Business Planning: How to Effectively Plan a Business and Implement

Olasunbo Joshua
4 min readMay 15, 2022

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The core purpose of having an effective business planning is to avoid failure. Prove to the owner(s) or investors that the business will generate enough revenue to cover expenses and make satisfactory returns. There are a number of ways of formulating a business plan. But there are certain essential considerations that must be observed.

With the astronomically high failure rates for new business, it is obvious that to succeed. New businesses need to do all due diligence from the onset. Proper business planning is vital and should not be compromised. Once the business plan is formulated. The business plan should be taken to independent entity for them to assess. Though not always necessary, but it is advisable.

Here are strategies to follow when planning a business to create a worthy and sellable business plan.

Market Evaluation is Key in Business Planning

A market evaluation is a useful analysis of an industry/company’s success. It is a big undertaking but is invaluable. To conduct the analysis consideration needs to be given to a range of areas including sales figures, marketing goals, advertising content and the media mix being utilized.

Sales figures need to be compared and analysed referring to a specific time frame or before and after an event. You want to understand the demand flow. The figures have to be analyzed and it needs to be determined. Whether the firms in the industry failed, met or exceeded expectations.

What strata of the economy are the customers coming from, for you to know where to target? Any increase in sales should be analyzed to ascertain if they are from old or new customers or a combination of both. Consideration needs to be given to the reasons for increased revenue not associated with any advertising. It is a sign of a demand available industry, such is a strong market.

An evaluation needs to be done of the marketing goals. Firstly the original marketing goals need to be examined and it has to be ascertained whether the business is taking that market.

Thought has to be given to decide if that is the most profitable market for the company. An analysis has to be made to show an increase or otherwise in the market share and by how much.

A check of advertising should be undertaken to work out what the advertising was communicating to the public and to ensure that the advertisements fulfilled their purpose.

It is necessary to find out if the target market understood and responded to the message of the advertisements. Through evaluation of the media mix used and its efficiency and checking on the creation process. It can be ascertained how cost effective such a program was and which sections of media proved the most effective in attracting more market demand.

Following the market evaluation it would be necessary for a section to be added to include ideas for future improvement.

Analyze your Competition while Planning the Business

An analysis of the competition can be the most difficult section to work on when undergoing a business planning or the writing a business plan. Before analyzing the competition they have to be investigated and before that can be done they have to be found.

The first step of the competitive analysis is to determine who the local competition is. This can be done quite simply by driving around and observing and by searching through a Google. Type the …….business around you or in your state or country.

The main question will be one of range and determining just how far customers are prepared to travel to obtain your competitors goods and services. As well as, the number of local competitors. Some businesses also have non-local competitors.

To analyze the competition it is necessary to determine what market or market segments they serve and what benefits they offer. It is necessary to determine why customers buy from them and also to gather information about their products and or services, their pricing and promotion.

Gathering information could be done by physically visiting a business or checking their website. Several physical visits to a business will enable a person to determine information about their product and the company’s treatment of customers.

Also Read : Company Page on LinkedIn: Tips to Create Brand and Increase Sales

Good sources of information about a company come from the company’s vendors, suppliers and employees. Attending a trade fair where the competitors are exhibiting is another excellent way of gathering information.

Learn More: https://careerconsort.com/business-planning-how-to-effectively-plan-a-business-and-implement/

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Olasunbo Joshua
Olasunbo Joshua

Written by Olasunbo Joshua

I run an online resource platform https://careerconsort.com that publishes career insight piece, educational contents, scholarships opportunities, jobs