Warning: this article reveals an essential strategy that must go in your business plan for small business success. After working with 146 businesses of all sizes I have noticed an inherent difference between success and struggle.

Virtually every sustainable long term enterprise inserts into their small business plans this key strategy. Without fail, most struggling enterprises do not implement this key tactic. So what is the strategy?

Essential Strategy to include in your business plans for small business success.

Stay in touch with prospects and past customers on your database at least every 90 days or less. Now it can be as frequent as weekly, fortnightly, monthly but never more than 90 days.

How do you do this? Well the very first step is to collect all contact data and have a simple database to put them in. Worldwide database management software such as Goldmine and Act are good possibilities for smaller business. Larger businesses will need more sophisticated industry specific versions.

Burn this saying into your mind: “More contact equals more sales.” The reverse is also true: Less contact equals less sales.

In the 21st century a new paradigm of successful business communication has emerged and it does not matter what industry you are in. After all, we are all human beings with wants and needs. Our past and current customers deserve our attention.

If you do not stay in touch with your past or current clients at least quarterly, there is a high percentage chance they will become someone else’s (your competitors new customer).

So this must do strategy no matter what business you are in, is critical to your success. Include it in any business plans for small business success.

Whether you have small business ideas you plan on implementing or you have been operating a small business for some time you need a focused business plan. It is your guide to success and without it you are planning to fail.

Your business plan needs to be a live document that is in constant development and is continually checked and updated, You must know if you are meeting your goals and if you do not continually check your business plan it can not work for you. Your business plan will allow you to make the needed changes to adjust to your small business growth or lack of growth.

The basic outline of a business plan is to detail the systems you will use and the task that are needed to accomplish your goals. By reviewing your business plan on a monthly basis at first you will be able to check your progress or lack of it. Once your business is up and running inn the direction you desire you may want to revise the time you review your plan. If your small business is progressing the way you planned and growth is steady checking your plan quarterly might be a good choice.

At first financial goals should be small. Although small they should be accomplished in the time frame you set. The initial small goals are as vital to your overall plan as the larger goals you have set for later dates. If your plan is working correctly in the early stages you will be able to determine if the complete business plan is achievable. Make sure that each goal is achieved as planned.

As in most aspects of life the best of plans can fail. You must ask yourself two questions. 1. Did you complete each goal in the time period you set. Were you able to achieve some of your goals but not all of them.

2. Were you able to use the systems you put in place and did they work as planned. Some of them will have met the goals you set while others did not.

Look carefully at your answers and analyze them. You will have systems that worked correctly and performed as expected. Keep those and continue working with them. The will also be systems that did not meet the goals you had set and the plans you had made. Look at these systems and find why they did not work.

You need to know why they did not work, if the system was flawed, were there steps in the system you may have missed. In answering those questions you can adjust future plans to accommodate errors that may have been made or discard the system completed and replace it with a new one.

A good solid business plan will continually improve and adjust. Adjusting and manipulating your plan for future growth will not only improve the effectiveness of your plan it will insure continued growth of your business.

Along with helping to build your small business ideas a business plan can give you confidence. A business plan is like a silent partner that helps keep your business on track.

What does it take to convey your idea to financiers?

- How will you organize all that information? What you need is a clear outline and focus.

- First you must identify your audience. Who are your potential stakeholders.

- Rank them according to importance, but most importantly have a plan on how they affect your future business.

In terms of an effective and well accepted layout, the following is a good start.

Business Plan Layout

Executive Summary – Who are you and what are you planning to do?
List of managers, key people involved, roles and experience.

Company – Where is your company located and what’s your specialty?
Area located, physical, distribution etc.

Product or Service – what is your service and why is it better.
You need to provide greater value than currently in the market.

Market – Who are you distinctly selling your product to and why will they buy it?
Is it because of price, service, new technology?

Competition – Who is your competition in terms of product, pricing and placement strategy in and outside of your local area?
How do you differentiate from competition in order to maintain long-term staying power and drive customer choice.

Sales and Marketing – How, where, when and to who are you going to sell your product or service and what makes it special?

Operations – Who will be operating your company, managing and what systems will be in place?

Financial – How much money do you need to operate your company in the next 6 months to 5 years?, How will you spend it specifically?
Break it down into short and long term finances, fixed and non-fixed assets. Can you lease products?

Appendix -pertinent information, contracts, references, etc.

Business Growth Coaching Solutions @2005

Creating a small business marketing plan as a subcategory of your overall business plan is vital for evoking and accelerating business growth. When you have a plan, you are able to focus on the right things at the right time and measure your progress toward a goal.

Many business owners are resisting planning. When you’re running a business, you can easily be consumed by your day to day responsibilities. But failing to plan can be a great mistake.

Now, what is the essential function of marketing? To generate qualified sales leads. There are any number of methods that can be used to do that but how do you know which methods to use if you don’t have a plan?

And how do you know what your lucrative marketing activities are? How do you invest in those activities if you don’t know how big your budget is, or know what results you are trying to produce?

A marketing plan doesn’t need to be a huge document. First, start with your business goals for the next six months. You should already have these, for example your target revenue, if nothing else.

Now, what marketing goals align with those business goals? Ok, you want to make 100k. How many leads do you need to generate in order to allow your selling activities to close the deals necessary to reach this revenue target?

Next, what marketing strategies are necessary to meet your business goal? Will you need to get more publicity? Expand into a new market? Reach more people in your current market? Create a direct mail campaign? Create sales partnerships?

You must pick one or two that deliver on what you are aiming for and hit your target revenue. Now, determine what specific activities will achieve your strategies.

At this point it gets a little bit tricky. You must choose from a vast pool of marketing options/activities and you must choose the activities that will work best for the potential customer you want to reach. You might need to participate in trade show events where you get face to face with your market.

You might need to launch a new website, you might need to implement a referral program for current customers. The list goes on and on.

Whatever your activities are, put them together into your plan and create target metrics (e.g. number of leads collected, number of prospects you talked to, etc).

Finally, you end up with your marketing plan.

The next step, your sales plan, tells you how the leads generated by marketing will be converted to customers, and how back end sales will be made to those customers. Sales metrics include conversion rates, overall revenues, or revenue per customer/per square foot/per time spent in the store, etc.

The great thing is that now you have something to measure against and you can review things periodically to see if you are on track or if something needs to be adjusted.

This process or call it small business marketing plan, doesn’t need to take a lot of time but the benefits to your business can be huge. Having a plan will give you a lot more insights into your well oiled business machine or parts of your business that need some tweaking.

Having a business plan format that is relevant to your specific situation and simple to
implement is the cornerstone to success. You see business plans are not just for starting a
business or to focus on obtaining funding. These are two primary reasons for planning but
there are many more reasons.

Statistics already prove to us from various studies that you are more likely to succeed if
you have a business plan. Studies from all around the world highlight the fact of increased
business success equals good planning. One Australian study of small business indicated that
the enterprise with a strong but simple and current business plan will be 15% more likely to
succeed over the long term. This was based on a sampling of over one hundred small
businesses.

The other reasons why you must have a current business plan are:

1.Focuses leaders and team members on internal operations.

2.Focuses on the objectives to be accomplished (the goals and targets) and a step by step
strategy to get you there.

3.Allows a focus on all areas of the business. A business plan format covering all 10 areas
of business is particularly valuable.

So as a business coach, I focus on 10 key areas of every business I work with. I have found
this is a very powerful formula which I will outline below. This is relevant to every
business regardless of industry.

An important point: It is fine to construct a large business plan for starting a business or
to obtain funding but a more successful way to go for business growth is to complete 90 day
action plans of 2-3 pages in length every 90 days.

The benefits of constructing a simple business plan format for the next 90 days are too many
to mention here. But here is what you should include.

10 Key Items to Include In your 90 day business plan format.

1. Leadership: How will you lead yourself and your team? What is the big vision for 3-5 years
down the track for the business? What is the vision for the next 1 year in your business?

2. Management: How will you spend your time? What strategies need to be implemented here to
ensure efficiency for yourself and team? How much time will you spend working ON the
marketing, sales and growth aspects of your business per week?

3. Financial Targets: Taking a 3 month view what will be your turnover or revenue per month?
Your expenses forecast and most importantly, your profit targets per month?

4. Marketing strategy: What specific strategies will you target for lead generation over the
next 90 days?

5. Marketing strategy for Increasing the Average Spend: Increasing the average spend should
be measured. How will you increase this and what strategies will you implement over the next
90 days?

6. Marketing strategy for Repeat Customers: Exactly what strategy will you implement over the
next 90 days to get more customers coming back again and again?

7. Planning: Do a 90 day plan every quarter forever and focus on it weekly or daily to plan
out the next item to be implemented.

8. Systems: What internal procedures need to be written down, improved on or fine tuned?

9. Team: What training, learning and communication will you do as a team to improve the
business over the next 90 days?

10. Sales: How can you improve your conversion rate from prospect to sale? Will you measure
this and exactly what will you implement over the next 90 days? What are the sales targets
per month? You need to include these crucial answers in your own business plan format.

Constructing a business plan format like this every 90 days means rapid focus on the key
performance indicators which bring on success. Try it yourself and reap the benefits.