Welcome to all the new members who joined our group during this last week.
This year is going to be the best year yet. Have you got your business goals and plan in place for the new year. If not, you had better get it done as soon as possible. The plan is your roadmap to your success, so it is vitally important that you start off the year on the right foot.

I have regurgitated an article on planning for the business that I wrote some time ago, and hopefully it will assist those of you who are still in the process of creating the plan.

A short break for this week's sponsor.

This week's Article
Title - Developing your business plan

The business plan is your route map to achieving your goals. It is essential to your success to create and then follow a plan otherwise you will have no direction and may well be traveling in ever decreasing circles to………….say no more.

Suffice to say that the business plan is not something that is developed at the very start of creating your business and then left on a hard drive, or a shelf to gather dust. It should be a living document and is something that needs to be dusted off on a regular basis and re-evaluated. Are you achieving your goals? Is the planned logic sound? In other words is everything on track?

Your original business plan should have included a detailed step by step plan to show the tasks and systems you intended to use to achieve your goals. It should have also included the strategy that you would be utilizing to accomplish each stage in the plan to ensure success.

The frequency for reviewing your plan is entirely up to you, but it is suggested that you at least review your progress against the plan every three months as a minimum. In the early stages of a plan, it would be prudent to evaluate your progress every month until you are satisfied that your business is achieving it's goals and objectives.

Your plan will inevitably be tied into financial goals that you have set. It will also show the tasks and the systems that you plan to complete in the process of achieving them. So, whatever the frequency that you check your progress you will need to confirm that what was planned was indeed achieved during the period in question.

Did you achieve the financial goals for the period in the timeframe allocated? - Maybe you achieved some, but not all.

Did the systems that you used to complete the tasks work well? - Maybe some worked very well, but others were not so successful.

Analyze the answers you obtain. For those systems that worked successfully continue working in a similar manner for future tasks that use the same system.
For those items that did not meet the targets set it will be necessary to evaluate why they did not work effectively. Why did it not work? What went wrong? Was the system used flawed? What did you do to complete the task. Whatever you needed to do to complete the task will need to be reviewed and the revised actions incorporated into the rest of the plan.

Continuous improvement is essential in a good business plan. Adjusting and tweaking all elements of the systems based on your experience in the previous period can only make your plan more achievable and will provide you with an updated road map to achieving your dreams. Plan each step very carefully and fully research your options. Plan your work then work your plan and you'll be well on your way to achieving your goals.

I hope that this week's issue was of interest to you, and maybe you found something that would be helpful in your own business. If so, I would appreciate any feedback you may have so that I can align future content to better suit your needs. Send them to newsletter@newbieshelp.com

Sincerely,
Derek Jones
Newbies Help - Editor

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