In many cases business plans are very important but so much of the time it's a plan to try to convince someone else that you know what you are doing with your business like banks, investors, partners, etc. Now it's true that a well written business plan can also be a major benefit to your success as well if done right. It can guide you and keep you on track and can be the vehicle to get you were you want to be especially with so many outside forces now days that bombard you. A plan can be extremely important to your success especially when you look at the statistics that says 51% of small businesses fail sometime during their first 5 years.
So why make a business plan? I want to show you a totally different kind of business plan. What if you made a business plan that focused only on what you want for your life? You have dreams about what you would like your lifestyle to be, right? Why not make a business plan that could give you those dreams? What would your business look like if it gave you exactly what you want in life. What kind of salary would your business need to give you? Why not build a business plan around that? Decide how much salary you would need to support your dreams and then build a business plan that would show exactly how your business could give you that. Wouldn't it be better to have your business work for you instead of the other way around?
Did you ever stop and think what a unique position you're in as a business owner? I don't know of any other way you can have as much control over your success than owning a business. When you work for someone else, you are totally at their mercy as to what your future may be like. It doesn't matter whether it is a private business you work for or a large corporation. Your future is in their hands. The only thing that might qualify other than owning a business would be to inherit or win a lot of money that would give you everything you want in life.
So, why make a business plan the normal way when you could first make one that could give you what you want in life? Have you ever thought about doing a plan like that? Would you know how? Would you have the time to do it?
Well if you don't or not sure, let's at least see what's involved.
Here are the steps you would need to take.
First, you would need to know all your current business numbers. This will be the basis for the plan. You're going to need to know:
1. What your current average monthly sales are
2. What your current average monthly material cost is
3. What your current average monthly labor cost is
4. What your current average monthly fixed expenses are
5. What your current average monthly variable expenses are
6. What your average number of transactions per customer per month are
7. What your average dollar sale per transaction is
8. What your average monthly profit is
9. What your average monthly profit margin is
10. And what % capacity your business is at right now
Second, decide what you want your salary to be
Third, determine how many years in the future you want to plan for
Fourth, you will need to know:
1. What % is your material cost of sales?
2. What % is your labor cost of sales?
3. And what % is your variable expense of sales?
Why do you need to know these percentages? As your sales increases or decreases, your material cost, labor cost, and variable expenses will track accordingly. They will track very close to the same % as your current business. As an example, let's say your current sales is averaging $100,000 per month and your material cost is averaging $20,000 per month. That's 20% of your sales ($20,000 ÷ $100,000 = 20%). So, what would your material cost be if your sales were averaging $200,000 per month? It would still be 20% but it would be 20% of $200,000 or $40,000. So with these percentages, you can project your material, labor and variable expenses. See how it works?
But your fixed expenses don't do this. They remain the same no matter what sales does. That's why it's call fixed. These are expenses like rent, taxes, utilities, phone, salaries, insurance, etc. A lot of business owners never consider this. They just lump all their expenses together. But you could never make an accurate plan if you combine all your expenses together. If you project your sales higher and want to know what your expenses will be, you have to separate your fixed and variable.
So, thinking about this principle, let me ask you a question. If your sales grew 10% and nothing else changed, would your profit margin be higher, the same, or less? Profit margin is % of profit against sales
If you said the profit margin would be higher, then you are right. Why would your profit be higher? If you said because of the fixed expenses, you would be right. Your material cost, labor cost, and variable expenses would have gone up 10% but your fixed expenses would have remained the same. You brought in more revenue because of more sales and you spent 10 % more on material, labor, and variable expense to cover the extra sales, but you didn't spend any more on your fixed expenses. So, less overall expenses, would give you higher profit margin. Make sense?
So, let's see how we would make a business plan that would show exactly how your business could give you the salary you want.
First you would determine what you would like your salary to be. You've dreamed about having a nice income to support your dreams I'm sure. Let's say right now you only make what your profit is giving you which might not be much. So let's say the first year, next year, you would love to have a consistent monthly salary of $4,000 a month, every month. And every year you would like to be able to increase it so that after 10 years it would be at $10,000 per month. And let's say you would like to grow your business 10% each year.
So, what would your business look like over the next 10 years to give you that?
Could you build a plan that would show exactly how your business could do that?
It would show what your sales, fixed expenses, material cost, labor cost, and variable expenses would need to be. It should also show you how many customers you would need and would show you what your profit and profit margins would be each year.
All it takes is your current business numbers as we listed earlier and you can make a business plan as many years out as you like.
Now, in addition, when you know the average number of transactions per customer and you know your average dollar sale per transaction, you can also project how many customers you would need over those 10 years as well. This would tell you everything about what your business would need to do to give you the salary you want.
So, wouldn't it be nice to see what a plan like this would look like? Could you do it? It might not be as tough as you might think.