Developing a Business Plan

There are many important steps to consider when developing a business plan for your company, but the first step is to fully understand the main uses of a business-plan. The four main uses of a business-plan are as follows:

• A Business Plan is a written document that you can use in your search for external financing.
• A Business Plan is a tactical planning and management tool for your business.
• A Business Plan is a document showing the capacity of your team to control and manage all the aspects of the company.
• A Business Plan brings you new ideas to refine your project by checking and estimating the induced hypothesis.

The necessity of Business Plans

The drafting or update of your business-plan is essential to the good management of your company. It can be used when searching for a business partner, for obtaining external financing, and for defining some stages of the development of your company, such as:

• The creation of your company.
• The launching of a new product.
• The establishment in a new market.
• The transfer, buy-out, or the structural development of your company.

Should you call in a consultant or write the Business Plan by yourself?

You should be the main (if not single) author of your business-plan, because the Business Plan is, so to speak, your own “baby”, it is a reflection of your personality; it is by this means that your investors will discover the person with whom they collaborate.

But your project may be too important and you may want to call in a consultant for help and consultation. Even so, you should stay in control of its development!

Tips for developing a quality business-plan

1. To be credible, a business-plan must be coherent and each parameter in the Business Plan must be based on facts.

2. There are many methods to build Business Plans, but very few can help you correctly carry out reliable financial projections based on a preliminary commercial engineering and market study.

Indeed, one frequent mistake when building Business Plan’s is to first define the target in terms of market share, and then try to “find” the number of customers necessary to fill these objectives! This process should be reversed.

3. In addition, one essential point in a Business Plan is to define concrete policies and measures. This definition aims to gain a reasonable number of customers, based on a sufficient knowledge of the market. The quantitative estimate of this gain must be calculated on realistic monthly and annual increase rates. A well-founded pricing policy then makes it possible to estimate the sales turnover in the years ahead.

The calculation of the costs of the planned actions in your Business Plan are essential and make overall financial projections possible. In short, financial forecasts – including those related to the financing of the project – must be elaborated from the basic elements of the project. They should be proceeded by a commercial engineering study which projects a realistic estimate of sales.

4. In a Business Plan, the marketing plans as well as the financial forecasts require a basic understanding of how these important elements are calculated. You can use good software – some of which is free – to faciliate the development of your Business Plan.

5. The last point and certainly not the least significant: A Business Plan is never ended “once and for all”. A regular follow-up and comparison between the theoretical Business Plan and the reality of its execution are essential. You can then modify your Business Plan and adapt it to improve performance and achieve your goals.

Business Startups

Starting a new business can be a very exciting time, you are going to be your own boss, decide what and when you do things, manage the purse strings, and in fact you are in control of everything. Are you really in control of the situation though, you have to deal with everything yourself so you have to stay focused on what you want to do and why. All business startups need advice; sometimes they need advice on where to get advice, so the budding entrepreneur has to be able to listen as there is more to running a business than understanding, or loving, the subject.

Like a chess game, success in small business starts with decisive and correct opening moves. And, although initial mistakes are not fatal, it takes skill, discipline and hard work to regain the advantage.

When you plan to start a business you do not plan to fail but statistics show that 70% of business startups fail within the first 3 years of trading. This is for a variety of reasons but they mainly hinge around business and financial planning. Basic mistakes like starting the business with insufficient financial backing or working capital to taking too much of the profits to remunerate the owners are often the downfall of the business.

A way to increase your chances of success, take the time up front to explore and evaluate your business and personal goals. This information will be useful to help you build a comprehensive and well ¬thought¬ out business plan, the blueprint for you business.

Every business needs a business plan, for business startups the first part of the business plan might be where to find out how to write a business plan and what it should include. The process of developing a business plan will help you think through some important issues that you may not have considered yet. Your plan will become a valuable tool as you set out to raise money for your business, no investor will even look at you if you have not got a business plan. It should also provide milestones to gauge your success.

There are a lot of agencies who can advise you on some, or all, aspects of starting a business. Some of these will charge you for their advice whilst others offer them free of charge.

Business link is one of the agencies and advice is free and assistance with funding might be available in the right circumstances. They have a large database that will help you find a grant or subsidy that suits your business and let you know what makes a business eligible to receive one. Interactive tools help you identify the capital and incentive allowances that your business can claim and identifies online transactions available to your business and explains how to register and enrol.

They can even help with introductions to reputable suppliers. A bad supplier speeds the downfall of a lot of business startups who really need to rely on good stock and reliable delivery dates.

There are a lot of schemes that are interested in funding business startups, for example Option 2 funding offers 50% matched funding for projects to expand business. Other funding schemes are often available based on regional location and industry type. These include grants to help with business development, and they are available from a variety of sources, such as the government, the European Union, Regional Development Agencies, Business Links and some charitable organisations.

So if you do not want to be a an addition to the failure statistic investigate all the funding opportunities available to you, whether you go to a commercial organisation or go for free advice from an agency such as Business Link. Be sure to listen to their advice, they have been dealing with business startups for years; this is your first time.

Applying For Merchant Services Account The Easy Way

Before applying for a merchant services account, it’s important to research the various merchant account providers to avoid paying too much or signing with an unscrupulous company.

In applying for a merchant account service, consider prices, integrity and customer service.

• Merchant account rates and fees

Be sure you understand all of the rates and fees charged by a merchant account provider. The usual charges include monthly fees, discount rates, transaction fees, application fee, equipment and installation fee.

Monthly fees are usually around $25, though that may vary according on whether you meet your minimum monthly transactions. Discount rates are a percentage taken from a sale that the merchant pays to cover the transaction costs and the risk involved. The usual discount rate is 1.5% to 3.5%.

The transaction fee is a flat fee charged for each transaction, generally anywhere from 20 cents to $1.00. The application fee, if there is one (some merchant account providers don’t charge them), is the fee to open the merchant account.

The equipment and installation fee covers the cost of software installation. It can be free, or it could cost as much as $1,200 or more, depending on whether the processing is batch or real-time. The cost for POS terminals depends on the model you purchase but can range from $500 to $1,500.

• Choose only reputable merchant account services

You should consider the reputation of the merchant account service.

What to look for when searching for a merchant account:

• Beware of merchant service providers who have misleading ads offering things like “free merchant accounts” or “lowest prices guaranteed.” Read the fine print on the website to find out what they really offer.

• It’s a bad sign when every call you make to the company is answered by a machine.

• Beware of merchant account services that make use of free domain or free web hosting services. If they can’t afford a domain name, how are they in business?

• Be careful of providers who can’t answer your questions.

• Avoid merchant account sites that don’t post rates and fees on their web site.

• Use the Internet to find reviews of merchant account companies and take note of all unsatisfactory remarks

• Make absolutely sure that your chosen merchant account service provides reliable customer service.