Creating a business plan that focuses on both the motivational and operational aspects of running your home based business is a foundational key to success.
You may be wondering why you’d want to include motivation as part of the plan. Hang with me on this. By the time we’re finished here, it’ll be clear.
The outline we’ll use is actually very broad. It’s broad in the sense that the four components of the business plan can contain a lot of detail. How much detail your plan ends up containing will depend entirely on you.
The four components are:
- Why you do this business
- Business goals
- Marketing plan
- Hours of operation
We’ll also get into how you should use your plan, but we’ll hold off on that until after we’ve discussed the four components of the plan.
Why You Do this Business
This is a purely motivational part of the plan. It’s simply a list of all your reasons for starting your business in the first place. There are no parameters here. Whatever reasons you have for wanting to start and succeed in your own home based business should be included on this list. And there’s no such thing as too many or too few reasons.
Start a word processing document for your business plan on your computer, or start writing on a pad of paper or in a notebook. You don’t necessarily need to finish this part of the plan before proceeding to the next. In fact, you can add new “whys” to your list anytime.
Business Goals
Business goals should include anything related to your business that’s measurable. For example:
- Gross income
- Sales volume
- Production goals
- Quality standards
- Etc.
Obviously, your business goals will depend entirely on you and what business you’re actually in, but I think you get the idea.
Marketing Plan
This is where you’ll get into specifics about how you’ll market your business so that you can achieve your business goals. For details on how to create a marketing plan for your business, go to the Creating Your Business Marketing Plan page.
Once you've created your business marketing plan, incorporate it into your overall business plan.
Hours of Operation
Most home based businesses are part time, at least to start. Many people start a business to supplement their income from a full-time job. Committing to set hours of operation are especially important for part-timers. But it’s also important for those who run their business full-time.
Specify the following in your business plan:
- Days of the week you'll work on your business
- Number of hours and/or times you'll work on your business
- What activities you'll engage in on a given day (optional)
It’s important that you view these hours of operation in the same way you’d view your work schedule at a regular job - you can’t just blow it off. Of course, there’ll be times when you can’t work your regularly scheduled times. But don’t allow yourself to just take off for any old flakey reason, any more than an employer would. If you really want to succeed in your business, you’ll have to seriously commit to it.
Using Your Business Plan
Now that you’ve got this great plan, let me explain how to use it.
First, you should read it out loud first thing every morning, and last thing every night - even on weekends and off days. Doing this keeps you motivated because you have a twice daily reminder of why you’re doing this in the first place. This is very important, especially on the rough days. Don’t fool yourself into believing that you don’t need these reminders. Believe me, you do need them.
Reading your plan regularly also keeps it in the front of your mind, which helps stay you on track. You’d be amazed how easy it is to lose focus and get off track in business. This exercise will help you stay focused.
Your business plan shouldn’t be cast in stone. As new ideas come to you, incorporate them into your plan. Conversely, when you find that some things aren‘t working, you can tweak them or discard them altogether.
Whoever said; “If you fail to plan, you’re planning to fail”, was absolutely right. Any success you might achieve without proper planning will have been by luck. And we all know that luck never lasts. So make the effort to create a solid home based business plan, starting now.
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