There is no shortage of ways to get your business plan written for you by everything from fly by night super cheap outfits found online to extremely high priced consulting groups who also promise to put you in touch with high caliber investors and escort you around to all the big money outfits. These options all have one thing in common which is that they deprive you of the critical aspect of business plan writing that most new entrepreneurs don’t understand – the business plan writing process is not about the writing but about the planning and that is what you miss out on if you have someone else write your plan.

A lot of people who hire these services do so because they have an idea but they feel they aren’t good writers or that by having it done “professionally” they will have a better chance of being able to raise money than if they were to write it themselves.

The problem with this thinking is that the key elements of the business that the plan is supposed to determine: what edge the company has over the competition, who the customers are and how they will be reached are now going to be left in the hands of the consultant to determine. Since the plan writers have no stake in the business and are only getting paid for the writing they are not going to necessarily take the time to determine the right answer to this or even worry about the feasibility of the answers they provide.

A much better approach is to use a good program to write your own business plan so you can also be integrally involved in planning the actual business and then get help in reviewing and editing your plan so the writing also comes out right. This is the best of both worlds and also turns out to be the best value option in terms of money and time spent on creating a business plan.

A thief was caught after stealing some paintings from the Louvre in Paris, when his getaway van ran out of fuel. Given bail at his first hearing, a reporter asked him on the steps of the courthouse, how he forgot such a vital part of his plan. “Simple,” said the thief, “I had no Monet for Degas to make the Van Gogh.”

Indeed, how did this bandit forget the most vital aspect of his planning? The runaway van is the most essential resource in his project’s management and preparation. Should he have been prudent by preparing a check list and asking himself questions like” What are the crucial aspects of my plan? What can go wrong? He would have had a successful enterprize! I am not condoning this crook’s actions, but certainly applaud the merits of the story.

Likewise, in business, excellent questions when applied to series of situations including business planning endeavors can help entrepreneurs focus their critical thinking and lead them to bright and new directions. Without a doubt, great questions once applied in a timely and proactive manner can uncover the reasons for unexpected successes or failures, and stimulate possible solutions.

Successful entrepreneurs keep a tool kit of effective questions in their arsenal. They call them “Killer Questions”. They have long realized that business’ strategic planning and development starts by prescribing to empowering questions that direct their management’s thinking and channel their energy towards actionable strategies, paving the way to a sustainable success. When they sense that their businesses may face some challenges, they solicit their proactive mode by asking; “What is the question we need to ask right now?” To determine where they are going, they need to know exactly where they stand, then establish where they want to go and how they will get there. These precise questions guide the organization in its quest towards attainable strategic objectives.

Conversely, some unsuspecting entrepreneurs ask toxic and unhelpful questions such as; What if we are wrong? What if we fail? What will our friends, associates and family think? Why do we always miss our targets? These questions are destructive and can dim the organization’s vision and its direction.

Instead, affirmative questions are the answer. They will lead the organization out of a quagmire and set the foundation for its effective business development. Some useful questions to ask before initiating any strategic business planning would be the following:

• What do we do, and for whom we do it?
• How can we make our business better?
• What are our goals?
• What are our risks?
• How can we beat, or avoid the competition?
• How can we verify that our strategies are working?
• Are there better tactics to accomplishing our outcomes?

The fascinating point in relation to a question is that it basically presupposes an answer; it also presupposes the validity of the question and sets the scene for engineering a believable solution, regardless of it being right or wrong. Furthermore, in the context of the strategic business development process, questions reveal the creative performance of the organization and open the door to its true knowledge and innovation.

The choice is yours. There are illuminating questions that enlighten your vision and move your business forward; and there are destructive questions that obscure your way and obliterate your future. When faced with a dilemma, or if your plans are not going your way, pay attention to the self chatter in your head, and ensure that you catch yourself asking constructive questions like” Am I asking the right question right now? Conquer your “demons” and become accustomed to asking yourself positive and enlightening questions and turn your life and your business into a spectacular success.

If you’re in business, one of the most important questions that you must be asking yourself is “what is the best way to grow your business?” How can you take what you have, expand on it but keep your costs as low as possible?

Fortunately, history has given us plenty of good examples of how NOT to do this. Perhaps the best of these happened in 2001 – when thousands of companies went under in the dot com bubble.

But how did SO many go SO FAR WRONG?

In those days, start-ups (with little or no income) and existing companies (with dreams of expanding their business online) were renting the biggest and best offices. They were signing huge print advertising contracts, paying ridiculous sums for banner ads and taking enormous salaries.

When sales were lower than expected and the cash to keep paying all those expenses dried up, these businesses had no way of easily adjusting their monthly expenditures down – because they were primarily FIXED, not variable. Their only option was to declare themselves bankrupt and close down.

Compare this situation with Amazon.com which started in a suburban garage with old doors on sawhorses for desks. By keeping fixed costs down, they were able to stay in business long enough to start generating a profit. They are now a huge company (with real offices) making huge profits.

So how does all of this apply to your company?

No matter what the size of your current business is, the aim is to grow your business while keeping your fixed costs as low as possible as a percentage of sales. And there are many practical ways to do this.

Begin by creating a simple excel spreadsheet of your current revenue and expenses each month. Ensure that you have correctly separated the fixed and variable costs of doing business. Roughly speaking, the breakdown should look something like this:

Revenue
– Cost of Sales (includes cost of goods and variable wages for subcontractors or part time employees)
= Gross Profit

– Fixed costs (includes rent, wages, marketing, telephone, utilities, accounting fees etc.)
= Net Profit

Next, based on your current financial results, set your monthly revenue targets for the next 12 months and estimate the cost of goods sold. For example, if you currently generate $20,000/month in sales with a 60% gross profit margin, you might like to grow your sales by 15%? Therefore, you would use a projected sales target of $23,000 each month with Cost of goods sold at around $9,200 as a starting point. This would leave you with a gross profit each month of $13,800. If your sales fluctuate each month due to seasonal variations, manually adjust your forecast to reflect these ups and downs.

Now here is where most business owners will go wrong…

Most will mistakenly assume that fixed costs are fixed. Meaning, the owner will start to place the existing amounts for rent, marketing, wages, telephone etc. into the financial projections. Fixed costs are referred to as fixed because they are fixed at a point in time. This does not mean however, that they are fixed forever and cannot be altered. In fact, when you are preparing a business plan and financial projections for the future, you should consider almost every aspect of your business as “up for debate and re-adjustment”.

That is why we prepare business plans – we use them to re-evaluate and plan for the future so that we can improve and grow. Without a concrete plan, in all likelihood we will continue to get the exact same results that we got in the past.

Where you will get the most value in this exercise is by going back over each cost (fixed or variable) to identify opportunities to “make the most of what you have already got”! Cutting costs may be possible and advisable in some areas of your business. However, cutting costs [in isolation] is not usually an effective strategy to grow a business. In order to grow and improve your bottom line, you will need to ask yourself the question – “how can I expand my business without expanding costs”?

Can you think of ways to partner with others to expand your reach and sales without actually having to open another location or hire more full time employees? You may already have underutilized capacity to increase your sales right now.

Can you introduce products or services that complement the ones that you currently have and contribute more to the bottom line of your business? Can you renegotiate the terms or prices you have with your suppliers to increase your gross profit margin?

Do you have a website and a fully functioning payment gateway? Do you make it easy for customers to buy from you? Selling online is a very cost effective way to increase your reach without increasing fixed costs.

If you manufacture goods, you could identify ways to increase production simply by tidying up, rearranging the layout of machines and planning more cleverly (to reduce work in progress and downtime). Often mistakes and rework can be costly to your business and surprisingly, they can be prevented by taking time during the business planning process to brainstorm solutions.

Making better use of time is another fantastic way to increase production with minimal impact on fixed costs.

Surprisingly, 95% of business owners never take the time to create a business plan and forecast of revenues and expenses. Of those that do, only a small portion refer back to the plan and measure their progress against the targets and KPIs. That is why so many businesses go under each year.

A business plan doesn’t have to be 50 pages in length and take 100 hours to complete. It just has to be realistic and useful. To do this properly, following my basic outline for projected revenues and expenses above should take 48 hours of your time. 48 hours of your time, in exchange for better bottom line results and peace of mind, is a small price to pay…