Anticipating Change: Staying Current with Your Business Plan

1^st pod cast selected was “Anticipating Change:  Staying Current with Your Business Plan”.  I chose this pod cast because writing a business plan is where I am currently at in my life.

Point 1.  Financial transcripts. 

 He talked about how important it was to maintain a balance sheet, profit and loss, and a cash flow statement.  He explained how you can use these to since market change and adjust to it.  The example he used was the restaurant trade and how when they noticed that the average ticket was down they needed to make decisions on what to do about it, such as Introduce specials, cut administrative cost, be sure that their service people where suggesting add-on sales.

Before going to point #2 find your zen spot and check out these beautiful cherry blossom paintings

Point 2 communicating your business plan to your employees.

Once you have determined to make a change and you update your business plan to reflect these changes you can’t stop there.  Just because you wrote it in you business plan does not mean that it is going to happen, you need to act on it.  You need to be sure to tell your employees what the new direction the company is going and lead them in that direction.  Without the support for the new direction you will not go anywhere. 

Point 3 Growth and expansion.

Some of what a business plan is supposed to accomplish it to test out new ideas; to see if they are profitable or feasible on paper before launching the idea into your business.  If you want to grow or expand your business it is a good Idea to test it out in your business plan 1^st.  You want to make sure that you have the labor recourses and the financial means to launch an expansion.  You also want to make sure that you market can support your expansion.  Test driving this expansion in you business plan before launching it can save you and your business a lot of heart ache in working out the bugs. 

 

The 2^nd pod cast I chose was “Is Entrepreneurship for You?”  I choose this because there are times when my kids want my attention or I am just out of energy and ask myself what I am doing working more than a full time job, going to school, trying to turn a profit in my own endeavor, and making time to spend with my family. 

Point 1Decision making

When you own your own business you are the decision maker.  You don’t have a boss to fall back on to make the tuff decisions.  If you are having a hard time deciding what do to you don’t have anybody looking over your shoulder to keep you motivated and help.  When an employee does not show up for work you are the one that has to deal with the desition on how to handle it.  Not only in discipline for the employee but what your game plan is to get through the day being short an employee. 

Point 2.  Finances.

Many small businesses use their own credit card to finance their venture.  You need to stay on top of the billing so you don’t have to pay exurbanite finance charges.  Many small businesses barrow from their family, it is important to have a good agreement between you and who you are barrowing from to be sure not to hurt any family ties if something goes wrong with the business.

Point 3 Free training.

They talked extensively about the free training programs at www.sba.gov/training.  They have courses set up to help you apply for financing & accounting, submitting product for sale to the US government, survuvubg a slow economy, Marketing & advertising, as well as how to write a business plan.  They also offer free counciling.

 

The best pod cast was “Anticipating Change:  Staying Current with Your Business Plan”.  I found it helpful talking about staying current in you business and in you business plan, that you have to take an active approach to stay on top of what is going on in your market.  The 2^nd one was help full for future reference but was more of an advertisement of their services than actually learning something from it.