Tag Archive for 'Business planning'

Build strategic alliances for sales growth

Published
by
Jim Blasingame
on April 12, 2011
in Business planning and Strategic alliances
. 0 Comments

There are three management disciplines which, while not new, have a heightened level of importance for success in the 21st century: Leveraging technology, networking and building strategic alliances.

No doubt you’ve become more proficient with the tech stuff. And who isn’t a better networker today than 10 years ago? But can you say you’ve nailed the partnering thing?

When small businesses come to the end of their resources of people, assets, technology, cash and credit, they have to do something as primordial as when Og asked Gog to hold the chisel while he carved out his new stone invention that looked a lot like a donut. They have to seek alliances.

Answer these questions: Is your business growth hampered by a lack of people, capital or other assets? Would you like to bid on a request-for-proposal (RFP) that has specifications beyond your company’s ability to perform? Are you reluctant to ask a large customer about their future plans for fear that your organization may not be able to step up to the answer? ___(Your lament here)___.

If any of these – or variations thereof – are way too familiar, consider one or more of these three alliance examples, in descending order of formality.

Partner
A partner relationship is more formal and typically longer term. Regardless of how it’s structured, in general, all partners have a vested interest in the success of the entire enterprise. Think of two business owners buying a commercial duplex and sharing the space because neither has the cash or credit to swing the deal alone. Most partnerships are best organized with the help of an attorney.

Sub-contractor
By definition, a sub-contractor becomes a contractual participant you bring in to help fulfill a larger project for which you are the lead vendor. Unlike a partner, a sub expects to get paid for delivery of work or products regardless of how the project turns out.

Strategic alliance
Here’s an informal strategic alliance example. Let’s say a jeweler, florist and photographer join forces to produce a marketing/advertising campaign for brides that represents all three brands. After the campaign is executed and paid for, the participants may have no further connection.

Before giving up on a project because you don’t have the in-house resources, look around for ways to create alliances that could allow you to take advantage of that opportunity.

If Og the caveman can create an alliance, you can too.

I talked more about the 21st century business practice of creating alliances this morning on my radio program, The Small Business Advocate Show. Take a few minutes to listen and leave your best practices on creating strategic alliances.

How good are you at building strategic alliances? with Jim Blasingame

For more information on building alliances to grow your business, click here: Strategic Alliances.

A business plan and business planning

Published
by
Jim Blasingame
on March 9, 2011
in Business planning
. 0 Comments

A business plan is the result of thinking, researching, strategizing, and reaching conclusions about how to pursue opportunities. It may exist only in the head of the planner, but it’s better when written down.

Whether elaborate or simple, a written business plan is an assembly of facts, ideas, assumptions and projections about the future. Here are three ways to use a written plan:

  1. Document the due diligence on a new business or the future of an existing one.
  2. Evaluate opportunities and challenges, and compare them with your strengths and weaknesses.
  3. Assist when getting a bank loan and essential when courting investors.

So how does a static, written plan work when a business is always in motion? It works when you turn your plan into planning. A plan is like a parked car; planning is taking that car on a trip.

Planning is measuring your business motion against the baseline of assumptions and projections you made in your plan. Planning allows you to see how smart you were when the plan was written, or where your research and assumption skills need work. It also highlights external forces you face.

Written business plans often become collateral damage during challenging economic times. But you can’t allow planning to meet the same fate. Indeed, when things slow down there is even greater need to check your position than when things are rocking and rolling.

Here is a critical two-step planning activity that is the heart of a business plan and the essence of planning. Beginning with these will help you operate more successfully anytime, but especially when things are slow.

  • Build a 12-month cash flow spreadsheet in a program like Excel, so you can project and track the monthly relationship between cash collections and cash disbursements from all sources. This planning tool will provide a rolling picture of cash flow in any given month.
  • Look at the “Ending cash” number at the bottom of each month’s column. A negative number in any month means you’ll need to add cash from sales, reduce expenses, add cash from another source, like a bank loan, or some combination.

A banker once told me that if I could bring him only one financial document with a loan request it should be a 12-month cash flow projection that included both how the borrowed cash would be used and the debt service. I always listen to my banker and you should too.

I talked more about business plans and planning on my radio program, The Small Business Advocate Show. I’ve also talked with Tim Berry, the guru of business planning, founder of Palo Alto Software and author of The Plan As You Go Business Plan, about the difference in business planning and a business plan. Take a few minutes to click on the links below and listen, plus leave your ideas on how planning helps your small business.

Write your business plan, but practice business planning with Jim Blasingame

The difference between business planning and a business plan with Tim Berry

Three myths small business owners tell themselves

Published
by
Jim Blasingame
on November 21, 2010
in Business planning and Entrepreneurship
. 0 Comments

Want to be your own boss? Good for you. But that’s the definition of someone who is independently wealthy, not a small business owner. When you own a small business, you’ll have many more bosses than when you were an employee.

Are passion and persistence enough to succeed as a small business owner? Clearly, they’re important, but what about those difficult days – when payables exceed receivables, on payroll Friday, when customers are the most difficult, when an employee becomes part of the problem? You’re going to need more than passion – you’re going to need management fundamentals

Do you think a business plan is passé? Well, if you think a business plan is just something to write down, print out and put on a shelf, don’t waste your time. But if you understand that a business plan you create, organize and use as a critical management tool, then it’s becomes passé on the day that success becomes passé.

Recently, on my radio program, The Small Business Advocate Show, I talked about these three topics, with one of the founding members of my Brain Trust, Tim Berry. Tim is the world’s guru on business planning and the founder of Palo Alto Software, the makers of Business Plan Pro.

Each of these “myths,” as Tim calls them is in its own short podcast, so you can listen to each topic separately. I hope you’ll take a few minutes to listen and learn. And of course, please lever your own comments.

Myth 1: You can be your own boss

Myth 2: Passion and persistence are enough

Myth 3: A business plan is no longer necessary

Tim Berry’s Top 10 reasons small business start-ups fail

Published
by
Jim Blasingame
on April 16, 2010
in Business planning and Start-up
. 0 Comments

In 1998, the SBA reported that 50% of small businesses fail in the first five years. That wasn’t good news but, sadly, it got worse. By 2008, the mortality of small businesses actually increased by 20% when it was reported that 50% of small businesses were now failing in the first FOUR years.

There are as many reasons why a business fails as there are business failures, but over the years it has become clear that all of those micro-reasons can be conveyed up into a smaller number of macro-reasons, including being under-capitalized, bad management, bad idea, failure to plan, etc.

Recently, on my small business radio program, The Small Business Advocate Show, I talked with someone who knows a lot about why some small business fail and why some succeed. Tim Berry is the founder of Palo Alto Software, the publisher of Business Plan Pro, the #1-rated software for developing a business plan and the author of two great books on business planning, The Plan as You go Business Plan and the business planning bible, Hurdle: The Book of Business Planning.  Tim is also one of the founding members of my Brain Trust.

Take a few minutes to listen to our conversation on why businesses fail so you can avoid making these mistakes and land in the survive and succeed category. And, as always, leave your own story and/or comments. Listen Live! Download, Too!

Your small business, your banker and economic recovery

Published
by
Jim Blasingame
on February 24, 2010
in Banking - Investors - Capital, Business planning and Cashflow - Credit - Collections
. 2 Comments

A small business is like the human body in at least two ways: To survive, it must have both nutrition - food and water - plus oxygen. For a business, nutrition is profits, and its oxygen is cash flow. And similar to the body, a business can survive for a while without the nourishment of profits but not very long without the breath of cash flow.

Arguably, the greatest reasons small businesses fail is they run out of cash. And as improbable as this may seem, even businesses with plenty of sales revenue - if cash is not collected in time - can fail. Every growing business, large or small, needs access to cash resources that can smooth out the operating cash rough spots. But for a small business, those resources are few in number, with the primary source being a loan from a bank.

If there is one thing that I have harped on for the past dozen years, it’s the importance of a small business establishing and maintaining a close working relationship with a bank. Furthermore, a decade before the financial meltdown of 2008-9, I began encouraging small businesses to make sure at least one of their bank relationships was with an independent community bank.  That advice turned out to be prophetic.

Recently, on my radio program, The Small Business Advocate Show, I talked about getting your small business ready for the coming expansion and building better banking relationships with an outstanding member of my Brain Trust, John Dini. We discussed some of the elements of growth that you should begin planning for right now, including a capitalization plan that includes a closer relationship with your banker. John is the leading Tab Boards franchisee in the U.S., President of Management Performance Network and author of 103 Tips for Better Hiring.

Take a few minutes to listen to our conversation and, as always, leave your thoughts on banking relationships and how you’re getting your business ready for the coming expansion. Listen Live! Download, Too!

2009: The throw-away year for small business

Published
by
Jim Blasingame
on March 16, 2009
in Business planning and Economy: National and Global
. 2 Comments

This isn’t my first rodeo. I’ve been in the marketplace during seven recessions, counting this one. The one in the middle ’70s was a mean one. The next one, in the early ’80s, was a bad one too because it was actually two recessions back-to-back.

This one – the one that began in the fourth quarter of 2007 and has progressively gotten worse – will go down in the books as the worst since the Great Depression. Based on my decades of experience and my professional marketplace observations, here are a few thoughts on where we’ve been, where we are and where we’re going.

1. Anything prior to 2009 is ancient history with regard to the marketplace and the way we will do business in the future. This recession includes all of the scary and dangerous things that happened in 2008 but, on Main Street at least, most of 2008 was pretty much like 2007.

2. The year 2009 is merely the transition year between how we used to do business and how we will do business in the future. An awful lot of what we have done and will do to survive 2009 won’t be all that relevant in 2010, so don’t fall in love with it.

No one will ever look back on 2009 with nostalgia. We’re likely to look back and see it as the “throw-away year” - a lot of bad news without delivering much value for the future.

3. After 2009 the marketplace will enter a new era with more government involvement, less risk-taking and new influences, such as new technologies, the growing influences of social media, and the increased influences of Gen X and Gen Y, which are now about half of the U.S. population. The next expansion will begin with more new paradigms than any other in history, which means that recent history will be less relevant than it has been in past recoveries.

My reason for saying all of this is because as we’re dealing with the survival realities of 2009, we have to simultaneously look for how things will be in 2010 and beyond, which will be a lot different. Wouldn’t it be a shame if we survive 2009 and find that we’re uncompetitive for 2010?

Recently, I talked about the year 2009 on my small business radio program, The Small Business Advocate Show. Take a few minutes to listen, and be sure to leave a comment.