Planning and the Entrepreneur

So, what do we mean by 'planning' in the business sense. Well we can define four separate aspects of the business planning process.

The business plan itself, a process, usually formalised, considering all aspects of your proposed business and designed to:

• Clarify your own objectives;
• Impress would-be investors or funders
• Focus the minds of the principals as an on-going process.
• The marketing plan, establishing that a market exists for your products, that it is accessible and deep enough to keep your business afloat.
• A budget and cash flow forecast showing that the business can be profitable, and predicting the depth and duration of the inevitable cash-flow hole as your business rises off the launch pad
• A project plan showing
• The sequence and duration of the activities associated with your start up
• Predicting the dates at which the various milestones in the start-up process will be achieved
• Identifying the 'critical path' activities where your activity and resources need to be focussed.

You note that we talk of the business planning process rather than the business plan as a document.

It is inevitably better to have a document to refer to, and your bankers and backers will want to see documents, but it is the process that is important to you.

Though we talk of the four plans as if they are separate things, they are in fact inter-dependant. Your marketing plan could almost be considered as a chapter in your business plan and your project plan will be key to your cash flow projections.

Think of them as four stones cast in a square pattern into a still pond. As the waves radiate out from the spots where the stones hit, the water will only be disturbed by the ripples from the nearest. At this point each plan is separate and distinct, but soon as the ripples spread, the water will be disturbed by two, then three, then eventually four sets of ripples merge.

As you start your plans you will soon find that each needs input from one, then two and eventually all of the others.

Here lies both the strength and the danger of the process.

The interaction between the plans means that each plan is improved by the existence of the others, whilst the temptation to constantly revisit each plan can lead to paralysis.

There is a truism about medical record keeping, it can often tell us why the patient died rather than how to keep the patient alive.

So how much time should an entrepreneur invest in the planning process?

Perhaps you are asking the wrong question. Why not try:

• Did my last reworking result in significant changes to my start-up project?
• Did it expose important issues I had not considered before
• Will another reworking result in a significantly different plan?

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7193274

Bigger Fund Managers Are Not Necessarily Better

When it comes to selecting top-performing investment funds and unit trusts the bigger brand is not necessarily better. Choosing the wrong fund by investing with big brand fund managers could cost investors dearly.

Many investors are deluded into thinking that buying from a big brand fund manager will in some way protect them against selecting a poorly performing fund. The big brand managers offer many great funds, but they're also marketing plenty of duds. Just because one fund is a top performer, doesn't mean it applies across that fund manager's range. Investors need to look beyond the brand and more closely at the underlying fund.

Over recent years, the UK market has seen a rise in popularity for boutique investment houses, and, given their track record of consistent positive performance, it's hardly surprising. There are many ways to classify a boutique, but generally speaking, boutique fund managers are independently-owned or employee-owned, and relatively small in size. They often invest in specialist areas of expertise, rather than attempt to be all things to all men and run funds across each and every sector.

Recently, boutiques have even been stepping on large firms' toes when it comes to servicing retail clients. Last year boutiques outshone their larger counterparts in the UK, taking the top four places in the 'best overall fund manager rankings'. Big brands such as UBS and Standard Life slipped down the rankings, while boutiques Rathbone, Neptune, Dalton and Artemis took the top spots.

The last quarter of 2006 was hair-raising for investors, as millions were wiped off share prices and markets. However, the boutique fund management houses continued to outperform their larger rivals.

The disappointing reality for most private investors is that neither they, nor in some cases their financial advisers, would have heard of some of these relatively unknown smaller investment houses, and are therefore missing out on great business opportunities.

The same caution applied to big brands should also be applied to big names - or the so called 'star fund managers'. Is it wise to stake your money on the reputation of an individual big-name fund manager when there's no guarantee they will stick around?

Research shows that just 15% of managers have run the same fund for over six years, 43% for four to six years, and 39% for two to four years. Similarly, 80% of fund managers at the top 50 UK fund providers have left their funds in the last three years. Around 60% of managers move because of offers from competitors.

In investment terms, familiarity doesn't always necessarily breed content. Investors should monitor their investments very closely and ensure that they have the tools to hand to spot strong investment opportunities that would otherwise pass them by.

What's Your Social Media Marketing Plan?

If you are a marketer you'll already be familiar with a marketing strategy and plan. Social Media Marketing is no different - to succeed you must have a strategy.

Whether you want to use Social Media Marketing to launch a new product, promote an existing one, improve customer loyalty or improve brand awareness, a social media strategy is crucial for knowing where you are going, what you want to achieve from your Social Media Marketing efforts and what resources you will need. As with most things in business, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

So what should your Social Media strategy contain?

I recommend that you include details of these 9 important areas and add as many more as you need for your particular business. Use this article as a checklist and brainstorming tool.

1. Your target audience - who are they and how do they prefer to network? What Social Media tools do they currently use?

2. Your goals - what are they and how do you plan to achieve them? Do you want to attract more prospects? Improve customer loyalty? Attract a new audience? Get buzz for your project? You must know the answers to these questions.

3. Your success measures - how will you know you've succeeded? Will it be through product downloads or trials? The number of people clicking through to your site? Or the number of qualified leads you gain?

4. Your competitors - Do they have a large Social Media presence or none at all? What type of campaigns are they doing? If they are doing nothing, you could grab the advantage. Google your competitors and see what you find.

5. Your Social Media content - are you planning to use video, audio, or written content? See what your audience likes and use what they like to use.

6. What's "your soft offer?" - How will you convert your prospects into sales or customers? What's your lead capture/nurturing plan? It could be a free whitepaper or a case study or a report. Whatever it is, outline it in your plan

7. Your Social Media Tools - Will you use YouTube, a blog, Twitter, Facebook? Community forums? Not every tool will work for you, some will work better than others. Often the only way to find out is to try them and see. Having a strategy makes it easier because you can make a decision as to what to try and why. You can track the results of each tool you try.

8. Your resources - Most Social Media tools cost little or nothing to set up and run. However, there is a considerable investment of time required for any Social Media effort to have long term success. For example, who will keep your blog updated? How will you address comments so that the blog is truly interactive and conversational? How many people do you need to allocate? What's your plan for tracking - and acting on what your stats tell you?

Most people don't consider these questions until after they've started. If you can answer these questions early on you will be prepared and more likely to avoid frustration and failure. You should also carefully consider the time you can afford to invest compared to what's actually needed.

9. Last, but certainly not least, how will you encourage word of mouth marketing and the viral nature of Social Media? How do you plan to get people talking about you without "you talking about you?" This is a significant advantage of using Social Media, however it doesn't simply happen.

The sheer volume of social media tools and opportunity can be overwhelming. A Social Media strategy will help you cut through the noise, make better choices and select what works for your audience, your company and your objectives. It will position you to meet many of the seemingly huge hurdles to getting started and will almost certainly make you more successful in your Social Media efforts.

Think of it as your road map to success.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/1581231

Three Personal Reasons to Shop Locally This Weekend

Shoppers will crowd the super centers and malls this weekend following Thanksgiving. Friday and Saturday are really busy shopping days in the U.S. In fact, over the next several weeks, retail stores will do 50% or more of their business for the year.

So where will you go? And who will you do business with?

If you truly want to create a Work Positive impact with your holiday spending, here are three reasons to shop locally this Saturday, November 26, which is Small Business Saturday.

Personal Service

You receive personal service from the relationships you form with these retailers who really want to help you find that just-right gift for your special someone.

I can remember shopping as a kid with my parents. We went to see Mr. Alford at Clarks Department Store when I outgrew my dress clothes. He was a friend of ours and the store was locally owned. Mr. Alford always seemed to know what I looked best in.

We also bought our gas and had our cars serviced by J.B. Webb at the Esso station. J.B. was our neighbor, took excellent care of our vehicles, and let us keep an account with him which my Dad paid off every month. J.B. trusted us, and we trusted him to service our vehicles and make repairs.

In today's world where so much of everything is virtual, visit a local, small business retailer this weekend and enjoy the real-time, personal service.

Personal Support

Have you ever thought about where your money goes once your purchase is completed?

When you shop with a locally-owned, small business retailer, $68 of every $100 you spend returns to your local community. The obvious ways it returns are sales, payroll, and property taxes. Those taxes pay teacher salaries who educate our children, municipal utility crews who go out in ice storms and restore our electricity, water treatment plant operators who keep our drinking water safe, and many other government-supported services.

And what about the sales clerk who receives her paycheck and gives a donation to the local Salvation Army's Angel Tree? Or, buys her groceries from the local, fresh produce market? Or, buys gas for her vehicle from the locally-owned service center?

Those local dollars turn over many, many times, don't they?

Yes, we live in a global village. Spending your holiday gift money at a locally-owned, small business retailer profits your village.

Personal Satisfaction

Discover locally produced or themed products that carry with them an emotional attachment for the recipient. Such a unique gift carries with it a personal satisfaction that displays more intimacy and care than an "Oh yea" gift from a big boxer.

For instance, my brother purchased two historic postcards depicting scenes from the town I grew up in, framed them, and gave them to me for a holiday gift. His forethought, consideration, and knowledge of how much I miss that little town made that gift one I treasure to this day. My personal satisfaction from that gift is huge.

Find a local artist who paints regional scenes. Buy a painting and send it to a family member or friend who moved away.

Look around for other unique, locally-produced or themed gifts. They mean so much more than just another mass-made product.

So where will you shop this weekend?

With a local small business retailer, I hope.

Since you'll be out shopping anyway, go by your local small business stores and discover personal service, offer some personal support, and give some personal satisfaction.

Factors In Forming Corporate Image

Consumers assess the company is not only based on functional quality alone, but also based on psychological attributes are reflected by the company. Nguyen and Leblanc explained that there are two basic components of the company's image, namely the functional and emotional, in which functional components associated with attributes that can be easily measured, whereas the emotional component associated with psychological dimension, namely the feelings and attitudes of consumers towards the company, which is based on consumer experience when interacting with companies and attribute information that describes the company's image. In other words, the image is formed based on the experiences of consumers to the company product or service, which later can be taken into consideration for a decision.

Good experience from the consumer for the use of products will produce a good perception of the company's image, and at the moment will form what is called a corporate image. Normann in Kandampully stated that the factors forming the image of the company are:

Advertising,

Public relations,

Physical image,

Word of mouth,

Actual experiences of consumers in the use of goods or services.

Among these, which is considered the most important is the actual experience of consumers in the use of goods or services. Corporate image would make business reach more value.

Buy The Value, Not The Pack

Products to be expensive because of added to the cost of packaging, advertising, and distribution. Motto is a product that erodes all that burden. The result?

Three or four years ago, PT Songo Geni Maju (SGM) may not be a catchy name to know more. But, now, people became interested and find out how to partner with this company. In fact, its competitors, if not careful, they can be swayed by the doings of this detergent manufacturer.

Why? Because SGM does not market their products like other brands. In fact, these companies do not actually do any of the brand building.

SGM is not only producing detergents, but also dish soap, floor cleaner, and more. All products output SGM given only one brand, that motto. The name is easy to remember anyone. And acceptable in almost any language.

How to market it ? Uniquely, SGM does not market its products in a conventional manner as other detergent manufacturers in general. He sold the "bulk system" aka kilogram. Not just the detergent, all liquid cleaning products he was selling in liter way.

Of course this is different, because usually toiletries outstanding products sold in containers-including, packaging refill once. Thus, consumers who will purchase comes with a carrying container respectively. If for detergent, enough with the plastic alone.

How cheap and how the quality? First for quality, SGM unequivocally states that all products are quality equivalent to the branded product or a leading brand in the market. For example, detergent powder is not inferior to Attack, then softener Molto and other equivalent. Moreover, the SGM is toiletries product manufacturers for the U.S. market, Japan, and became a partner of Unilever Indonesia.

As for price, can be up to half the price of branded products mentioned above. For comparison, in modern retail stores like Carrefour priced fairly cheap, Rinso 900 grams sold Rp 12,490, while the motto of 1 kg of detergent sold Rp 8,000 to the consumer. Of the sales price to the consumer, the dealer gets a margin of about Rp 900 per kilogram.

Goods from the SGM to be cheap because it managed to cut into two-tier distribution channels only. Namely, from manufacturers to distributors, and from distributors to dealers, the term for a retail merchant's motto. Each distributor dealers usually charge 200-500.

Then, to protect the dealers and reduce competition, the monopoly system is applied. So, everyone who wants to be dealers, the region will be surveyed. When in the area of ​​existing seller, it is advisable to look elsewhere. Because in every 300 heads of households may only have one dealer.

Who are the end-user of this bulk detergent? Apparently, very diverse. Not that cheap due to the lower middle class. But, from middle class to upper class was using it. Many dealers are located precisely in luxury estates, such as Palm d'Ivoire, City Tours, Rafflesia, and others.

Bulk sales model needs toiletries started SGM since 2006. Exactly three years after the SGM stand. It took several years to prepare, either from the system until the preparation of raw materials.

How to sell its products not just bulk only. However, the merger between multi-level marketing (MLM) and drinking water refill. MLM model is used to recruit dealers. While the refill water model is a way to distribute the product to the dealers.