We’ve all heard about business plans and how they’re integral to one’s success as a business owner, entrepreneur, or even an employee. However, they tend to quickly become larger-than-life complex documents that can be pretty overwhelming. So why not focus on creating a business development plan that is concentrated on tangible actions you can start today? Well, this post is going to walk you through what that looks like.
One reason people do not like business and do not take the time to create a “business-like” plan of action is because of all the jargon and unknowns that come their way. Big words are thrown around and resources are incredibly abstract in nature.
Well, I’m someone who loves planning and breaking down big concepts while taking responsibility for the things that involve me. I mean joy really comes from having some accountability for the things that occur in your life and influencing it in the way you deem necessary.
This business development plan will give you permission to take the driver’s seat in your life by telling your internal GPS how to get to where you want to be.
This post is all about business development and how to put together a plan.
Business Development Plan
1) Business Development Research
Before you start creating a list of the items you’d like to accomplish you first need to do some research. And researching is not a one-stop shop. There are a few different avenues you need to explore before creating your path.
First, you want to learn about the trade. You want to understand the business you’d like to get into. What do daily, weekly, and monthly tasks look like? Think about the overall goals that people within this field are striving for. What are the good parts and what are the bad parts?
Ultimately how does this business operate and what does your role entail?
Next, you want to learn about your competitors. Who are the people that are doing amazing in this line of work? Who is up and coming? And who gets to decide how everyone is ranked?
Then, you want to enroll in some courses, or seminars, or go back to school. Having an understanding of how things are done is not the same as doing it. Before you take the leap in creating your own business, learn how to do things the right way in someone else’s space. In learning environments, you’ll be guided and mistakes won’t hurt as much.
Lastly, this is a plan so you need to have a direction. Learn about the opportunities that are available within the industry you’re researching and think about how they can be leveraged. You’re not working on those opportunities now. But it’s best to start operating in a way that aligns with an opportunity in the future.
2) Infrastructure
Most businesses are so quick to make a profit that they don’t stop to think about defining how they should operate in order to achieve sustainable success. They release an amazing product but never think about how they can scale and meet customer demand once the opportunity presents itself.
Whether your business is online or a brick-and-mortar establishment you need to think about building things brick by brick and that all starts with creating a strong infrastructure to support the business’s needs.
First, you need to have a complete understanding of the operational costs. Every business has daily costs but they fluctuate based on where your company is in its life cycle. At first, you need to decide how much money you need to invest and be specific on how they will assist you in building your business. Then you need to revisit those costs and continuously adjust your plans as the company grows.
Not a very sexy topic but operating legally is incredibly important. Think about what permissions you need to acquire and get those done immediately. This should be the very first action you take.
Last, think about what makes up your business profile. The most obvious is your company’s name. Decide what it is, test it to see if it’ll work with your target audience, and then take the necessary steps to own it.
After you have a name you need a mission. What is the purpose of your business? How does it exist and operate? Think about the different categories of products and services and outline them for yourself.
3) Strategy
Strategy is not planning. It’s deciding what you want to accomplish and how you intend to accomplish it. It’s not nailing down specific tasks because ultimately tasks will adjust depending on the distance between you and your goals.
Think of strategy as your business objective. For example, I have a blog and obviously, I want it to do well. More specifically I’m working towards eventually having a media production company. That’s the ultimate goal.
And in order to get there, I need this blog to be profitable and have a lot of exposure but it’ll only get there if there’s a lot of traffic.
My strategy is to use Pinterest to get traffic to my page. And how I use Pinterest is consistently changing because I’m testing different things (styles, descriptions, images) to see what works best. This strategy is tied to the goal of receiving 10k views a month to start off. If I can do that then it’s all about scaling what I’ve done to get more people.
When you think of strategy think about your blueprint. You can do this by deciding what success looks like to you and then working your way backward to figure out the steps you need to take.
Also, feel free to take inspiration from the competitive landscape to see what works for others. You may not function exactly like them but you can adopt their practices or tasks for your business.
The most obvious example is influencers. A ton of them now have their own companies and businesses and it started with their use of social media platforms.
4) Process
All the brainstorming in the world wouldn’t help you if you do not take one step. Outside of setting up your company and outlining your goals and paths you need to work on it every day.
Now not every day is the same, there are different activities that need to be done on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly basis.
Think of fortune 500 companies that release an earnings report every quarter. You need to take the time outside of your daily schedule to measure how your business is doing financially, structurally, and strategy-wise or you’ll never be able to expand beyond your original plan. You also won’t be able to adjust to any new competitors or opportunities available.
Think of brick-and-mortar stores that do not have an online presence or that didn’t switch fast enough to e-commerce. There was a lot of financial loss there and some companies even closed down.
You want to have a process for check-ins. Checking in on how you’re doing financially, and structurally and how you’re s strategy is doing while working daily on tasks in order to reach “success”.
Think of the process as two plans. You’ll need one for now and one for later. Both will take place and both are incredibly important to the maintenance and growth of your business.
Also please note that the process means just showing up and following the plans you’ve set for yourself.
5) Execution Points
Okay great! So we have a process that will allow us to check in on our progress. So what do we do with the information we find?
We need to record and document it. This information needs to be organized in a way that allows you to see your inputs vs outputs and how it all aligns with your goals.
For example, most companies have a five-year plan and you should apply this information to a five-year blueprint. Well after year one, you need to see if what you’re producing and bringing in matches what you had outlined. If it doesn’t then you need to course correct.
That’s the beauty of metrics and measurements, it tells you if you’re actually achieving your goals and lets you know where you are not.
Define what this review process looks like and how often you’d like to do it. Think of this as auditing. Unlike setting up your process, your execution points are when you come to the table ready to make a decision. Where you decide if your strategy is working and if you’ll need to look for outside investors in order to keep your business afloat.
A business development plan is all about getting all the pieces of starting and running a business together and making sure they all play their parts. Without a plan, in place, people quickly lose control of their businesses and they lose funds in order to cover the mistakes that are being made. Having a business development plan allows you to operate efficiently and effectively.
This post was all about the 5 Methodical Ways to get your Business Development Plan on Point.
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