You might have heard that the first step in starting a business is to develop a business plan, which is excellent advice and essential to planning, researching, setting goals, and gathering your thoughts before diving in.
There are countless ways and opportunities for a woman to start and grow her business, but discovering them isn’t always easy. Joining an organization like NAWBO Southern Nevada gives you access to resources and support systems that make it easy to move your business forward.
Developing a Successful Woman-Owned Business Plan
If you’re starting as a woman business owner, you might not know how to go about writing a business plan. To successfully launch your new company, you need to know what a business plan is and the steps to take when writing it.
A business plan is a document that details your objectives and how you plan to achieve them. Think of it as a company roadmap covering everything from marketing to financials and operations. Startups and established companies alike rely on business plans to help their businesses thrive and grow.
Here’s how to get started on your plan.
Understand Your Long-Term Business Goals
While templates are available for writing business plans, developing a plan that reflects your unique vision and strategy is best. The plan should include an overview and details of the industry and should explain how your business will distinguish itself from the competition. A business plan’s basic structure typically includes:
- An executive summary
- Company type
- Market analysis
- Product or service description
- Marketing strategy
- Financial projections
Analyze Your Business With a SWOT Perspective
SWOT is short for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. A SWOT analysis assesses these aspects of your business and helps you be more objective about it. You can learn:
- How your business is positioned in the marketplace
- If your business strategy is customer-aligned
- What your strengths and weaknesses are when it comes to relating to customers
- Which opportunities are available to create a niche market or capitalize on a particular aspect of your customer profile
- What potential threats exist that might adversely affect your customer base
Ultimately, a SWOT analysis helps you challenge possibly risky assumptions and uncover blind spots about your business’s potential and performance.
Set Your KPIs For Success Measurement
Key performance indicators are how you measure your company’s success. They evaluate the effectiveness of your business’s strategy and operations and give you a clear picture of its performance against its goals.
Unlike business plans of a decade ago that didn’t put much weight on KPIs, today you must use them in conjunction with a SWOT perspective to be held accountable for what you hope to achieve in sales, growth, and revenue generation.
NAWBO Southern Nevada: Your Connection to Business Resources
Whether it’s the first, second, or third quarter of the year, your business plan should remain front and center. It’s your most valuable resource for tracking your evolution and progress and gives you insight into how to build upon your successes moving into the following year.
Ready to learn more? Visit NAWBO Southern Nevada’s membership page today.
