions as well as contacts.

3) Your bank: Banks spend millions on research each year and perhaps they have a report lying around that can be useful for you. You never know if you don’t ask.

4) BusinessLink etc: Business Link, the government’s business advice centre will also spend millions each year on information as well as their consulting team. Again, ask and see what they have available as research.

5) Google: There are billions of documents online so go off and search. Search for terms such as ”yyy market growth” “yyy market research” “yyy market profits” etc where “yyy” is the industry you are looking to go into with your business.

6) Industry bodies: Again as with “5″ above there is likely to be an industry body that looks out and represents the industry you are going into. Search for that online and see what reports they have. Check out their press release and news sections. They may have reports but they will also have opinion. If they don’t have what you are looking for why not contact them?

With the above in hand you’ll easily be able to get good market research for your business plan.

If you are starting a new business now that there is an economic downturn or have a business you are reviewing to look for different customers your business plan becomes a very important document.

Even during economic growth periods every company should have a plan but now your plan becomes the most important document you can put together. This article looks at what you should be doing now.

Just take a couple of hours and open up Excel. You don’t need anything more than this. Make time periods in 12 columns and put down the left hand side your top 4 selling products or services. Underneath each product put down the top 3 customer groups you are selling to and then in each month type in how many you are going to sell and the profit per product or service for each.

Now you have a rough 12 month prediction that’s likely to cover 80% of your business revenues. As the 80/20 rule is critical at times like these (ie: concentrate on business that’s going to get 80% of your profits) you are well on the way to developing a plan.

If you think the revenues and gross profits you have calculated above are enough then start to develop a marketing plan – a plan of how you are going to communicate to your customers. Of course selling to existing customers is easier than new customers so develop those plans first.

At this stage you’ll have a P&L and a marketing plan that covers a very simple business plan. This again is probably 80% of a business plan that you’ll need. As most of your competitors wouldn’t have done any of these things you are further forward that your peers.

You can tidy up by looking at new customer groups or new products that you can market to others. Perhaps also look for market research to detect if there are gaps you can exploit or even markets that are growing at the moment you might want to dip your toe in. Remember we have a range of already completed business plans in our sample business plan database you can download and adapt yourself.

The key is to take action. Any action is better than nothing and a P&L and cash flow spreadsheet are great starters. Please let us know if you have any questions.

It was always assumed that small business owners would be working their socks off to generate customers and profits in the first year and that’s the lesson from many a Dragon’s Den programme and a poll over at another business forum seems to suggest they work even harder to make their business a success.

The question asked was “how many hours a week do you work” with the answers being a choice of:

• part time work under 27 hours
• normal full time work between 35 and 39 hours a week
• full time and a half between 40 and 60 hours per week
• and excessive working hours over 60 hours per week

The results so far suggest nearly 80% of small business owners are working over 40 hours per week with 40% of all business owners working over 60 hours per week on a regular basis. Coupled with the risk that new business entrepreneurs take, the increasing paperwork and rules the government impose and the increasing tax smaller businesses have to pay these people are certainly the bedrock of the economy.

Many people are saying this has been going on for many years and certainly their social lives are suffering but many attempt to take at least one day off per week at the weekend. It’s a case of making ends meet and serving customers at the beginning of this economic downturn that spurs people along.

At the weekends most people are working some of the time because a lot of internet businesses are being run these days and that’s a 24×7 business.

So small business owners are certainly dedicated and if this is a sure sign of the work ethic then of course there needs to be some spare time to relax and recharge – so here are my top but basic tips:

• Get at least one full day off per week if you can
• Eat properly including fruit and vegetables to keep a sharp mind
• Take holidays where you can completely switch off
• Don’t take your laptop on holiday
• Attempt some form of time management as everything doesn’t need to be done today (although the important things do)

Small business owner make the UK economy the way it is but let’s hope not many of them over exert themselves so they can’t work at all.

Teneric business plans has been online since 2001 and in that time we have helped over 30,000 people get business loans and start up their businesses through our business plans. The plans are from already successful businesses and new entrepreneurs can use these to adapt for their own circumstances. It makes it easy to prepare a plan because the plans are in a format banks expect. You can see the business plans on our main website and all feedback is welcomed.

Over the coming months (and years) we will post exciting business news and methods to help your business grow and if you have anything you want us to cover please do let us know.