At Asset Business Consulting, we get calls from a variety of owners in different business segments. We’ve created Business Plans for technology markets, mining markets, retail, manufacturers, hospitality and automotive. Most Business Plans tend to follow many of the same principles regardless of the market, and the basic approach remain the same.
The Focus:
We are helping owners pull together sales strategies, product portfolios, financials, personnel as well as marketing which covers: social media strategies, websites, brochures, SEO, PPC and related functions. It is a lot to cover in what often is a 25-page document.
The Magnifying Glass:
A Business Plan is very relevant if the company is looking for a round of financing, partners, acquisitions, industry connections and more. A Business Plan can help shine a powerful light on the company and will occasionally expose areas of weakness that need to be corrected. The process requires owners to share the very private parts of the business that can be awkward. When we build a Business Plan, we tend to look for the successes and positive information on the company and develop it from there. Almost every organization has weaknesses that are usually known to the owner.
Product Release Tactics:
The intention is to take corrective steps to fill those gaps as quickly as reasonable possible. Quite often, money may be the issue. New products need to be released and the cost and timeframe to engineer new versions could be delaying a critical launch. In technology, we call it “smoke and mirrors”, a reference to an old carnival trick. Products may be released, knowing there are patches and repairs still needed however, the field tests can be used to catch some of the faults.
Get them to do it:
It is one of the reasons that “beta” releases to “select” clients help discover the fixes that are needed. Think of the large software companies that have released glitchy new versions of a known product to the field. The expectation is that the users will contribute to fixes and possible even come up with a significant modification. Field testing is often critical to helping a company discover and fix flaws.
Hidden advantages of Business Plans:
In a Business Plan, we can advise owners what we see as we build the plan. An objective view can help significantly to give a President of the company a third party viewpoint. The background of Asset Business Consulting is in technology and we have extensive experiences in sales, marketing as well as mid and upper level management. This gives us a fairly complete insight into the things that may be holding the business back.
The value we bring as we are developing a business plan can most often provide a window into the business at the same time.
Our field experiences allow us to objectively look at the tactics and strategies within the business plan and apply a “consultative” solution to help the company.
We will continue to discuss aspects of Business Plans in upcoming blogs.
Asset Business Consulting and Coaching
phone/text 250.580.5250
craig@assetconsulting.ca