Small Business Online

Your business plan will need to include most or all of the following sections.

Introduction Product or service details Personnel Market research and marketing plan Premises, equipment and transport Suppliers and sub-contractors Legal aspects Financial information Risk assessment Financial requirements Appendices.

Let’s look at each of these in a little more detail.

Introduction

This is where you explain the nature of the business and its proposed structure (e.g. sole trader, partnership, limited company). It should be no longer than one or two paragraphs. If the plan has been written for a specific purpose - e.g. to support an application for a loan - this should also be mentioned here.

Product or Service Details

In this section you describe in some detail the product or service you will be providing. If it is a product, you should show clearly how it will be made, explaining all the stages involved. If instead you are providing a service, you need to explain precisely what this is and what type of customers you expect to require it.

Personnel

In this section you include information about the person or people who are behind the business and will be managing it. If you intend to be a sole trader, this will of course be yourself. In partnerships and limited companies, it will also include your partners or fellow directors.

You should describe briefly your past work experience, especially where this is obviously relevant to the new business. Include any educational or occupational qualifications, and any previous experience of running a business. You should also mention here any business-related training you are undertaking. If you are receiving active advice and support from a business development agency (for example), state this here also. Your overall aim is to demonstrate to a potential lender or backer that you, as the person behind the business, are well prepared for self-employment, and have the experience and training to make it a success.

Finally, in this section you should mention whether you intend to employ any staff. You should indicate how many you will need, what skills they will require, how much you expect to have to pay them, whether they will be full- or part-time, and what training they will need.

Market Research and Marketing Plan

This is a very important section which will normally take up at least a page of text, and in many cases more. Its purpose is to convince the reader that there will be enough demand for your product or service to make the business viable within the market in which you intend to operate.

This section should therefore summarise your market research, and in particular answer the following questions:

Who will be your customers, and what will be their requirements? How large will your potential market be? Who will be your competitors - their names, addresses and details? What are the main strengths of these competitors? What will be your advantages over them - or, to put this another way, why will people buy from you rather than them?

All your answers should be backed up with facts and figures from your market research. When you are describing die market size, for instance, you should explain clearly how you have arrived at this figure. Statements such as ‘There is considerable demand for…’ or ‘Many people require…’ are worthless without some market research data to back them up.

Also in this section you should describe your marketing plan. This concerns how you will advertise, promote and sell your product or service. It should answer the following questions:

How and where will you advertise your product or service? What other forms of promotion will you use (e.g. direct mail, exhibitions, telephone selling)? How will your product or service be sold (e.g. wholesale, retail or through agents)? What features and benefits will you emphasise when trying to attract customers?

Premises, Equipment and Transport

This section will state the premises to be used. If you will be working from an office in your home, or perhaps a converted garage or shed, this should be mentioned as well. Remember, the aim is to convince backers that working from home is a sensible option for your business and you have all the facilities and space required.

Similarly with equipment and transport, you should explain what you need, how it will be obtained - e.g. by leasing, hire purchase or outright payment - and whether it will be new or second-hand.

Suppliers and Sub-contractors

Many businesses rely on other businesses to supply them with raw materials, components or services. Any problems in obtaining these can result in disaster for the business, especially if it is a new one. In this section you should therefore explain who your main suppliers and subcontractors will be and why you have chosen them, stating alternatives where possible. You should also comment on any discussions you have already had with suppliers, agreements reached, credit facilities negotiated, and so on.

business card secrets :: Nov.23.2008 :: Business :: No Comments »

Business plans can be set out in many different ways, though the information contained is much the same. Some general guidelines are given overleaf.

Your plan must be neatly and professionally presented. It should be typed (never handwritten) and enclosed in a cover or binder which includes the name of the business and the name and address of the person (or persons) behind it. If an accountant has been closely involved in preparing the plan, his or her name and address should be given also.

The plan should be written in the third person - that is, ‘the proprietor’ or ‘Mr/Ms Rogers’. You should avoid referring to yourself in a business plan as ‘I’ or ‘me’. This is simply about appearing business-like.

The plan should be as concise (i.e. brief) as possible, whilst including all the necessary information that a financial backer or other interested party would want to see.

The text should avoid too many salesman’s phrases such as ‘this wonderful product’ or ‘this incredible opportunity’. The tone needs to be confident but objective. Rather than make wild claims and sweeping generalisations, in a business plan, as far as possible, you should stick to facts you can prove.

The plan should clearly demonstrate the viability of the proposed business. Remember that potential backers will be looking for evidence of two things in particular: market research, and financial planning and control.

business card secrets :: Nov.21.2008 :: Business :: No Comments »

Clickbank is one of the easiest ways to get started promoting products as an affiliate. Unlike other affiliate networks, you don’t have to have a website in order to be approved as an affiliate. In fact, you don’t have to do much of anything to sign up aside from have an email address. You can use clickbank.com as a means to generate easy links that you can use in any number of different internet promotion strategies.

Affiliate networks are another source of finding products to promote. These types of sites coordinate the relationship between the advertisers and the publishers. This may be a great way to get additional products and services to sell, but should be used after you’ve already gotten your feet wet elsewhere. Some more popular affiliate networks are Commission Junction, Link Share, and Share a Sale.

Another popular type of affiliate marketing is called CPA which stands for Cost Per Acquisition. This is a scenario in which the company whose products or services you’re promoting is going to pay you for a lead. So, when a visitor to your site completes some action, you get paid. This may be as simple as someone putting in an email address all the way through someone completing a survey or multi-page application.

You can promote affiliate programs through classified ad websites. Some easy ones to use for affiliate programs are backpage.com, usfreeads.com, adoos.ca, and check out as many local classified ad sites sponsored by either local newspapers, tv or radio. The benefit to these types of sites are that they have built-in promotion. The radio, tv and newspaper will typically promote through advertising their own classified sites which means they will get traffic. Craigslist is also a good option but must be used with care simply because Craiglist will “ghost” your ads which basically means they won’t make it to the category listings on Cragislist which will severely limit their visibility.

Article marketing is one of the best ways to promote affiliate products. Depending on which article directories you use, the idea is to write the article on a topic that is related to the product you’ll be trying to promote and submit that article to article directories. The idea is to submit unique articles so that the search engines rank those articles which gets traffic to the articles and clicks to the links in your “resource box” or “author profile”. I’ve found from personal experience that the click through rate for people who click on the links in your resource box is anywhere from 5 to 15% depending on the article and the specific call to action in the resource box.

Social networking is becoming more and more popular and can be leveraged to help you promote your affiliate program. Some sites, such as squidoo.com and hubpages.com allow you to create a page talking about and promoting whatever you want to promote. Other social networking sites can be leveraged significantly for getting your main website into the search engines as well.

Another way to promote affiliate products is through blogging. Some people use the blog to specifically sell their products, other people will use a blog as a means to get traffic usually for some controversial topics or instructional topics then promote products as advertisements on their sites. Blogging can be a great strategy to help you get traffic to your affiliate promotions.

A more “traditional” or “old school” website can work as well. I wouldn’t recommend this method for most people as the automation and upkeep is typically not very easy and your ability to leverage other people’s work is diminished significantly. If you want to run your own website, I’d still recommend that you consider a blog platform, such as wordpress that will help you manage your content, but not have to rely on knowing any html and the look and the feel of the site is very customizable.

Once you have a site or decide to start promoting products, you should consider pay per click. This is one of the most solid and guaranteed ways to get traffic to your site. The only down side to this is that it costs money for each visitor. This is where the tracking of what keywords you’re bidding on and which keywords or which ads are producing results really pays off. If you track which ads are converting, you’ll be able to do more of the same and you can also eliminate advertising expenses for ads that aren’t converting. Consider tracking a foundation for success when it comes to pay per click.

This article is meant to simply introduce you to some of the ways to promote affiliate products and services. If you’re serious about pursuing any of these methods, use the internet to find great content. Spend some time on some affiliate marketing forums and ask around what other people are doing and how they’re successful. Remember, though, nothing can replace actually getting out there and trying these things for yourself. There’s only so much you’ll be able to do without trying this first hand. Good luck with your efforts.

Brian Armstrong :: Nov.11.2008 :: Business :: No Comments »

If you are like most people who are scouring the internet for ways to make money from home, you’ve probably come across a lot of advertisements who promise to deliver you riches overnight but ask for an initial small investment only to bring you to another page which asks for more money…and you can’t afford that. What if I told you there was a money making opportunity available to you right now that you can work from your home starting with no money? I bet you’d think there was a catch, but there’s not.

We all have different reasons for wanting to go into business for ourselves and most of us have come to the realization that the easiest way to get started on our paths to earning money from home is by turning to the internet! But with all the different money making opportunities promoted online, how can we tell which ones are the legitimate ones and which ones are put in place just to take our money? There is an easy answer to that.

Go with the money making package that isn’t asking for any of your money…period. Where can you find one of those, you ask? You just did, so keep reading!

Whether you are looking to quit your full time job and are looking for a home based business opportunity or just searching for a way to earn some quick cash in your spare time, lucky for you you’ve come across a system that can do both! You can work it as a full time business from your home or a part time venture on the weekends, the choice is yours! Either way you’ll have no boss, no deadlines and you get paid when you want to, not on someone else’s schedule!

By becoming a part of this fabulous new program you are participating in one of the easiest ways to make fast cash! The only way to prove that to you is to watch your pile of bills dwindle down to nothing with each passing day that you work this business from your home! Not only will you enjoy the financial freedom you only yesterday dreamed about but you’ll have something even more important than money, and that is time with your family, not to mention time for yourself!

I don’t know of any other offer to help you learn how to make money from home that is free, even more than that, I have no idea what you’re waiting for! Start today, you owe it to your family, and yourself!

George Mercer :: Nov.10.2008 :: Business :: No Comments »

Once you have examined the financial issues related to operating a business from your home, there are some practical issues you will need to consider as well.

The neighbours

Your neighbours might not be as enthused as you are about your new enterprise, especially if it results in increased traffic volumes on what would otherwise be a quiet residential street. If you run a business where you work from home but see your clients at their homes or places of business, you will not have to deal with this issue.

If, on the other hand, you plan to have your clients come to your home-office to pick up and drop off their bookkeeping (and assuming your neighbourhood is suitably zoned), it makes sense to discuss your plans with your neighbours first. You are not asking their permission; you are simply informing them as a courtesy and encouraging them to bring any concerns to your attention immediately instead of going to the municipality to complain. Who knows, your neighbours might end up being some of your best clients!

The on-call syndrome

Even if you set parameters on your availability, there is a probability that your clients will not always honour those limits. If you are the type of person who wants to create a distinct separation between your home life and your working life, you may not want to have a home-office. If you do choose to have clients come to your home, here are some tips to make having a home-office easier on you and our family:

Have a separate entrance for your home-office. That way, if you do have unexpected clients, you do not have to traipse them through the kids’ playroom and the kitchen stacked high with dirty dishes.

Communicate your meeting and telephone policies with all of your clients. Make sure they understand what is acceptable and not acceptable. Put a sign on the office entrance door with your hours of operation and information on making appointments.

Be firm but professional with clients who show up unexpectedly. Explain to them (once again) that they will need to make an appointment so that you can be more prepared for their visit.

Rave a telephone and fax line for the business separate from your home line. Turn off the ringer on the office telephone when it’s outside of office hours. Record a telephone message reiterating your office hours and that you will be pleased to return the call during those hours.

Don’t feel bad about setting limits. It will make you look more professional. There are exceedingly few true bookkeeping emergencies that require immediate assistance.

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