Experience
Business people need to honestly assess their experience in the industry in which they are operating and also in the peripheral business skill areas (marketing, human resources, management, budgets, cashflow management and understanding financial accounts etc). Some of the questions to be considered include:-
- What is your experience in this business?
- What business are you really in?
- Prepare a SWOT analysis based on your experience.
- What are your plans for personal development, especially in the areas that are not your strong points?
Customers
The preparation of a Business Plan involves a significant concentration on reviewing customers/clients. Questions to be considered include:-
- How many customers do you have?
- What is the value of your annual sales to the individual customers or types of customers?
- What is the average sale per customer or type of customer?
- Why do your customers come to your business?
- What is the frequency of their transactions with you?
- Do you conduct customer surveys?
- Do customers like your products?
- Have you classified your customers into ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’ or ‘D’ categories?
- Have you reviewed your customers utilising the “80/20″ rule?
- What percentage of your business is represented by 20% of your customers?
- Do you encourage customers to give comments and feedback on your products, services, warranties, product information after sales service etc?
Business Plans – Some Questions to Consider
FOLLOW THE WHOLE SERIES
This post is part of the 50-part series “Business Plans – Some Questions to Consider” (yes, there will be 50 of them!).
Be sure to read the other parts of the series to get a full picture. You can follow the series along on the blog or read them first by subscribing to our popular Business Plus+ newsletter.
Article by Christie Lewis
Christie is Practice Manager at Alan Lewis Accountants . Besides accounting, her passion is for all things small business (and blogging, of course). You can contact Christie directly at christie@lewistaxation.com.au.
Christie has written 799 awesome articles for us at Alan Lewis Accountants – BLOG
Twitter: @christielewis
