What we do for Businesses

1. Write or rewrite your operational business plan
   1. Many companies have some idea of their focus, however most do nto have a formal plan or they haven't looked at in a while
   2. I will:
      1. Build a solid plan
      2. Forecast future things and build in contingencies
      3. Make a dynamic plan that you and your team can use to grow
      4. Update annually
2. Coaching 
   1. We all need help building our business
   2. Sometimes we get focused on the minutia, not the greater picture
      1. I will help you:
         1. See the bigger opportunities
         2. Work with your team
         3. build your team stronger
3. Analyze your benefits and employee offerings
4. Plan for your future
5. Buidl a communication plan and help implement it

Business Tips

Are you starting a new business or is your current business struggling, here are some key tips and ideas to look out for when engaging in the business:

1. Have a plan and vision:  You need to know what you are doing, how you are doing it and why you are doing it?  Also, who are you doing it with, what do you need in resources and how can you be helped?  These questions have to be answered in a plan and it needs to be clear enough to be communicated to all people involved.  What concerns do you have and what are your projections?  Remember financial projections are just that projections, but they should strive to be accurate and on target.  Connect them with everything else you do and have regular targets and measure points.
2. Revenue – Every businesses life blood is cash flow.  You want to be positive, one way is revenue.  Up front you need to identify your revenue sources and where they will come from.  Identify your pricing strategy, are you luxury, are you common goods or a commodity, or are you middle of the road.  Know your customer and how they will react.  Where are your direct revenue sources and indirect revenue sources coming from?  What external issues are there than can affect revenue?  Make sure you identify these things and come up again with a plan to balance out any negative situations.
3. Expenses – Be reasonable with your expenses but do not constrain yourself to the point your expenses strangle growth of your business.  At the same time try to manage it so debt does not strangle you either. Figure in growth and how expenses will change as you grow and be ready for that.
4. Reserves – The backbone of a business, you need reserves whether it be for an emergency or a deal you can not pass on.  What can you do to build reserves without sacrificing cash flow?  It is not easy but a portion of every high check should go to a reserve account and you can move forward from there.

Helping Businesses

• Building a Leadership Plan
• Putting together a Playbook
• Writing of job descriptions
• Reorganization of Business
• Strategy Development

Business Playbook

​It’s that time of year again, where businesses and department heads start thinking about next year, yes that is right it is business planning time.  We will walk through business planning on an annual basis today and also putting together a business plan for a business starting up or looking to grow.  The concepts are all the same but there are some different nuances to doing an annual business plan and an overall comprehensive plan.
To start, every business, including financial advisors and insurance agents should have a business plan to start their business.  The components of a business plan should include:

1. Company/Business overview
2. Vision, Mission, Values
3. Leadership Structure
4. Marketing Campaign
5. Competition
6. Financial Projections
7. Ideal Customers

Once you get these component done in a coherent plan, then you need to work on your execution and how one will go about it.  This should be a living document and should be updated annually but the annual updates are a little different.  Figuring out where you stand and where you want to go will help you have a clear plan of attack of how to move forward.  This is the next step in moving a business forward.  DO businesses grow and survive without a plan, yes, and ones with a plan can fail.  However the chances of failing with a plan or succeeding without a plan are a lot lower than succeeding with a plan or failing without a plan.  The concerns here though are do you have the right plan and are you focusing on the right things.
When doing the annual plan, paying very close attention to how one is going to do things and execute is important.  Also you need to pay attention to the financial projections form your first plan, these need to be updated annually with actuals and new projections, and then connect them with your annual numbers.
Business plans can be elaborate or simple, but they need to be detailed.  When working with people developing their plans I notice they are missing clarity on many ideas especially the financial and the marketing sections.  It is best to be objective when one does this and not get emotional.  The difficulty here is when doing these plans, whether it be annual or a formal comprehensive one, which you take your emotions out of it and focus more on an objective point of view.  This is an extremely tough thing to do as we all want to be invested in what we do and who we are.  The best way to do this is too have someone else do your planning for you.  Whether you are running a department in a business or your own business, doing your own planning you get caught up with your emotions.  Setting things outside of that and bringing in someone who can ask the objective questions will help you plan these out and put together a more accurate plan.
Whether you are creating, building, or maintaining a business everyone needs a business plan.  What are your goals that you are trying to achieve?  Do your employees and your clients know what you are stand for and what you are trying to accomplish?  One needs to put things together annually in a formal way.  The best way to do this is through a third party.  Just like the old saying goes “Only a fool would have himself as a lawyer” the same comes to doing your own business plan.  Each year I have someone do mine and we sit down and discuss.  Have you done yours yet?
Once the plan is created it shouldn’t live in a desk drawer.  You should be using the document weekly and having formal review meetings monthly.  Tracking progress and identifying weaknesses in the plan and then figuring out changes to these plans will be helpful and will help make sure you hit the goals you set out to accomplish.  What steps do you take to accomplish your goals and your plan?