Most new entrepreneurs don’t decide to sit down and write a business plan for fun, most don’t even do it because they know how valuable it is to the success of their business. Most write a business plan because they are being required to do so by either a bank or a potential landlord. Whatever motivates the process for you, necessity or an uncompromising desire to succeed, understand that this all important document can do much more for you than simply secure you a loan or business location. A business plan can help you understand that your business is a integrated, interdependent system. Making a small change to one part of the system may create big changes in other parts of the system. You won’t know what these changes might be until you start making changes and playing with the numbers in your plan. Discounting a product of service for a special promotion, for example, may increase sales for the month, but selling your product or service at a discounted price will affect your margins and change your cash flow projections.

This brings us to Marketing Tip #1. Don’t fake your marketing plan. Don’t throw in the standard advertising jargon without any thought. Don’t leave out the realistic costs of advertising and marketing, and don’t think you can do it all yourself with only the force of your charming personality. To be honest, the banker and the landlord probably won’t notice that your marketing plan isn’t real. If you have the collateral necessary to secure the loan and pay the rent, you’ll get your loan and your location. I promise you, however, if you fake your marketing plan now, the day will come when you will find yourself without enough personal time or money to do the advertising and marketing that your business requires to succeed at the level you originally dreamed about when you launched your business.

If instead you set out to put together a realistic marketing and advertising plan from the start with accurate numbers, you will be able to budget the expense necessary to effectively communicate to your customers and clients on an on-going basis. You will come to understand that the personal time and expense of marketing is an essential part of the healthy system of your business, and you won’t jump over a dollar to pick up a dime.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 27th, 2006 at 12:20 pm and is filed under Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.