Building a Strong Business: Part One

By Judy Grann, M.Photog. CBM, ABI, VP SuccessWare Inc.

Every business needs a plan to run successfully. The information provided in this series will help you understand business success fundamentals.

Preparing an Initial Business Plan:

Gain insight about your personal needs: Determine how much money you need to support yourself and/or family.

Calculate how much you have personally invested in your business to date.
Gather information about your business:

• Calculate your monthly business expenses by either examining the past year’s bills or reviewing yearly expense totals from your tax return, then dividing those totals by 12 to get a monthly total estimate.
• Take a 12-month inventory of the number of sessions you do each month by type of client: Seniors, Children, Families, etc.
• Compile the average sale for each type of client.

Determine your current financial position. Do this by hand or use SuccessWare’s planning application:

• Post your 12-month sales totals by month.
• Subtract your monthly expenses from your sales totals to get an overall picture of where your business stands. If you have not taken salary yet or paid yourself back for money you have personally invested in your business, take that into consideration for the next step in your planning.

Determine the best ways to move your business forward:

• Identify potential marketing opportunities to grow your business.
• Make decisions that can benefit your bottom line such as expense cuts or pricing increases.

Creating a business plan allows you to see where you are, where you want to be and the means to get you there.

Part Two of this series will help you to price your products for profitability..

SuccessWare.net – SuccessWare allows you to monitor your business progress on demand by automating your business plan and tracking your progress against that plan.