Bill McRea

Get paid to share your links!

Part of the appeal of being an online solopreneur is the ability to move quickly, think on your feet and launch new business ideas on a short timeline because you are addicted to fast results.  There is nothing wrong with that, however, sometimes it makes sense to take a step back and take the time to do some planning for what lies ahead. Strategic planning is about taking a longer view of your business now, and how you would like for your business to scale up in the future. In this article we’ll take a broad look at the strategic planning process and some tools and resources that small business people can use to execute an effective strategic plan that will help them to achieve their goals.

What do I need a strategic plan for?

One of the most appealing things about starting an online business is that there is the potential to start with nothing but a laptop, an Internet connection and an idea and launch what could become a million dollar business. But, you’ve got to first have a plan for how you will move from zero dollars to positive cash flow. After you have completed your overall business plan, you will create a strategic plan that will mark out a path from where you are to your goal of a million dollar business.

How can a strategic plan help my business?

A strategic plan will help your business in the same way that a map helps you to get from point ‘A’ to point ‘B.’ If you don’t know where you are going, any road essentially can get you there. If you do not want to waste a lot of time and money spinning your wheels doing fruitless activities on a daily basis, then you will see the logic behind developing a clear strategic plan for your business—even if your business is just you right now.

Can I develop my own strategic plan?

While it is suggested that you get a fresh set of eyes to review your plan and offer you some constructive criticism, you can come up with your strategic plan on your own. An outside, objective party will not share the same blind spots that you have and they will be able to help you to see things from another perspective, which can be a great resource for you.

Who can help me to create a strategic plan for my unique business?

A business coach would be a great person to consult about helping you to create a strategic plan, or they could simply create the plan for you with your input. There are business consultants that specialize in business planning and they might be a good resource to help you with your own strategic plan.

Regardless of whether you hire a professional or do it yourself, having a solid strategic plan in place can help you to feel more confident as you go about your work. It can help you to become more focused on the individual actions that you must take in order to achieve the goals you have set and to meet the milestones in your plan.

We have only touched on the basics  of strategic planning for small business in this short article. For more information to help you grow your online business, visit, http://www.mcreasite.com/blog today.

Related Articles

1. [WATCH]: Best Home Based Internet Business - How to Setup Your Profit Map? …

Trackbacks

1. Home Business Opportunity: Advanced Bread and Pastry …
2. Free Online Books: Everquest: Shadows Of Luclin With Free Book "Tome of Lore" …
3. How many of you had complete relief from acne resulting from laser treatment? …

Get paid to share your links!

As a small business owner you may often feel overwhelmed by day to day operations, or maybe like you are just trying to keep up with everything that is demanded of you,  but if you take some time to do some strategic planning about how you intend for your business to grow, you will find that the effort will be well worth it.

A strategic plan is not a business plan

A strategic plan defines how your business will grow. It lays out the path that your business will follow to achieve the goals and objectives you have set.

If you think of your business plan as a blueprint, then your strategic plan is more like mapping out driving directions at the start of a trip. It will guide you from where you are to where you’d like to be.

Some of the components of an effective strategic plan include:

• Your company’s vision mission and goals
• Strategies for reaching each of those goals
  • Doing a SWOT (Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats)  analysis
• Action plans for each strategy
• Implementation plan

Constructing  your road map to success

Because they are so close to their business, many entrepreneurs choose to work with a business coach to facilitate the development of a strategic plan. It’s useful to have an objective set of eyes and ears observing your processes and lending their expert opinion about your plans.

You can come up with your own strategic plan if you cannot afford to hire a coach, or if you simply choose not to, but you should at least get a colleague or mentor whose opinion you trust to take a thoughtful look at your plan and be willing to give you some constructive feedback.

While you are putting your plan together you’ll also want to talk to your customers, clients, vendors, suppliers, investors and partners and your competition to get as much feedback as you can so that your plan has the best chance at succeeding.

Implementation

Once your strategic plan is completed and you are beginning to work towards accomplishing the action plans, make sure that you are making note of the important milestones along the way. Change can be a challenging process, and it is always so easy to fall back into the previous ways of doing things. Implementation is really where the ‘rubber meets the road,’ so to speak.  It’s where failure lurks at every turn if you don’t keep your eye on the end goal.

Keep it simple

A strategic plan is a vital key to smart business growth when it is easily followed and understood by the entire company. Don’t put it in a three-ring binder up on the shelf, but post your goals on bulletin boards, and in other visible locations around your workplace so that you and your staff can be motivated and inspired by the vision.

A strategic plan can help you get from where you are to where you would like to be when it is created in a collaborative environment that takes into consideration the insights of all of the stakeholders.

Of course we can only scratch the surface of strategic planning for small business in this short article. For more information to help you grow your online business, visit, http://www.mcreasite.com/blog today.

Related Articles

1. DIY Small Wind Turbine - Green Living Kit …
2. [WATCH]: The Best Network Marketing Opportunity! …
3. Facebook Marketing For Dummies …

Trackbacks

1. Internet Marketing Business Models: Product Strategy for High Technology Companies …
2. Miley Cyrus' Car Confusion At Coffee Bean - January 9: 2010 …
3. [WATCH VIDEO]: Haiti the small fraction 2 …

Get paid to share your links!

The Cash Flow Statement is derived from the Cash Flow Budget, which is a forecast of cash receipts and payments.  The Cash Flow Budget shows if adequate cash is available for expenses, equipment and goods purchases.  Cash Flow also indicates whether external sources of cash are necessary.  While many business owners think profits are the most important financial component of a company, the lack of cash is oftentimes the biggest reason for business bankruptcy.  In fact, a business may be profitable; yet, it doesn’t have the cash to pay its expenses.  Therefore, efficient Cash Flow Forecasting, Planning and management are essential to a Company’s success and should be an integral part of a company’s Business Plan.

Planning for cash flow is both on a short term and long term basis (daily, weekly and montly to quarterly and yearly). This way a business can have the optimum amount of cash on hand for its requirements. You can control the flow of cash into your business in order to make the necessary payments while still not maintaining an excessively high cash balance through an effective Cash Flow Budget. This is a management function as the speed and effeciency of cash flow moving through an enterprise allows the business owner to turn it back into sales and income more quickly and with efficiency. This results in much greater profitability and minimizes the company’s interest payments.

The Cash Flow Statement can be a complicated Financial to develop and manage.  Therefore, the Cash Flow Budget is a great place to start and is a very effective tool to manage your business cash flow.  The Cash Flow Budget has three principal sections to manage:

1)     Cash to be received

2)     Expected Cash Payments

3)     When payments are to be made

The monthly Cash Flow Budget is the primary Cash Flow format.  We recommend working on three months at a time and build out the Budget for 12-18 months projected in advance.  Each month should have a Budget Goal and Actual Column, and the Budget should be on a rolling basis (as you complete a quarter, budget another three months).

The first bottom-line for the Cash Flow Budget is the End of the Month Cash Balance, which is computed as follows:  Beginning Month Cash Balance + Total Cash Receipts – Total Cash Payments

Simply put, a negative cash balance will require an increase in cash receipts, a lessening in payments, or accessing a short-term loan.  The second bottom-line is the End of Month Available Cash, which is derived by subtracting the Monthly Contingency Cash in demand and Short-term Loans Required. 

The third bottom-line is the Cash Required for Capital Investments, which is calculated by taking the End of Month Available Cash and factoring in Desired Capital Cash and Long-Term Loans Required. 

By effectively Planning your Cash Flow Forecast and Managing the various key elements of the Cash Flow Budget, a business owner can pick up the right amount of cash available, when needed.  Please appertain to the end of this Article for a Cash Flow Budget Worksheet to assist you in Forecasting, Planning and Managing your Company’s Cash Flow. 

Having constructed your Cash Flow Budget, you can now effectively manage your Cash Flow needs.  By using some numbers from your Income Statement and Balance Sheet, you can analyze your present cash situation and apply that to future Cash Flow analysis.  It is important to understand the relationships between your Financial Statements in order to effectively Manage, Plan and Forecast Cash Flows. 

Predict and Manage Sales Related Cash Flow Issues

A couple Key Formulas: the DSO and DPO

1)     The Average number of days to collect money from customers or the Days Sales Outstanding (DSO): (Accounts Receivable divided by Annual Sales) x 365

2)     The Average number of days to pay your bills or Days Payables Outstanding (DPO): (Accounts Payable divided by Annual Sales) x 365

How can the DSO and DPO be Applied to your Business?

1)     If your DPO is greater than your DSO, you can sway or float your bills longer than your customers do and cash will accumulate.

2)     If DSO is greater than DPO and your customers are slower in paying their bills, then cash is departing the business.

3)     When DPO is greater than DSO, the bigger the difference, the more cash is flowing into the business and vice versa.

4)     The difference between DPO and DSO, termed the Float, is the number of sales days in cash that is flowing in or out of the business each year.  The equation is:  (Sales divided by 365) x Float

a)     As an example: A $1.5M  Sales Revenue business with only eight days of negative float will see $33,000 in cash flow go out the door.  This problem can be compounded if the drop happens during one payment cycle.

How Can You Fix A Negative Cash Flow? 

Well, it is really pretty simple.  A couple options:

1)     Collect receivables more quickly from customers.

2)     Obtain better payment terms from suppliers.

Combining options one and two will exponentially increase your cash flows, putting much less strain on your business operations and allowing you to manage more effectively for Profits. 

Conclusion

In order to effectively manage Cash Flow in your business, you must understand the relationship between your Cash Flow Statement, Profit and Loss Statement and Balance Sheet, and what these financials are telling you.  The Cash Flow Budget is the first step in developing your Cash Flow Statement, utilizing the numbers generated through your Profit Analysis and Income Statement and your Balance Sheet.  The Cash Flow Budget is a great tool to manage and plan your levels of Cash Flow (please see an example Cash Flow Budget Worksheet below). 

Monthly Cash Flow Budget Worksheet Example

– Prepare on a Monthly Outlook Basis with Budgeted and Actual Columns

Expected Cash Receipts:

Cash Sales

Accounts Receivable Collections

Other Income

Total Cash Receipts

Expected Cash Payments:

Purchase Goods & Equipment

Salaries

Utilities

Depreciation

Rent

Building Services

Insurance

Office Expenses

Interest

Sales Promotion

Taxes & Licenses

Maintenance

Delivery

Misc

Total Cash Payments

Cash Balance:

Beginning Month Cash Balance

Cash Change (Total Cash Receipts minus Total Cash Payments)

End of Month Cash Balance

Desired Contingency Cash Balance

Short-Term Loans Required

Available Cash – End of Month

Cash for Capital Investments:

Available Cash- End of Month

Desired Capital Cash

Long-Term Loans Required

About this Article Writer

Frank Goley is a business plan consultant, business consultant, and business turnaround consultant for ABC Business Consulting, and he has been helping companies to succeed for many years. He is an expert in developing business plans, marketing plans, funding plans, strategic plans, turnaround plans, web marketing strategies, and project specific business plans. Frank is also a business coach and a web development, web marketing and web seo consultant. Frank is author of the business plan book, The Comprehensive Business Plan Workbook – A Step by Step Guide to Effective Business Planning, and he has over 50 published articles on business success strategies. He also writes the Business Success Strategies Blog.

Related Blogs

• Small Business Health Insurance Quotations « When Problems Get Solved
• RCHR Forum Giveaway- Month 2 | RC Heli Resource
• Jobs & Business | Business Consulting Services
• brandfans » Blog Archive » &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp
• Rochester MN Yellow Trucking nbsp SEARCH FOREnter …

Related Articles

1. Business Consultant Internet Marketing Small ? The 5 Advantages Of Being A Business Consultant …

Trackbacks

1. SUCCESSFUL INTERNET MARKETING …
2. Brand management software for managing your business …
3. Use The Internet For A Successful Local Business Marketing Plan …

Get paid to share your links!

Internet marketing is a huge business opportunity. The ways to make money, the number of things to sell and the number of people to deal with are almost without limit. The problem with the size and number of things to sell is that it’s easy to become unfocused and try to make money with too many things at the same time. You must stay focused and operate in a small area or soon you can be overwhelmed with all the different directions you’ll be going and your business will likely go upside down. This is where strategic internet marketing can come to the rescue.

Trying to come up with a solid internet marketing plan is probably the hardest thing about making money online. There are a lot of thing you need to think about, such as building a website, how the website will be developed, how it will marketed plus many other things. The website is just a small part of your overall business plan. You still have to think about what the market is doing, how you can fit into the market, how to work with your customers, who and where are your potential buyers, how you are going to attract visitors and literally dozens of other considerations. All of these things will be a part of your internet marketing strategy. With so many things to think about what should your priority be?

Now is when you need to start putting a strategic internet marketing plan into motion. The strategy is to figure out your potential market and where your business is going to come from. You must study your potential buyers and determine what they want to buy. You will need to study your competition to see where you will fit into the business that already established. How will you attract your customers and what you’ll need to do to make them repeat buyers?. Its a fairly well known fact that if you don’t have a well thought out internet marketing strategy you are setting yourself up for failure.

Why is strategic internet marketing important? Because it helps you outline your business goals distinctly and enables you to make your objectives clear. Although you need a solid plan it needs to be flexible enough to be able to change it if there is a drastic change in the market or your circumstances.

In order to start your internet marketing strategy there are a number of points you need to think about. Here are 6 of what are probably the most important ones. These will help you outline your plan and help you keep you internet marketing business on the right path to success.

1. You need to start by figuring out what your target market is. There are a number of questions you need to find the answers to. These include: what type of people are going to supply most of your income, where will these people come from, how much extra money will they have to spend, what will be their age group, etc. The answers to these questions will help you decide who you customers will be.

2. Strategic internet marketing doesn’t stop with just figuring out who your customers are. You must also define who your competitors will be and what their weakness and strengths are in the marketplace. Once you know these things you can plan a strategy to set your business apart from them. Give your potential customers a choice of you or your competition. Make sure you look better than your competitor in some way or it won’t be good for you.

3. For your internet business to succeed your target buyer must be willing to shop online. Although shopping online is very safe there are still people who are afraid to make purchase on the internet. You will need to reassure your customers that their transaction will be without problems and that it will be very secure. Make sure you have enough payment options so that they will have a choice that will help convince them to shop with you.

4. Even though you will have already started your business before you can determine the marketability of your product, you study sellers offering the same or a similar product. If your product is known to most people but no one is selling it there is probably a reason. By going to chat rooms and forums you can get a pretty good idea of where you product stands. Do enough research to make sure you have something that will sell.

5. Your internet marketing strategy must have the ability to turn your customers into repeat buyers. Make sure you can spin off your product or create improvements to you original product to get them to buy again. A list of 100 buyers is probably worth more than a list of 1,000 people who have shown interest in your product but haven’t purchased it.

6. You will need to have a money back guarantee. Most people won’t purchase in today’s market without one. Even though it’s true that you can’t please everyone be ready to give an unhappy customer their money back immediately. You should try to offer them something free just for trying your product. Most of them will appreciate it and may even become a customer later on. If nothing else it may create a positive instead of a negative to your business.

Strategic internet marketing is like hunting with a guide who knows the area and the game you’re hunting like the back of his hand. Without the guide you may get lost or if you don’t you will probably never see any game because you’re looking in the wrong place.

One thing you have to keep in mind is that your customers won’t come looking for you. This is the reason you need to be looking for them with a strategic internet marketing plan as your guide.

Related Articles

1. Let's Talk Sexy Little Things …
2. Let's Talk Sexy Little Things Noir …
3. Let's Talk Sexy Little Things Noir …

Trackbacks

1. Seven Inexpensive Marketing Tips For Day Spa Owners …
2. Best Way to Lose Weight and Quickest Way to Lose Weight Are Two Entirely Different Things …
3. Things to Consider When On A Liquid Diet to Lose Weight …

Get paid to share your links!

To be apart from other many competitors in the affiliate marketing business, there are many proven tactics in affiliate marketing business. Some of those tactics are very powerful for affiliate marketing entrepreneurs to be an outstanding among others. You will discover and learn great affiliate marketing tips, workable affiliate marketing ideas, proven tactics in affiliate marketing to be apart from your competitors in this article.

Now, I am going to share you the 7 proven tactics in affiliate marketing business in order to ensure that you will stay in the affiliate marketing business and outstanding among other affiliates.

1. Conduct the fixed affiliate marketing business plan. There is no doubt that planning is the first critical factor for all business in the world. It will save your time and money. The undo and redo tasks will be minimized. Also, you will have more time to grow your affiliate business when you have your own fixed affiliate marketing plan. Surprisingly, I have found that several affiliate marketing entrepreneurs have their own fixed affiliate marketing business plan. This business plan is a must for all affiliate marketing entrepreneurs who are looking for how to go step forward to their competitors and grow their business. It is an absolutely great affiliate marketing ideas to come up with the fixed daily business plan. The great affiliate marketing tips for this tactic is to start planning monthly, weekly and daily for your affiliate business.

2. Come up with aggressive affiliate marketing ideas. There are many affiliate marketing ideas, techniques or strategies to earn more affiliate commission on the internet. The aggressive affiliate marketing ideas is one of the most effective ways to gain more sales and build highly profitable affiliate marketing business. The real key to your success in this proven tactics in affiliate marketing is to keep advertising your affiliate products consistency with several of marketing techniques. My experiences show that you will reach a wider range of customers and earn more affiliate sales with this proven tactics. For example, you can keep advertising your affiliate products through email marketing. The aggressive idea is to keep sending quality emails (i.e. follow-up message or broadcast emails) to your subscribers to advertise your affiliate products.

3. Combine your affiliate marketing ideas. This proven tactic is very powerful in the affiliate marketing particularly for building highly profitable home based affiliate business in long term. All you have to do for the proven tactics in your affiliate marketing business is to think. Creativity mindset is one of the key successes of this tactics. For example, you can apply email marketing with the article marketing by sending a high quality and fully articles to your subscribers. With those fully articles, you can lead readers to your website or reprint your articles on their websites.

4. Automate your affiliate marketing business with tools. With the daily business tasks in affiliate marketing, you will have no time to think and grow your affiliate business. My highest recommendation is to find an automated software or tool to help you to deliver automatically services or products. Obviously, for example, the auto-responder software is a must for all affiliates to deliver their email, newsletter or promotion information to their subscribers. With this auto-responder software, you can send and reply email automatically to your subscribers or even customers. I am sure that with those kinds of automated software, you will release yourself from daily business as usual task and will have more time to grow your affiliate marketing business.

5. Protect your affiliate commission and business. There are many hackers and crackers on the internet. It is an absolutely great affiliate marketing ideas to protect your affiliate commission and business with software. With that software, you will ensure that your affiliate commission will not be stolen by third parties on the internet. There are many link protections, prevention and convert software for your affiliate links on the internet. Another example of protecting your home based affiliate business is to backup your important information and list. This is a must for affiliates to ensure that those affiliate marketing business will not be lose in any situations.

6. Offer great incentives and bonuses. There are no doubt that if there are two affiliate marketing entrepreneurs who are promoting the same affiliate products in the same industry, the winner is a person who offers better incentives and bonuses to potential customers. The examples of great incentives and bonuses could be: a package of software, a set of special reports, superb additional services and great books. The great affiliate marketing ideas to find the bonuses are: to find resell products and to conduct special reports.

7. Spy on your competitors. Keeping your eyes on your competitors is the powerful and proven tactic in affiliate marketing business. You can start spying your competitors by subscribing their newsletter or buying their products, if they have. Other great examples are: to spy their keywords and history of changing websites. There are many spy keyword tools or tracking website software on the internet to spy on your competitors. Personally, I believe that this tactics has been proven and it is a great alternative approach in affiliate marketing business.

Final thoughts, I strongly believe that you can be apart from your competitors with those above 7 proven tactics in affiliate marketing. Remember, the first key of your success is to come up with the fixed affiliate marketing business plan. Then, all you have to do is to take those tactics into your affiliate marketing promotion plan now. You will see great results in the long run. And you will success in the affiliate marketing business.

Read more to discover zero investment internet marketing technique to maximize your profits online. You will learn brand new techniques, proven tips and inside secrets of how to earn $60 per minute on the internet. With those tips, techniques and secrets, you are boosting skyrocket your affiliate commission in your home based affiliate business.

Learn Affiliate Marketing on Video from Ewen Chia’s new brand video sets to discover top inside tips, techniques and secrets of how to make money over $100,000 within 7 days through your home base internet business affiliate marketing. You will learn affiliate marketing from one of the best affiliate teachers in the world. You will discover great 15 affiliate traffic tactics, which drive laser-targeted & high quality traffic to your affiliate website, like crazy. Also, you will learn how to become an outstanding among your competitors through 7 simple strategies. Finally, you will earn money every single month while you learn affiliate marketing from him.

Read more valuable articles, news and up-to-date information about home based affiliate business at: http://www.zMillionDollars.com/blog. You will discover a wealthy of informative about how to start, build, run and grow your home based affiliate business.

*Reprint Policy: Reprint in full with writer’s name, contact information, active links and brief bio.

Trackbacks

1. Four Proven Lose Weight Fast Diet Tips …
2. Healthy Liquid Diets from Drink Your Meals …
3. Diabetic Diets: Dr. Neal Barnard's Program for Reversing Diabetes: The Scientifically Proven System for Reversing Diabetes without Drugs …