You’ve made the decision – you want to set up your own business. Brilliant! What next? These 10 easy to follow steps will take you through our ADAPT-THRIVE-GROW model of creating your first business plan. #firstbusinessplan #myownbusiness #strategicplan
In this post we will tackle Steps. 4-7, the THRIVE stage (if you missed Steps 1-3: ADAPT you can find them here).
THRIVE is all about setting up solid foundations once you’ve finished the research phase. At this point you’ll be looking at your budget, your time, your connections, your opportunities and your potential roadblocks.
REALISTIC and PRACTICAL are the buzz words of the THRIVE stage!
We are here to help at all of these stages with online courses to walk through this in more detail or specific personalised sessions on business planning. Just contact us!
ADAPT: This is where you take your general idea for what you want to do and adapt it to fit the business landscape that you’re entering.
THRIVE: The actions that set up your business to be successful and provide a solid foundations to launch forward (the focus of this post).
GROW: Your business idea is ready to launch, now let’s make sure it can fly
THRIVE
Step #4: Gap Analysis
A gap analysis is all about being honest with yourself. You sit down and consider your skills, resources, money, your strengths and weaknesses. The aim is to work out where you are at the moment and where you think you need to be for (a) Launch of the business and (b) Successful running of the business. The gap between where you are and where you need to be gives you your to-do list. You don’t need to panic about the perfect scenario, just be realistic about what you need to get off the ground.
THRIVE
Step #5: Budget Setting
Every business start-up will have a different requirement for upfront investment and every person will have a different attitude to risk as well as different access to funds. There are however two rules which apply to everyone:
1
Create Your Start-up Budget
It may seem dull or scary or very ‘corporate’ but you absolutely need a budget. It is responsible business practice and a legal tax requirement that you keep track of all your expenditure and income.
For those of us to whom maths doesn’t come naturally, this doesn’t have to be complicated – but it is critical nonetheless. How else will you know to celebrate when you make your first profit?!
2
Spend Cautiously
Even if you have a £1m angel investor who is happy for you use the money on anything in the business (but let’s face it, most of us don’t have one of those!) you still want to only spend money initially where it is critical for launch.
Your Gap Analysis should have shown you where the ‘big ticket’ items are, so now it’s about prioritising.
Remember the less money you spend in the early days, the quicker you’ll make a profit.
THRIVE
Step #6: Measure Your Progress
What does success look like for you and for your business? Is it £earned, numbers sold, clients helped, website hits, hours back to spend with the children..? Everyone will have a different set of goals, but you won’t know if you’re making progress towards them unless you measure them.
Measurement can be very technical and very detailed, for example website statistics or conversion rates for marketing activity and often you will need a few different measures working together to show the full picture. They can also be fairly straightforward, such as number of products sold or clients helped (as long as you are tracking them!). If you’d like some tailored help with setting measures and understanding the data then please contact us.
Data can be your best friend or your worst enemy. It’s abundant and easy to get hold of, so it’s important to measure the right things. Cherry-picking the right data sources should show you progress, flag potential problems and guide future decisions.
Posts to read next..
10 Steps to Kick Start Your New Business Plan – PART 1: ADAPT
This is the starting point of your new business plan, where you take your general idea for what you want to do and adapt it to fit the business landscape that you’re entering
10 Steps to Kick Start Your New Business Plan – PART 3: GROW
Your business idea is ready to launch, now let’s make sure it can fly!