While we’re certain some businesses have developed out of pure accident and good fortune (we might imagine someone turning their grandmother’s recipe into a product that takes off by storm), before long, commercial plans have to be made to be profitable.
After all, the business world is competitive. If you don’t have a plan, those looking to take over your market share, your customers and clients will be. It’s worth it to them to put the effort in to take what you have in the spirit of good commercial sportsmanship.
However, just having a plan isn’t good enough. It has to be an effective and tailored plan. You can adjust this of course, but it’s essential to make sure you start with your priorities correctly set, and contingencies applied appropriately.
What might that look like? In this post, we’ll discuss that and more, potentially helping you on the path forward.
Table of Contents
Define What You’re Actually Offering, Then Refine It
It’s fairly common to start with a broad idea, only to find it needs to be narrowed down before it really works. We’ve all had a “wouldn’t it be cool if” idea we think over, but the parameters have to be set before structure comes into play. Don’t worry, everyone goes through this, from chefs thinking up a new dish to a novelist trying to write their outline.
This sounds hard, but in fact, there’s a certain clarity that comes when you sit with the idea long enough to know what it is, and just as importantly, what it isn’t. There’s often this sense that doing more will draw more people in, but it’s rarely the case. Thankfully, the more clearly you can define what’s being offered, the easier it is for someone else to understand it. That understanding helps people trust it.
If we could offer some advice (as this post no doubt feels entitled to), then try to keep it simple and don’t try to pile too much on your plate at once. It’s okay if a landscaping service starts off with perfecting lawn care for the first month, for instance. If the offer sounds confusing or needs too much explanation, it might not be quite there yet. Here’s how you do that:
Map Out The People You’re Serving, Not Just The Product
Some business plans spend so much time shaping the offer that the actual person on the receiving end feels a bit forgotten. It’s not intentional, but it happens, especially when you see a brand new “homegrown” business charging a ridiculous amount for custom products. What you’re offering and who you’re offering it to should really be thought of together.
That’s because there’s value in getting to know the habits, expectations and assumptions that person might carry with them. You’re not trying to guess everything about them or fit them into a box, but it does help to have a loose outline of who’s meant to benefit from this and why they’d even care. After all, there are hundreds of other businesses vying for their attention.
You can use market research, even just gauging your own sales opportunities, as it’s worth shaping the business so it gently answers the right needs, instead of trying to convince people they have a problem they didn’t know about. Put together a “standard” list of three stereotypical clients you may need to appeal to. This isn’t discriminating, it’s just good marketing sense. We all know what a cafe designed to appeal to local trade or construction workers, and one designed to appeal to effective corporate individuals can look like.
Understand Your Costs Before You Try To Grow
It’s very easy to underestimate costs, especially when you’re eager to get something going. It’s not nice to think about everything you have to pay for and so even if we’re rational, there’s a bias against it. It’s obvious you need to spend on packaging, marketing, equipment, and then the quieter costs that aren’t always obvious at first. That will include insurance, subscriptions, platform fees, professional services an more. Don’t forget daily operational costs like fuel, delivery times (time is money) or printing can start to add up.
This isn’t to frustrate you, but having a broad outline of how to portion your budget from the funding or loan you have is key. After all, growth might be the goal, but it’s also something that needs to be sustained.
If you’re adding more clients or scaling production, those extra steps have to be supported by real resources, and so knowing how much your baseline operation costs, and how that cost changes with each new client or project, gives you a more grounded view of what’s possible right now. It also helps protect against overcommitting, which is often where smaller businesses can stumble in their quest to impress and be all things to all people.
Build Systems So The Wheels Keep Turning On Quiet Days
You do need to be present for your business (obviously), but does that mean you need to be in the office twenty-four hours a day constantly approving every granular bit of detail? Not necessarily, as implementing even minor processes can be important. That’s not in the corporate buzzword sense, but in the routines and tools that help things keep ticking without constant supervision. These don’t need to be complex to be useful.
For instance, scheduling software, automatic invoice reminders, or tools that keep projects organized will massively help create a sense of easy documentation and systemization in the background. For trades-based businesses, platforms like HVAC software offer a way to manage things behind the scenes, which can be a huge help when juggling customer calls, technician routes, and parts ordering. These systems don’t take the work away and do everything for you (even if some apps with AI does promise more than it can handle), but they do let the business keep moving even when things get busy or uncertain and give you a baseline structure to work from.
Decide What You Can Manage, Then Decide What You Won’t
The best thing any business owner can tell themselves is that they’re not an expert on everything. You don’t think that of course, because you’re here trying to learn. But some people do. And they learn the truth the hard way.
It’s hard to blame them initially, as there’s often this sense that a business owner needs to be good at everything such as branding, spreadsheets, marketing, legal admin, and more. But no one can stay sharp across all those fronts without something slipping. As such, a big part of planning well is understanding where your strengths actually lie, and where it makes more sense to let someone else handle things.
Planning where you may outsource, consult, or partner with others is necessary, then. For instance, it’s one thing to read into the regulations surrounding your product development (and that’s wise), but having an industry expert come and review your application can help you avoid timewasting in the long run.
Keep An Eye On Competitors Without Obsessing Over Them
Most businesses don’t exist in total isolation (no firm is an island?), so at some point, it’s useful to know who else is out there. That doesn’t mean checking their website every week or adjusting your plan every time they make a move, because just like in real life, you have to trust yourself and not worry what everyone else is doing to define who you are. But it is helpful to get a general sense of what others in your space are doing, perhaps just with how they’re pricing things, how they’re positioning themselves, and how their clients respond to alterations. For instance, many firms are implementing AI features. Do their customers want that? Maybe, maybe not.
From that, you might spot gaps they’re not covering, or you might confirm that your idea really does have a place of its own. Either way, it’s not about copying what they do, but just keeping the antenna up is a wise approach.
Test A Small Version Before Going All-In
When you know you want to start a business, sitting back and spinning your wheels and preparing for a year can feel annoying. The temptation to go big out of the gate like a racehorse can be strong because start as you mean to go on, right? This is especially true when you’re excited about the idea.
But there’s usually a lot to learn in running a smaller version first, such as a weekend pop-up, or a limited batch of products, as all of these give you a chance to watch how things play out without committing all your resources upfront. Even if you’re just gauging real interest compared to online votes of confidence it can be revealing.
Some people might think this is a waste of time or that there’s not a huge amount of profit to be made by that. It’s not exactly true. After all, would you recommend that a film student tries their hand at a short, low-budget film before trying to score larger projects? We’d suggest that yes, that’s appropriate.
With this advice, we hope you can more easily plan a business with care, using the brass tacks and principles to get you started.
