This is the first article in a series relating to your Business Plan. For most new entrepreneurs, creating a comprehensive business plan is one of the most important things that they can do to help their new company get off of the ground. Before gaining a proven track record for your venture, the business plan is a way to show potential investors, suppliers and customers that your new organization has been well-researched and planned out.
While good business planning is crucial to any startup, many owners fail to see the importance of updating their plan, as needed, to fit their evolving presence in the marketplace. As your company grows, reviewing your business plan gives you the opportunity to take the practical experience that you’ve gained and improving the focus and direction of your business with it. Don’t fall into the trap that many entrepreneurs do by letting your organization’s goals grow stale.
Updating Your Financial Plan
Without a solid financial plan, not only would your company fail to last in today’s competitive marketplace, but it would also prove difficult to attract investors and others who could potentially have a stake in your business’ success. Once you’ve gotten the wheels of your company turning, it’s integral to oil and fine-tune your financial plan. A couple of big reasons to update your financial plan are:
After turning your brilliant idea into a functioning business you have a more accurate insight on the costs and revenues that you can expect to see in the real world.
Many times owners or investors make additional monetary contributions to a company. Be sure to update your financial plan to reflect this and make changes to ensure a sufficient rate of return is achieved.
Optimizing Your Business’ Organizational Structure
Re-evaluating your business’ organization structure gives you the opportunity to make the needed changes to ensure it is operating as efficiently as possible. This is another area in which it is easy for business owners to visualize when initially venturing through the business planning process, but that theoretical structure may prove to be less than optimal once the company gets off the ground. When updating your organizational structure, pay attention to:
Who should be involved in various decision making processes in your company and how should their feedback make its way to you?
Have you found any positions to fill or processes which need completing that you did not initially plan on?
Did you over-estimate the importance that any positions or processes have in the success of your company?
Building an Effective Team
Often times as a business owner, gathering a team which sees and shares in your goals and direction for the company can be a challenging task. After getting a company off of the ground, entrepreneurs are able to take an objective look at the performance of their team and make changes, as seen fit, to ensure the direction of their company is staying on track with what they envision. When revisiting and updating your business plan, take the time to convey your new goals with your employees. Team members who are not effective in reaching your goals are not only hurting your company’s growth, but are likely less happy with their job than employees who share your vision.
No matter how many hours planning go into a new business, it’s hard to match the insight that operational experience brings. Your business plan may have been sufficient when starting your company up, but make sure that you don’t let it grow old. As your business changes and evolves, so should your business plan and future goals.