This is a great article I recently came across on Entrepreneur.com. The article gives advice to aspiring entrepreneurs on questions about pricing, hiring and other factors that can help your business grow that often is missed in business plans. As an entrepreneur I often receive business plans for new business ventures and I have to say, is often that I see these answers missing on the proposals. If you are business owner looking for funding or an aspiring entrepreneur looking to get your proposal in the hands of the right people, this article is a must read.
5 Daily Habits of Successful Entrepreneurs
Understanding S-Corps vs LLC for Your Business
1. Is my price right?
There are two essential components of pricing that should be included in your business planning:
- Consider whether your price is in line with your message. If you say you offer a high-quality custom product or service, you can’t post a low price without contradicting your own marketing message. You should set your prices according to the relative value you offer, or risk confusing your potential market.
2. Can I afford to hire?
Especially when you’re running a new company, you might not be able to help thinking that hiring additional employees might help you with the mounting list of tasks that have to get done. What would happen if you hired an extra salesperson? Could an extra administrator solve some of your problems?
Go back to your business plan and determine what happens to projections if you add the extra salary and benefits. Guess whether the improvement in people power will add to your revenue, or cut costs.
3. Am I implementing my strategy?
3.
Test your strategic alignment: Do your milestones, spending for marketing activities and new product or service development, and related expenses show the same priorities that are reflected in your strategy? In my business planning coaching I’ve repeatedly run into client situations in which people say one thing in their strategy but do something different thing in their actions and spending.
For example, you say you’re going to emphasize your extensive comp
uter expertise in your strategy, but you pay your service staff below market rates. Or you say you’re going to emphasize one side of your product line, but your advertising spending emphasizes the other.
