Part I: Writing Your Business Plan - Getting Started

I say, you don’t need software. No need to get overwhelmed. Get a book at the library, use the internets. I recommend “The Successful Business Plan, Secrets & Strategies” by Rhonda Abrams. And download a handy business plan outline here (Word doc).

Then, start with the easy stuff - your personal bio. Its you! You know you, right? Like your resume, you want to tout your personal and professional accomplishments and relevant experience. You don’t want to format it like a resume, but in paragraph form. You can click here for an example of my full biography (pdf) or here for my abbreviated bio (on my website). If you managed employees at the burger joint, you have management experience. If you were a volunteer for a non-profit auction, you have event experience. I am not saying lie, embellish or deceive, I am saying squeeze out what you have accomplished!

I have found that people really have a hard time with writing their own biography, they have difficulty seeing that they have talent and relevant experience. If you get stuck, contact me, I have a talent at asking the right questions that will get your wheels turning!

Do you have partners or other key staff that are important to your operations? Have them write their bios or help you with them as well.

See, now you are started!

Stay tuned for Part II!

Why write a business plan?

Writing a business plan can seem like a daunting task. This is the first post in a series on business plan writing that will encourage you to break down a business plan into manageable parts so that it is not so daunting.

There are primarily two reasons companies prepare a business plan:

1. Internal operations: defining direction, documenting goals and planning
2. To obtain financing from banks, venture capitalists, grants, government funding, etc.

Imagine your business... are there benefits to having your plans down on paper? Would you be more focused if you defined what you were going to do and when? Have you analyzed your market? Your customers? Your competition?

Are you in need of new equipment? Do you need to expand? A new office? These things may require external funding of some sort.

Do you know what your break-even point is? When will you be able to pay back loans? What will the return on investment be for a venture capitalist?

All of these questions can be answered by a business plan, getting your thoughts on paper and making sure what you want to do is a viable business - for profit.

Stay tuned for more on the “Writing A Business Plan Series”

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Internet Phone Book Listings

Recently, a customer renewed their phone book listing in their local area and got a "screaming deal" on it. The phone book rep included $600/month in web ads for the same price as they paid last year for just their phone book ads! This sounds awesome, doesn't it?

Here is what they do:
1. They run your ad campaign
2. They develop a proxy site that is a copy of your website (for tracking purposes)
3. They give you a special phone number, called a tracking number that will tell them how many calls were received from their ads

Sounds great! They do all the work, you see all the reports, the phone starts ringing and the money comes rolling in...

But, my fellow small business owners - what happens when Google indexes their proxy site instead of yours and it comes up in organic searches? And what happens when Google sees that there are more than one phone number for your business?

The short answer is this: You are taking a risk with your Page Rank with Google. If you have ANY kind of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) on your website, especially if you have paid money to have someone do it for you, then you might be diluting that work.

Google's mysterious algorithm takes into account about a million things that include data integrity, reputation, keywords, links and more. A proxy site and tracking phone number, if indexed by Google, will deteriorate your internet "reputation" in Google's eyes.

You have many options but two quick ones you might consider are:
1. Run your own AdWords or web ad campaigns.
2. Have the same firm who does your SEO or website run your campaign (or a company with SEO AND AdWords experience).

If you do decide to go forward and have the phone book people run your campaign, then make sure they use NO FOLLOW code on their landing page or proxy site.

Contact me if you have any questions!