By Carly W at August 14 2019 09:50:28
So, why make a business plan the normal way when you could first make one that could give you what you want in life? Have you ever thought about doing a plan like that? Would you know how? Would you have the time to do it? Well if you don't or not sure, let's at least see what's involved. Here are the steps you would need to take. First, you would need to know all your current business numbers. This will be the basis for the plan. You're going to need to know: 1. What your current average monthly sales are 2. What your current average monthly material cost is 3. What your current average monthly labor cost is 4. What your current average monthly fixed expenses are 5. What your current average monthly variable expenses are 6. What your average number of transactions per customer per month are 7. What your average dollar sale per transaction is 8. What your average monthly profit is 9. What your average monthly profit margin is 10. And what % capacity your business is at right now
Contextualise Your Budget _ Of course your budget will be extremely important. But sometimes people sort of pluck figures out of thin air, not giving it the context it needs in the business plan to make real concrete sense of how that budget is going to work. So it is crucial that every time you mention financials in your business plan, to really give them the correct context. When I have worked with clients in developing business plans, there has been a budget or amount set aside for example to be spent on marketing, which has been decided a bit arbitrarily. I mean with no real research, no understanding of what that amount needs to be spent on, and what that budget will truly achieve. It seems to have been put there to fill the need to attribute a certain sum to marketing.