A Simple Business Plan for Small Business Women

Once small business women have decided to start their own business the next important thing is to start writing a business plan. This document is the lifeblood of any entrepreneurial venture. Effective business plan is what makes a small business opportunity a hit or a miss.         This document is what financial institutions will look at when deciding to fund a new venture.   Additionally, it is this document which small business women and their employees will use to evaluate their future business performance.  A well thought out simple business plan is the road map to a successful business.

Writing a good business plan reduces the chances of making common mistakes which most small business women are likely to make.

Some mistakes that most often occur are:

1)      It is not uncommon for small business women to start writing a business plan and getting so caught up in the process of evaluating products, studying market segments and competition that they lose sight of their core business mission and values. Therefore, a business plan needs to stem out from a well thought of mission statement and not vice versa.

2)      Many  business women fail to recognize the difference between a simple business plan and a budget or a financial forecast.  A budget, an integral part of the business plan, specifies how resources, especially time or money, will be allocated or spent during a particular period.  Therefore, having information about the industry, customers and competitors can help develop a more realistic budget.

3)      While studying the competition, small business women end up creating a business plan which replicates the business of their competitors. They get too caught up in the competition’s success that they lose out their own innovation. The key here is to keep in mind that it is uniqueness which will drive the entrepreneurial venture and not replication.

4)      Risk taking is an important element in entrepreneurial venture. A business plan, too often, fails to incorporate the risks of starting a business. A business plan which fails to account for risks is heading for some nasty surprises as the business gets started.  A business plan should be detailed and take into account the unexpected risks and accounts for them in their planning process and financial forecasting.

5)      Some small business women get so excited about developing their product or service that they fail to study the needs of their customers. The customers in the marketplace really do dictate what will sell and what doesn’t.  Questions like “Does the customer need what I am offering?” and “Does the customer know that he needs my product/service?” are left unanswered while writing a business plan. An entrepreneur needs to develop a realistic simple business plan to get funding from the banks and to ensure survival of their business.

6)      Too much reliance on their own judgment is also one of the pitfalls of a business plan. Once a business plan is developed it is best to have it reviewed independently. This independent review from someone is likely to help the entrepreneur to identify gaps of information and to correct mistakes right at the beginning.  Without the benefit of a third party reviewer, the entrepreneur could incur difficulties in reaching her goal.

Any entrepreneurial venture starts with a simple business plan. The plan is a living document which outlines the time frames and responsibilities which the entrepreneur plans to achieve. This simple business plan becomes the basis of performance monitoring once the business starts.

The importance of this simple document hence stretches from initial funding to future performance monitoring of the business.

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