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1. Business Planning - The Process
SWOT Analysis
Business Planning
The Process

2. Business Planning - The Process
SWOT Analysis
Strategically analyze your business. Find out what your strengths,
weaknesses, opportunities and threats are. Increase your strengths,
minimize your weaknesses, exploit your opportunities and avoid the
threats. Click here
The ability to set and implement a business plan is a key skill of good
leadership. A business plan determines EVERYTHING that happens to
and in a business. To a large extent it determines the level of
excellence that can be reached.
To start the business planning process you have to develop a vision,
mission, and values statement and do a complete internal and
external evaluation of where your business, or planned business,
stands.
Your Vision, Mission and Values, should be written for both you
personally and for your business. You should refer to them regularly
to help you focus on what you believe in, where you want to go
personally and where you want your business to go. Your personal
and business statements combined become your business' culture
which will be significant as you go forward and build your business.

3. Business Planning - The Process
SWOT Analysis
Once you have your Vision, Mission and Values statement in place and
have completed your internal and external evaluation, the next step is
to put together a SWOT Analysis for your business (SWOT=
Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats). You have to do some
real soul searching on this and put the information on paper as
honestly and in as much detail as you can.
With the SWOT analysis complete your next step is to define your
goals and objectives.
Goals are the next step down from the Vision. Vision is the big
picture. Goals are generally short term (1,3,6, 12 months). Goals need
to be outlined for you and your business.
Objectives, sometimes confused with goals, are the specifics of how
to reach each goal. Objectives are measurable. They should be
established for the same time frame as your goals.

4. Business Planning - The Process
SWOT Analysis
Objectives must support your goals. Both goals and objectives must
be realistic and obtainable. Setting goals and objectives that are not
realistic and obtainable increases the odds of failure and frustration.
Next is to define the strategies that will be used to meet your goals
and objectives.
Strategies can be as simple as a one-page listing of each strategy to a
multi-paged document defining each strategy and associated tactics in
detail. you must review your strategies regularly.
Tactics are the specific steps you need to put in place to implement
each strategy.
Tactics should be written, detailed and measurable.
Strategies and Tactics are dynamic and need to be reviewed weekly
and adjusted based on results being obtained, or not being obtained,
and other factors that may arise and potentially affect the end results
you are seeking.

5. Business Planning - The Process
SWOT Analysis
To complete your business plan you need to add your key staffs BIO's
and your revenue plan which is a complete topic in itself.
In summary:
A business plan united by a clear vision, mission and values statement
tends to accomplish far more in a shorter period of time than those
without a clear statement.
Always hold firm on your vision, it should be the cornerstone of your
operation, your guiding light.
Your Strategies and Tactics should be fluid. You always need to be
forward looking. Being proactive in managing your strategies and
tactics will give you the best chance of realizing your vision. If you are
only reactive to changes or problems, you will not reach your
objectives.
The key to a successful business plan is to jointly set the business
strategy and tactics with all the key people involved, so that everyone

6. Business Planning - The Process
SWOT Analysis
is aligned with the vision, mission, values and goals. This insures that
the business goes forward with everyone working together, promoting
the vision and mission internally, as well as externally. This gives the
business the greatest chance of attaining it's goals.
Setting a business strategy requires an understanding of the
companys' history, in particular the past year, and then looking
forward to the year ahead in detail and the next four years in general.
A business plan is only a plan. It is only as good as the people
implementing it. ALIGNMENT IS KEY. Forces pulling together in the
same direction, will accomplish much more than forces pulling in
different directions. A team working together. This requires good
business management.
The future will not happen if one wishes hard enough. It requires
decision, it imposes risk, it requires action, it demands allocation of
resources, above all human resources, it requires work. - Peter
Drucker on Strategic Planning.

7. Business Planning - The Process
SWOT Analysis
Strategically analyze your business. Find out what your strengths,
weaknesses, opportunities and threats are. Increase your strengths,
minimize your weaknesses, exploit your opportunities and avoid the
threats. Click here

8. Business Planning - The Process
SWOT Analysis
Learn more on SWOT Analysis at http://www.bizstrategies.biz/swot-analysis.html
Andrew Nester is a Business Management Consultant providing business strategy
processes and consulting support to companies of all sizes. Visit our web site at
http://www.bizstrategies.biz for more information. You can email Andrew at
andrew@bizstrategies.biz or reach him by phone at 707-987-8375
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