Gardening Business Plan - How to get sales the easy way: mmm, I should correct myself there, it is not easy getting sales but it is made easier if you have a little bit of theory and have some practical know-how.

The 3 main Sales and Marketing objectives of any business are to:
Increase the number of its customers Increase the $ value of sales, or more importantly increase the profit per sale, and finally Increase the frequency of sales per customer

When you are planning your gardening business (especially your sales forecasts and marketing) you need to understand that sales can only come from 3 ways.

These 3 ways of making more sales are:
Getting new customers – think about your sales funnel and all the new leads that you want to attract into your funnel. The Sales Funnel analogy is really important as it creates a picture in our mind of where all our prospects are hanging out and how we can attract them to our funnel. Getting new customers (and obviously, leads) requires a knowledge of what are the right marketing efforts needed to attract new leads / prospects and then to acquire new customers. Marketing your business is a whole new area to look at. Increasing the dollar amount of sales to your customers, that is, a combination of increasing your prices and driving down your costs – therefore, improving your profits or bottom line Selling more to your existing customer base, or make more sales to existing customers – that is, “Would you like fries with that?” should help you understand this point of up-selling. The aim here is to extract as much as you can from existing customers. It’s a fact that you can sell a whole lot easier to an existing customer than to a new prospect.

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.

When it comes to business plans and their importance, you will find that there are a number of different reasons why business plans are important. Perhaps, the best way to go about understanding those reasons is to closely examine business plans, namely what they are used for. Business plans are used for a number of different things; they serve a number of different purposes. In all honesty, it depends on the type of business that you are interested in developing.

Business plans are used by many to obtaining financing for their up and coming businesses. These potential business owners are ones who have business ideas, but they do not have the financing needed to make their dreams become a reality. Instead of giving up on those dreams, a large number of individuals turn to financial lenders or investors for financial assistance. This is where a business plan comes in. Financial lenders and investors don’t just hand out money to any ole person. They, as you likely expect, want to make sure that they will be getting their money back. The only way to do this is to back a business that is sure to be a success. The only problem is that financial lenders and investors aren’t mind readers; that is why they rely on business plans.

When examining a business plan, a financial lender or investor will likely go over it with a fine tooth comb. In fact, they may even want to keep your business plan for a while, to do a little bit of research. That research will likely help them determine whether or not your business idea could turn into a real, profitable business. If so, there is a good chance that you may get the financing that you need. That is why it is extremely important that you not only have a business plan, but a detailed, professional one. You will often find that your business plan is the deciding factor in whether or not you get the financing that you need.

In addition to using a business plan to obtain business financing, there are many potential business owners who use business plans as guidance. It is no secret that it is difficult to develop a business on a whim. Doing so may mean leaving out important duties or tasks; duties or tasks that may have a significant impact on your business. That is why, if you are interested in starting a business, you are advised to develop yourself a business plan. That business plan will help to make sure that you have all of your bases covered. Having all of your bases covered is one of the many keys to developing a successful and profitable business.

Guidance and financial backing are just a few of the many ways that business plans are used, but they are the two most important and most common uses. Regardless of what you use your business plan for, in the end, you will be glad that you developed one.

This article was authored by Ryan Bessling. This 32 year old, Internet marketer was able to quit his 9-5 “job” because of his The Business Plan Guide. He now wants to help others and show you how he made it in Internet Marketing from creating a great business plan!