Business Planning-Why Do It?
Sally Balwin from Balanix Solutions presented a seminar on Business Planning to local business owners who belong to the Albany Creek Business Contacts (ACBC). The Seminar covered why all business owners should go through business planning and what they should look at and do to complete a plan.
Hear what Sally had to say about why business owners should do business planning.
… of the Business Plan … You will actually see that because some of you will sit back and say “Oh my god, I don’t do that – Oh I don’t think about that” … You actually should; and the reason being is the last point , but I will get to that in a minute.
You gain a deep understanding – you really understand the business that you are in. And we’ve talked about in ACBC Jobs verses Business – are we creating a job – are we creating a business. But one of the things is the serious business owners do this sort of stuff. People playing in business are really creating jobs for themselves or playing with it. But you really get a deep understanding of what you are doing.
It’s great for accountability and keeping you on track. Being small businesses, there tends to be one or two of you in the business – it’s just keeping you accountable particularly if you are married to each other – we know this – who keeps you accountable – so this is a good way to do it.
Practicality verses reality. We’re all passionate about our business ideas – we know what we want to do with everything, but you’ve got to have something that is a bit practical that goes with it. Very few people leap from idea to millionaire.
It’s a great way to work through what ethics you want for your business – how do you want to be perceived in the market place; what sort of image you want for your business and how you operate.
It’s a great way to know your message. We talk about our “Elevator Pitch” – when we get up in networking and we’ve go 30 seconds to engage people in our business. If you go through this process, you’ll really understand about your business and you can pull out the key components and we’ll see why.
Benchmarking. If you review every year, you’ll start to get data on the performance of your business. You’ll know your trends; you’ll know the influences on your business and things like that. And that’s invaluable.
If you need to borrow money. Banks won’t lend you money without a business plan – and a really robust business plan so if you are ever looking at finance for, big finance for bits and pieces, then you’ll need the business plan.
And … this is the one that people don’t like to hear, but a business plan tells you whether you actually have a valid business or not. And, that’s a really tricky one because people can be very very wedded to their business idea but when they go through the business plan they find they’ll never make a living out of it – it just won’t fly. And that’s a good thing – it doesn’t mean failure – it actually means you haven’t set yourself up to fail.
Balanix Solutions – Taxation | Accounting | Business Advice.
Situated in Strathpine on Brisbane North, we partner with our clients to assist them in their accounting, business management and bookkeeping needs. Our clients vary in industries from professional services (such as law, vet and dentist) to the trades (mechanic, bricklaying, plasterer etc), hospitality and retail. Are clients are located in the Pine Rivers area (including Brendale, Lawnton, Albany Creek and Eatons Hill) through to Kallangur, Petrie, North Lakes and Caboolture, as well as Brisbane South, the Gold Coast and various other parts of Queensland.
