Business Planning: Where to Start

Business planning is an essential activity for any entrepreneur. A defined, realistic and strategic business plan will set you on the path to sustainable growth, and empower you to achieve your short and long-term goals.

However, business planning can be a complex activity. In this article, we outline the things you need to consider when starting your business planning.

 

Where to Start

Creating a business plan can seem overwhelming, especially if you haven’t written one before. Like most daunting projects, it’s useful to tackle it one section at a time. And remember, the experience of an adviser can be invaluable in business planning.

 

Your Business Plan

Your plan is a documented set of goals, objectives, market data, and financial forecasts that will help you to reach your targets in a specified amount of time.

Why is it so important to start with a business plan? Your plan will give you measurable goals to keep you on track as you work through the myriad of tasks and details that go into starting a business. 

Writing a business plan is a big task. Make sure you include the following in your plan: 

• The writing of your business plan will require research into business structures, financial propositions, marketing plans and more. If you don’t have background in this type of research, seek help from a business adviser.

• Your Audience. Is your business plan just for yourself? If you’re planning a sole tradership, it probably is. If there will be other people involved, like partners or third parties, your business plan will also involve them.

• Financial Figures. If you have an existing business and you’re moving it to a new area, or adjusting it for a new market, you’ll have existing financial information at the ready. If this is a brand new business, you’ll need to use expected figures. Employ the skills of an adviser to help you with your business plan’s financial figures.

• Even if your summary is the first part of your business plan that others will read, it’s often best to leave it to the final stages. This is because you may not grasp the big picture until you’ve worked through all the details. Many people find that writing the summary is the most exciting and rewarding part. By the time you’ve worked through all the different parts of your plan, your business is taking shape. It’s satisfying to see the big picture explained concisely in your summary.

• Include all the right parts. Your business plan is there to provide you with direction, but it’s also usually a requirement of lenders. Your plan should include the following parts: a title page, a summary, information about your business such as the management plan or operations plan, market analysis, future goals and vision statement, a financial plan, and supporting documentation. With all of this information covered, you’ll have everything you need to proceed to the next stages of your planning.

 

Plan for Marketing

No matter what industry you’re in, you’ll need a way to market your products or services, and it’s best to consider marketing from the very start. 

A successful marketing plan identifies customers and zeroes in on where your products and services meet their needs. Marketing should influence many other areas of your business. For instance, the way customers are greeted on the phone and the way your staff are dressed have direct marketing applications and will affect your company’s success.

 

Complete Registration and Plan for Compliance

Your new business needs a legal structure, and it needs to comply with tax codes and other regulations. Talk with a business adviser about the best structure for your business, whether it’s a sole tradership, a partnership, a company or a trust. Register for an ABN, and check on regulations for your specific industry. For example, you may need to read about energy management or the registration of intellectual property, depending on the nature of your business.

 

Learn about Your Employer Obligations

If you plan on hiring employees, you’ll need to create a plan to perform your employer obligations. Even sole traders can hire employees; in fact, all businesses in Australia can hire employees, no matter what kind of structure they have. 

It’s important to learn about types of employment (full-time, part-time, casual, and fixed term), and it’s imperative that you know the differences between employees and independent contractors. There are employer obligations associated with pay and conditions, employee record keeping, recruitment, and equal opportunity and diversity. 

Australian employers also have obligations regarding superannuation, the country’s retirement plan. Business owners are required to pay super for all employers, including some contractors. In order to successfully complete your superannuation obligations, you’ll need to have employee tax file numbers (TFN) to make regular contributions on their behalf.

 

Create Your Timeline

In order to accomplish each of these tasks in a timely order, create a timeline. Your business planning will be more effective if you lay your tasks out sequentially and follow up with your due dates on a regular basis. 

Some tasks must precede others, so your timeline will keep you on target and help you to avoid gaps or redundancies in your business planning.

 

Seek Expert Advice

Business planning requires significant expertise, and it’s helpful to have a professional to help you along the way. Lean on us at Altus Financial to help you with the details so you can spend your time on the day-to-day operations. We can help you with profitability, cash flow, staffing, growth issues, strategy development, cloud accounting and more. 

Reach out to us at Altus as you work through your business planning. Lean on our expertise, and get excited about the future.