"According to Dun & Bradstreet, the largest single cause of business failure in Canada is poor management."
- Starting a Small Business in Ontario

In the early part of 1999, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to participate in the Self Employment Assistance (SEA) program, offered by The Oakville Enterprise Centre, for people wishing to start their own businesses. As I reflect on my first year of self-employment, I would like to share with you some of the valuable lessons I learned.

Many of you aided in my market research, by taking the time to answer a “communications questionnaire.” I thought you might be interested in the results, so I have incorporated a summary of your responses in the accompanying sidebar.

I am now all-too familiar with the process of creating a business plan. While I do not profess to be an expert, nor do I wish to advise the veterans among us, I want to help others as they have helped me. Completing a business plan is a worthwhile exercise for any size or stage of business. As we embark on a new year, we should invest some time thinking about our strategies and objectives. What do you wish to accomplish this year and beyond? If you have written goals, you are more likely to achieve them.

Writing a business plan entails finding answers to the following questions. The checklist I provide here is not exhaustive; however, it’s a good start for service businesses. I invite you to spend just 30 minutes considering these ideas. I guarantee it will help you focus on what’s important to your business—and to the rest of your life too. Ideally, we should re-visit and update our business plans quarterly, making adjustments as necessary. Please let me know how it goes. Enjoy!

MISSION STATEMENT AND GOALS

• What you are offering to potential customers & how
• Statement of principles/code of ethics
• Personal and business goals—may be intertwined or separate—the important thing is WRITE THEM DOWN and make sure they are “SMARTER”. Goal setting is an imperative exercise on its own. I recommend reading (and printing out) the definition of SMARTER goals—visit Norma Gamble’s web site: www.normagamble.com.

CURRENT POSITION

• Description of your business
• What you bring to the business: experience, accomplishments, education, attitude, etc.
• Strategic advantage of your business—how is it different, what is your niche?
• What problems do you solve for clients?
• Future outlook—SWOT analysis—strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats—includes identifying and studying the competition
• What are your contingency plans?

MARKETING STRATEGY

• Referring to your goals and SWOT analysis, create marketing goals & milestones—plan how you will achieve these
• Questions to think about: a.k.a. market research—your unique positioning, advantages you have over competition, business image, how do you know customers will pay for this service? What are your colleagues’, competition’s rates?
• Who will be your major customers, secondary customers? How will they benefit?
• Industry growth factors or trends—where can you go to gather this information?
• Price strategy—how will you bid for work? Has it been working? How would you adjust your price if the market changed?
• Marketing strategy: PR, advertising, cold calling, networking etc.—what have you tried? What’s worked? What’s not? How much marketing time will you set aside per week?