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Business owners need to subside about four hours to write their business plan and then spend time throughout the year updating it in order to have a comprehensive plan that will help them achieve their goals. Knowing what information to include in their business plan is important says virtual accountant. Business owners should include a market and risk analysis, as this is a section thatís often missed by several business owners. The reason is often because business owners intuitively know what risks are involved in their business, so they donít include them. Also business owners are afraid of making their business look unattractive to banks if theyíre trying to secure financing. However, banks do know that there are risks associated with all businesses, so not including them wonít make a business look more attractive. In fact says virtual accountant including a risk analysis that includes a plan on how to mitigate those risks can live very attractive to a bank because the business owner will have outlined how they plan on minimizing those risks in their business and that can be attractive to banker.
When a business owner is creating their sales and marketing plan, they need to include very specific information. Often business owners know what they are going to do marketing wise, but they donít have the specifics planned out to. For example they know theyíre going to go to networking events, and they know they are going to send out flyers, but a sales and marketing plan should have the mail out very specific things such as how many flyers are they going to deliver, how often are they going to deliver them, how many times a year are they going to deliver them, what their budget is, whatís the method of delivery is going to be, what is going to be on the flyer. Also be able to include in their business plan the exact dates that theyíre going to be doing those marketing initiatives by including in a calendar. By specifying very specifically and exactly their sales and marketing plan, the business owner will be that much more likely to follow a specific plan especially if thereís dates attached.
Business owners also need to include in their operations strategy milestones. The reason for that says virtual accountant is that milestones drive projections, and without assigning dates to the milestones, they will be unable to get accurate projections. For example when are they going to achieve their goals such as having a storefront, watching a website to.
Businesses who complete business plans are 50% more likely to go directly business business owners who do not have a plan at all. That is a very compelling statistic that can encourage all business owners to create a business plan. Itís a huge increase the likelihood of success just by creating a business plan.
Business owners should understand the component parts that are important to put into a business plan, so that they can create a plan that will be easy for them to follow says virtual accountant. One important and unique aspect of the business plan that virtually accountant recommends, is that there is a calendar component. By time blocking all of the important milestones and plans and strategies that the business owner has directly into the business plan, this can help a business owner not only get accurate projections, but also will give them specific timelines on been to complete the tasks. This will help a business owner not only have the targets to achieve, but pipe dates to have them. This very specific aspect of the business plan can help business owners follow through on the important tasks they need to complete in order to see success.
Business owners need to include in their business plan cash flow projections. Virtually accountant says most business plans have business owners include cash projections, but the recommendation is that business owners create monthly cash flow projections because cash flow is so vital to a small business and so scarce in the beginning, that if the care is taken to be so meticulous, a business owner risks running out of cash. A lot can change through the year, and a year plan may have the business owner running out of cash halfway through that year and not even know what because they only did the calculations once at the beginning of the year. Itís very important for businesses to do a month-to-month projection in order to avoid that from happening. In addition to having monthly cash projections, virtually accountant recommends that businesses also include monthly income statements, and monthly balance sheets. The reason for this is all three will mesh together and get business owners a clear picture of whatís going on in their business cash wise.
Virtual accountant also recommends that a business owner only projects cash flow for 2 to 3 years, with your one being the correct year. Projecting more than that is too hard for business owner to ensure accuracy. Thereís too many variables that happen especially a small business that a five-year projection is just a speculation. By keeping cash projections to 2 to 3 years, business owners get a clear picture of whatís going on in the business now. Business owners can always revisit cash will projections later in their business such as the following year in order to understand the future of the next year.
