Nothing can stop you when you have a great Business Plan!

So, you have a business idea.

You think you are on to something.

You send your spare time doing research.

Yep, you are defiantly onto something!

You are super excited, and you just want to get started!

This is how most small businesses start, with an idea, some research and enthusiasm and there is nothing wrong with this at all. But what you do from here can really determine whether you are a success story or if you spend your time chasing your tail and unfortunately failing.

It is not hard to launch a small business, almost anyone can do it, but the statistics show that one in three new small businesses in Australia fail in their first year of operation, two out of four by the end of the second year, and three out of four by the fifth year. These are horrible statistics to look at as a Business Coach, it absolutely breaks my heart.

This leads to questions like “what does that 1 out of 4 business do differently to make them succeed?” Is it their product? Is it their location? Or is it just who they are? The answer is no to all those questions.

In every successful business that I have worked with the one thing that sets them apart is a solid Business Plan. Its that simple!!!!! There is no magic involved, it’s all in the planning.

Many are scared off from the thought of sitting down to write a business plan because they just do not know where to start. Do not let this put you off, you are the genius behind your business idea so all you must do is get it out of your head and down on a piece of paper. It does not even have to be pretty or coherent to begin with. It just needs to be written, from this point you can organise it all, expand on it and work through it.

One of the most common mistakes I see business owners do once they start to write a business plan is use google. When you search business plans your results vary from detailed and complex corporate business plan to a business plan that a grade six student completed. The best thing to do when starting out is to seek help from a trusted business consultant, your accountant or even your bank manager.

Once you have your idea out of your head, organised into a plan, do not stop there. Do not just put it in the bottom door and never look at it again. That is like buying the latest software and never registering it! Once you have your plan, use it! Use it to keep you on track, to motivate you, to set goals from and if you need to re-work some of it – do it! This is your plan to succeed. A working business plan is one of the most important tools that you can use when starting out in those first five years and beyond.

By just getting the simplest plan out of your head and down onto a piece of paper you are on your way to being that 1 business that makes it through to year 5.

So what are you waiting for?