Your Business Plan - Simple and Basic

If you've been in business at least 5 minutes, you've heard that you have to have a business plan.  What does that mean exactly?  A 30 page document that looks like a legal brief?  A set of post it notes?  Neither. Both.

Your business plan doesn't have to be complicated when you are first starting out.  It just needs to answer the following basic questions to keep it simple:

1. Who - Name of your business & how are you different from other businesses in your industry
   
2. What - What do you want your business to accomplish? What's your mission statement?
   
3. When/Where - Where do you see your business in 1, 3, 5 years
4. How - How do you plan to accomplish those goals? (What are your plans for marketing?)

Now, if you are trying to obtain funding to further your business or get any other type of assistance, it will have to be more professional and detailed, including a detailed Executive Summary and detailed marketing plan.  But for the sake of aligning your business in the direction you want it to go, a simple one pager will suffice with simplicity.

I realize that what I've just listed is not a Business Plan in it's professional format.  However, the purpose of this blogs is to help newbie business owners with little finances to start somewhere.  As your business grows, you can go for more of the "professional" stuff.

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One of my small business websites is located at www.FreshRadiantSkin.com
If you are a woman of color, this site is for you.

Are You Ready To Listen?

Hello all my fellow business owners out there!  Today's post will be short. It's more of a short lesson but it's highly important so Listen up....

Learning to listen has it's benefits.  Listen to what your customers are saying.  Listen to your suppliers.  Listen to what is going on in your industry.  Even listen (pay attention) to your competitors.

Listening helps you learn what's in demand, what you should be focusing on and what you need to do to improve your home business.

Do You Have Strong Leadership Traits?

You may have heard the saying, "A leader is not born." Well, contrary to that saying, I disagree and I'll explain why.

There are certain traits that identify a strong leader. Some people ARE born with these traits and others may need to develop them  Some of these leadership traits include:

1. Self Control
2. Excellence
3. Commitment
4. Goal Oriented (including understanding & regularly reviewing goals)
5. Accountable
6. Personable
7. Decisive

 A classic differentiation of one being born with strong leadership qualities and one needing to develop them was displayed in the life of two of my old high school home girls, Candee and Mandee (names changed to respect privacy....ok the substitute names are a little corny but I'm making a point here!)

Candee and Mandee are twins.  Candee was more focused on fun, fashion, boys and partying.  Mandee always appeared to look toward the future and knew what she wanted to become in life before she even graduated High School.  Mandee was born with a spirit of excellence, regularly exercised self control and was committed to her future goals.  She did not learn how to be this way by the age of 14.  It was a part of who she was.  Her sister, Candee was also a "good girl", and fun loving but she was like the average teen girl, focused on the hear and now.  Of course, both women now lead successful lives but as you can see, one started out focused, decisive, and committed.

Today, Mandee is an attorney and Candee is a social worker. The twins were distinctly different in that one exhibited many of the traits of a strong leader naturally and early on, while the other learned to develop those traits later in life.

If you aren't a natural born leader, that's ok. You can become one by learning to develop the traits I mentioned above.  Becoming a leader may take some time but it's well worth it to be successful in your home business and any endeavor in life.

Running your own business is not easy. There will be set backs and discouragements. Believe me, I know. However, staying focused on your goals and developing the traits of a leader I mentioned above, will help you tremendously when it feels like the rug is being pulled out underneath you.

I'm building my online stress relief site as a way to show my knowledge in this area. Stop by some time, read the articles in the Learning Center and shoot me a note to let me know what you think. I would LOVE your feedback!

Michelle

Meet Up Groups to Network

Networking is a great way to increase the exposure to your business.  There are so many avenues for networking where do you begin?

Well, first off you need to know where to find networking events. I found a great place to find people of like minded businesses at Meet Up

At Meetup.com, you can join a meet up group and start networking right away.  If you don't see a group of interest (and I highly doubt that since there's one for every thing...except maybe Ground Hog lovers), then you can sign up to be alerted as to when a new meet up group is started in your field of interest.  Even better, start your own Meet Up Group and start networking right away!

Join me by checking out one of My MeetUp groups.

Article Marketing Help

Need help with your article marketing?  Do you even know what Article Marketing is?

When you start writing articles, it can seem so overwhelming at times.  Well, to save time, energy and money I  choose to learn from the experts and not just try to "figure it out" by myself.  It's been a few months and I am seeing results (ex: increased traffic to my websites)

Articology - This is a course where you will learn step by step from Lisa Angelettie, article marketing expert, how to construct, write, publish and promote your articles. Article Marketing is the #1 free way to promote your business and position yourself as an expert in your field.  The information is extensive yet easy to understand and is given to you in easy to digest formats. The best part is this course is EXTREMELY affordable. Take this course if you want to be successful at article marketing.  Subscribe to the Articology Marketing Course today.

Ideas for Article Marketing - The other offer is a freebie I stumbled upon and it will get you thinking of more ideas to write about than you can begin to jot down.

It's a totally free pdf and it's all yours.  Grab it here:

http://www.easyarticlemarketing.com/IdeasforEzineArticles.pdf