Growing – or Not Growing -Your Small BusinessSeveral small businesses need to and usually will remain small. Another enterpriseborn small with hope of becoming a giant – sometimes very big. TakeStarbucks, which began as a small Seattle coffee shop, and Apple Computers,which was first headquartered in a garage. When small businessesturn intogiant corporations, it’s obviously not by chance. Behind that growth is a well-thoughtout writing business plan along with the drive and the resources to get there. Butbecoming a big business isn’t for everybody.An entrepreneur who started a stereo shop in a small Illinois town a fewyears back created just the kind of friendly, cluttered, slightly disorganizedplace you’d expect to see in a college town. But the salespeople who workedthere really knew and loved audio equipment, and the business was stockedwith great components at very competitive prices, thanks to the fact thatoverhead was so low. The unbeatable combination of quality, service, andprice soon made the store a huge success – and the owner began to dreamabout expanding into a chain of stores throughout the Midwest.We’d like to say that this idea sounded good on paper, but the owner nevereven put his business plan in writing. He launched right into action, buildinginventory and leasing storefronts without once thinking about how he wouldfind knowledgeable sales teams, promote the new stores, or create an organizationthat could manage the jump from one shop to half a dozen. The laidback,disorganized style worked fine for a single store with a garage-worth ofinventory, but it turned out to be a disaster for the small chain. The lossesfrom the new outlets soon eroded the original store’s profits. Six monthslater, the owner closed up and went back to school, even though he’d alreadybeen through the school of hard knocks.A well-crafted business plan may have helped avoid disaster. But even beforethe planning, the owner should have asked one simple question: Do I reallywant to grow my business?Some small businesses are meant to remain small, and some business ownersare meant to run small companies. In this case, an entrepreneur loved audioequipment, worked well with his sales team, and had a great rapport with thecustomers who came through his door. But he wasn’t particularly well organizedor good at delegating – the two main characteristics he needed to runa larger operationhttp://www.absolutebusinessplan.co.cc

About the Author

Humberto Harper writes regularly about business related topics. I hope you enjoy this article.

http://www.businessplandirectory.net/

Twelve things to do when writing your business plan:

Create a framework for the plan e.g. table of contents. Identify possible appendices, attachments etc. Estimate page lengths for each key section. List main issues and topics to be covered within key sections. Assign work programs based on the framework and lists. Draft all key sections in a logical sequence. Check the preliminary draft for completeness and plug gaps. Stand back and take a detached overview of the draft. Let an outsider or adviser critique the latest draft. Redraft, fine tune and spell check. Write the executive summary and plan’s conclusion. Get an independent assessment of the final draft.

Write short paragraphs and cover one aspect of what you present in each. Visitors want information quickly; so long paragraphs should be avoided. Short posts of 1-2 paragraphs are fine, too. Most website content is quickly scanned, so headlines and the first few words of each paragraph may be all that most visitors view before deciding to read details, or exit.

Include key words relative to your subject, and place some near the beginning of sentences for each paragraph, so your visitors get the general feel as they scan your post. Search engines will visit and index your blog content, too, so key words are important for attracting the search engine crawlers.

Google Alerts and blog labels are two techniques to help you generate new blog post ideas. Each will be presented in the report Blog Your Way to Fresh Content from my series of free PDF SEO Reports about do-it-yourself small business website promotion that I began to release during 2007. Some of my clients could not wait, so this article is a preview of how to use these two techniques to come up with post ideas for your blog:

1. Google Alerts is a free service that delivers links to content by email. Once set up, you automatically receive a collection of current news stories or related content by email with summaries and links to the information.

2. Your blog labels are the filing system for your blog that cross references your posts by subject category, so visitors may click a label and view all posts about that subject on one page. Use them to brainstorm ideas for posts.

Google Alerts

Search for Google Alerts to find the main page, and then sign up for a Google account if you don’t have one. You don’t need an account to use alerts, but managing your choices is more convenient from one page, and creating, editing, or deleting alerts will be easier.

To begin you create individual alerts for search words or phrases relative to your business, and then your options are type and how often. Type means the source, and the selections are from news, the web, blogs, groups, and comprehensive (all). The how often is the frequency of emails you receive from Google and include once a day, as it happens, and once a week.

Once you create the alert, emails arrive automatically with lists of sources for content related to your selected subject, and a summary of each. Follow the links of interest, and perhaps you will decide to write about the same subject with a different slant. Never copy another author’s content verbatim or claim it as your original writing. That would be plagiarism. However, quoting other sources is acceptable, and snippets or excerpts are often all you need.

Write an introduction about the piece you will quote, and then give credit to the author including a hyperlink to the source. Next, make sure you are in HTML mode and begin the excerpt with blockquote and italics tags, insert their content using copy and paste, and finally add the closing blockquote and italics tags. View your help files if the [blockquote] or [i] and then [/blockquote] and [/i] are unfamiliar (Note: The [ and ] square brackets must be replaced with , so don’t take my example literally). This formatting will indent their snippet in your post and display the text in italics to make everything stand out as content quoted from another source.

Finally, write a closing paragraph with your take or opinion on the subject matter, and you’re done. Again, your posts do not have to be lengthy, so the opening introduction and closing comments or opinion can each be one paragraph. Busy visitors are more likely to read your content and bookmark your site for return visits if your style is interesting and brief.

Blog Labels

The labels you assign to your posts allow cross referencing of information, and they are another source for brainstorming new post ideas. After all, your labels provide a snapshot of the overall theme of your blog. A review of your list of labels may uncover subjects that are overdue for a new post while alerts make you aware of topical subjects. Reviewing the labels that define your blog allows you to enhance emphasis by writing about what your small business is really all about.

Bonus Tip: Visit technorati.com and near the upper right is a “tag cloud” which displays key words and phrases that represent what the majority of people worldwide have written recently. The most popular tags are displayed in very large text, with others decreasing in size based on total posts tagged with that word or phrase. If you find words that relate to your business, click the tag to see what others are writing, or just start your post and run with it.

Compare physical exercise to writing posts for your small business blog, and each requires discipline. Both are easy to avoid without feeling guilty, yet the benefits are certainly important to your health, personal and business. A large percentage near 25% of all new blogs go offline in less than 90 days. One reason is the lack of fresh content. Use these tips for keeping your posts short and to the point, utilize Google Alerts, and do a review of your blog labels to easily come up with new ideas for posting to your blog.

The most important aspect of any internet home based business is selling your product, service or information. To build sales, you must post an advertisement about your internet business ideas and products or services which has to be seen by potential, qualified buyers and cause them to react to the ad in some way. Their favorable reaction will enhance your internet home based business.

Ads work best when you…

• Know your prospect. Know who your prospect is, what kind of service/product your prospect really wants, and what kind of problems they’ll depend upon your internet home based business to resolve.

• Understand your service or product. Know your service or product of your internet home based business in terms of what the potential buyer is willing to buy, not what you’re offering to sell.

The best advertising concept is visual. Readers scan before they read, so you must catch them when they are scanning; otherwise you will not catch them. If your visual requires reading, the writing should serve as the headline; to have readable visual and a headline will confuse the readers and will minimize their visits to your internet home based business website.

The followings are the ‘musts’ for an ad, the first two being universally accepted axioms:

1. An ad must be simple — and it must look and sound as if it’s indeed worth paying attention to about your internet business ideas.

• Clear. Clarity is essential. An ad must be understood and easy to read.

• Grammatical. An ad should be grammatically sound. The purpose of the rules of grammar is consistency, understanding and clarity.

? Verb and tense agreement should be sound.

? A breach of grammatical rules should be deliberate, and designed to serve a specific purpose or reason. (True, there are many examples of successful advertising of internet business ideas that are clearly ungrammatical.)

2. An ad must be complete — it must contain all the information you want to convey.

3. An ad must be about the customer — it must tell why the customer should care, not about a product or service or a company.

4. An ad must have a single focus — it must concentrate the attention on one internet business idea so that your message won’t be weakened and will be easy to remember.

5. An ad must attract, arouse curiosity, and persuade — it must not make your internet business ideas something which is ignored.

Practicing the above will improve your writing skills. I collect and study some good ads that stay for some time — they represent good examples of various internet business ideas because they work, as evidence why they are there. Remember that the better your ads writing to promote your internet business ideas, the more money you earn from your internet home based business.

Writing a business plan is very important for a small business. You have to explain your background, qualifications, experience and your capacity to implement the project. A good business plan is absolutely essential to convince the banks and financial institutions to lend you money for the project

Your business plan should explain who is starting the project. What is the project? When are you starting the project? Why are you starting the project? How are you going about it? The results expected from the project, should also be mentioned.

Your background and qualifications have to be explained in detail. You have to explain what projects you have done before. You should give a detailed explanation of the product or service you are going to launch. And also the competition you might face. If you are already in business, you should also give details of the activities of the company or business. The revenue expected should be mentioned in detail.

If it is new business the details of how you are setting up the business. How long it would take to set it up? Your production and sales targets should also be mentioned. How you are meeting these targets should also be explained.

Where are you going to set up the business? Whether it is a shop or a factory? How are you acquiring the land? The details of construction of the building and the costs involved should be mentioned.

Your marketing plans will have to be explained. Who are your customers and how are you going to reach them should be explained. Whether you are hiring a marketing company to market your product or marketing it on your own has to be explained. If you are planning an expansion, the details of how it would be financed should be mentioned.

You have to do quite a bit of ground work and research before starting any new project. It is always better to have contingency plans to get over any unforeseen problems. I have seen people visualizing various scenarios, and making plans to face them. It is always better to look before you jump.

The saying that “cash is king” is never more true than for a small business owner. While large businesses may sit on huge reserves of cash and not be worried about borrowing when it runs low, a small business has to worry. A business plan for a small business should address these cash concerns.

Startup Cash

A primary reason to create a business plan is to be able to raise capital. Before doing so, the small business entrepreneur must know how much cash will be required to launch. The startup cash needs are determined by this equation: total payments needed before launch + shortfall between cash inflows for operations and cash outflows for expenses until break-even + a cash reserve. Entrepreneurs will often forget one of the last two numbers, raising only enough to cover the expenses prior to launch and forgetting that additional cash must be on hand to carry the business through its early months (or years) before it generates its own cash through operations. It can be very difficult to go back to funders for more money just as the company is ready to launch. Funding may not be forthcoming, or may be available only at punishing interest rates. Think ahead to plan for the full startup cash requirements so that the first round of funding can hopefully be your last.

Cash Planning

The business plan requires the entrepreneur to create a cash flow statement which should then act as a guide for ongoing cash management. By looking ahead to see the month by month (or even week by week) cash inflows and outflows, the entrepreneur can see cash flow problems and plan for how to solve them before they occur. Remember that the meaning of bankruptcy is the inability to pay ones creditors. Even short-term problems can lead to bankruptcy if creditors refuse to wait for their payments.

Cash Reserves

The cash flow statement should manage to show a cash balance of at least thousands of dollars at all times. This acts as a safety net to pay for unforeseen expenses, to cover the losses of expected revenue, and to allow for the company to take advantage of certain opportunities that may arise. Consider that personal financial advisors recommend a cash reserve of three to six months worth of expenses. The more uncertain your future revenues are, the closer your business should match these cash reserve levels.

Writing a small business plan should be guided by some standard general principles. The plan will especially be useful when it comes to seeking funds for the enterprise. The tone of the plan should be appealing enough to attract prospective lenders. All the same, so much in the content of the plan will be determined by the type of funding that one is looking for. All this is about the target audience.

The outline of the plan needs to be standard depending on the target audience. Think through the audience carefully so that you can determine which plan to adopt. Once you are done with the outline, gather the necessary information on what should be covered in the plan. You need to describe the nature of the business, the scope, the number of years in operation, number of employees and names of partners or proprietor. If possible, also include the market growth and customer profiles.

The next bit is one that reflects on the financial position of the business. It also indicates how much the enterprise is asking for. The financial projections should be realistic and should be backed with solid data from your accountant if they are to be deemed as the correct position of the enterprise. A budget on how the enterprise plans to spend the amount acquired through the funding should also be included in this bit.

All the above details should then be captured in an executive summary. The essence is to capture the key points in each major section of the plan. Here, the payback requirements on the loan should also be highlighted. Review and edit the whole document, keeping in mind that this is the only shot you have got to make a good impression.

Top Five Ways Writing Articles Can Explode Your Internet Business

Getting a high search engine ranking can be very difficult. Fortunately, there is plethora of website promotion strategies you can use to drive traffic to your website.There is a wide variety of strategies you can adapt, from paid advertising to affiliate marketing. However, most of these techniques require payment. Nevertheless, there are ways to promote your website and increase your web traffic without spending anything. Writing articles is one of the best web site promotion strategies you can use, and they can be very effective. How, you may ask, can writing articles help improve your web traffic? Here are the top seven ways in which it can help explode your Internet business.

1.Reach more people

You can post your articles in your website or you can submit them to other sites such as e-zines and online publishers. By submitting your articles to these sites, you give exposure not only to your ideas but also to your website. Simply include a link back to your site or include your information in the resource box. With this, you get exposure and free advertising as well. Submit your articles to popular e-zines and take advantage of their popularity. Other sites who find your article relevant may also link back to you. Thus, you increase your link popularity, which is one of the most important strategies in the internet world.

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2.Gain High Search Engine Ranking

Create a new web page for your article in your website. Optimize your article to make it search-engine friendly. Use top-ranked keywords and Meta tags that can give your website a high search engine ranking. As soon as you upload your new webpage to your server, search engines will spider through it and you can gain an increase in search engine ranking. Remember that search engine optimized content is a very effective strategy to gain a high ranking in search results.

3.Increases Link Popularity

Instead of looking for other sites who would want to establish reciprocal links with your site, you can simply submit an article to other sites. Just do not forget to include a link to your site in your resource box. When these websites pick up and publishes your article, you automatically get a link partner. Try to get as many link partners as you can. Link popularity is one of the factors used by search engines in determining search engine rankings. Make your article especially useful and appealing, so that more websites will be encouraged to publish it.

4.Optimizes your site for improved search engine ranking

By making your site keyword rich, you can greatly improve the search engine ranking of your site. Remember that keyword density is one of the most important factors that search engines use when determining the search engine ranking of site. However, you should always provide relevant, useful and pertinent information. Avoid the temptation of overusing keywords just to gain a high ranking as this may turn off most web surfers. Relevance and quality is still the most important things to consider when writing articles and it will be doubly useful to your site if you make these articles search-engine optimized.

5.Enhances your credibility through references and testimonies

Certainly, your articles are going to receive feedbacks and testimonies when you publish them in e-zines and free article sites. Record these positive feedbacks and comments and use them as promotional material in your website or in any of your advertising efforts. Your credibility will be greatly enhanced by these feedbacks, as it will create a good impression on your prospects as well as your existing customers. In this highly competitive world, excellent credibility and trust may be the only things you need to attract new customers or make loyal patrons out of your existing customers. Original, relevant, useful and pertinent articles are important tools you should utilize to improve and explode your Internet business.More help with your success http://www.wealthdevelopments.com and partner helping people

all around the world.