Edmonton Business Consultant | Grow Your Business with a Business Plan

There are three pain points entrepreneurs face in business says Edmonton business consultant, and these are the reasons why businesses fail. By not having a business plan in place, businesses are less likely to be able to deal with these three pain points effectively. Studies show that businesses that do have a completed business plan are 50% more likely to grow their businesses and businesses without a plan at all. These two reasons should be enough to convince any business owner to spend a few hours of time necessary to create an effective plan.

The first pain point businesses face is the inability to bring a new revenue. 42% of all businesses that fail say they could not attract new customers. This can be easily addressed with a business plan. Coming up with a sales and marketing strategy will help eliminate this problem. Figuring out who your key clients are, and how they find you is the first step to learning how to effectively market to them. Another key to your sales and marketing strategy is how to keep your customers. Once you have effectively brought into your business and turning them into repeat customers, and happy clients is something that can be easily figured out in your business plan.

The second pain point businesses face is a cash flow problem says Edmonton business consultant. By creating a great business plan, you will be able to communicate your plan and articulate your vision to your accountant who can then come up with cash flow projections for your business that will help you see where your business has been, where it’s headed in the future and free up cash when you need it to grow your business. Not being able to access the cash when they need it to scale up their business as a reason businesses don’t grow says Edmonton business consultant. 29% of all business owners who failed say that they ran out of cash. You can avoid this problem in your business plan.

The third pain point that businesses face is the inability to find the right team. 23% of all business owners who failed say they were unable to hire the staff they needed, or keep the staff they had. Edmonton business consultant recommends addressing this in your business plan ahead of time. Businesses without a plan tend to hire very reactionary – they only hire when the need arises, because they’ve either grown or an employee has left. Implementing strategies such a constantly interviewing, and training your staff are easy when you’ve planned ahead of time.

Creating this plan does not need to take you a lot of time, rather than spend 40 hours in your first year, spend four hours of thoughtful reflection on your business recommends Edmonton business consultant. Review your plan often through the year, and do this exercise at the beginning of your fiscal year. Updating your business plan is important as your business grows and changes. You also become an expert in your business and the hours you spend in future years on your business plan are far more valuable than the four hours you spend in your one.

Edmonton business consultant | grow your business with a business plan

Businesses without a business plan are setting themselves up for failure says Edmonton business consultant. The reason for this is businesses who complete business plans are 50% more likely to grow their business and entrepreneurs without a business plan. There are three main reasons why entrepreneurs say their businesses have failed. By addressing each of these three pain points, you will be prepared to face the unknowns in business.

23% of entrepreneurs who failed in business said they could not find the right team. Your business plan should have an HR strategy on how to hire and keep great staff. Without a plan in place business owners are more likely to hire only when they need, stop looking and don’t have a plan in place on how to train staff. Ensure you take some time to think about the kind of company culture you would like to have in your business, and how you would like to see that reflected in your team.

29% of business owners who failed, say they ran out of cash. As your business grows, you need positive cash flow in order to scale up your business. Accountant will be able to help you take your business vision and create cash flow projections for you to use in your business plan. They will be able to recommend if you need a conservative cash flow projection, or a more optimistic view, depending on your needs. Edmonton business consultant recommends conservative cash flow projections in order to take into consideration all of the variables that may come up in your business that are impossible to outline in a business plan. Examples of these are losing key customers, losing key employees, regulatory issues, business owners themselves who get sick just to name a few. Impossible to predict all potential future events, so conservative cash flow projection will help you weather several variables.

42% of all business owners who failed attributed that to the inability to attract new revenue. Your business plan should include a great sales and marketing strategy. Identifying your target market and how to reach it is key. Once you know how to reach your customers, come up with a plan for how to keep those customers. Customer attention is an important part of that strategy.

But these three pain points thought about and outlined in your business plan will be much more prepared to face any business problem head-on. Edmonton business consultant recommends doing this exercise at the beginning of every year, so that you can figure out what went well, what went wrong, update your goals and continue moving forward. Spend about four hours each year, and review your plan throughout the year in order to get the most out of your business plan.