Business Plan Purpose
How to Research for Your Business Plan
Written by Brenda Stokes for Gaebler Ventures
Your business plan is the plan for the life of your business and, just like life, it has to be always changing. But how do you conduct research to ensure you have a sound business plan?
A business plan is a planning tool and a tool that helps in making a business succeed.
However, you have to know how to structure a business plan and to research ways in which you can enhance it. You may also use your own individual ideas to make it work well for your business.
Ginger Gillenwater, the owner of CAM Interactive, an Internet marketing company, has her own unique way of building a business plan. She says, "When I first started, I went online and researched what a quality business plan consists of. I found that it consists of goals, income goals, and can be a record of everything you need do. So I created a binder and did exactly that."
Researching a Business Plan
Luckily, many business owners share their business plans on the Internet as a guide for those wishing to start their own business. You can utilize this information for your benefit to plan your business.
There are also resources on the Internet that tell you what you should expect to place in your business plan. By knowing the necessary components, you can expand upon your business plan to make sure it covers everything that needs to be covered in order for your business to be successful. The importance of planning your business cannot be underestimated.
The plan for your business should cover your goals, why you believe they can be reached, and how you are going to meet those goals.
Enhancing your business plan
Your business plan can also be used to plan your business at any point after its inception. Gillenwater says, "I am constantly upgrading my business plan. I keep a binder in which there is a page for each task I want to achieve. I set very small goals. For example, I want to fill an entire page with the names of potential clients I have contacted. If I fill that page, I have reached a goal. Also by filling that page, I have inevitably expanded my client base."
You simply cannot create a business plan and that be it for the entire life of your business. You must be vigilant about what is occurring on the market. In the case of Ginger's business, she has to stay up-to-date on the latest internet marketing trends. If a search engine changes the way in which it indexes a website, she must know this. Any time a change occurs, she must integrate the change in her business plan.
So as you can see, planning a business does not stop the day you put your business plan together. Business planning is an active process throughout the life of the business. The moment you stop planning your business is the moment your business will become stagnant.
Brenda is a graduate of California State University and a professional writer covering a variety of business topics. To learn more about Brenda, check out her website at The Digital Inkwell.
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