Planning Step 2 – Set your goals

We have found that the quickest way for our clients to get a sense of the scale of their time and dollar investment is to have them complete a simple math exercise, which reveals an approximation of how much marketing and selling effort the new business owner will need to make in his first year of business in order to achieve specific personal financial goals.

But, we know all too well that money is not the only, and sometimes not the primary, motivation for starting a business.

So, in this step we also help you examine non-financial goals worthy of achieving during your first year in business. Some examples include:

• Land an interview with a major magazine such as Forbes or a major business television program, such as MSNBC.
• Get an article published in a business publication or on a major website.
• Enter into a marketing partnership with a larger partner.

Planning Step 3 – Describe your competitive advantage

Almost every purchase, whether by a corporation or a consumer, comes as the result of comparison shopping.

It is not enough that you have conceptualized a solution to a problem or satisfaction of a need. You must be able to show how your solution is superior to other solutions that already exist.

In this planning step, we help you explore some common ways to gain a competitive edge, such as:

• Make your solution more convenient.
• Offer more variety.
• Offer training or education along with a product.
• Offer more customization.

Planning Step 4 – Describe your target customer

“Target customer” is MBA-speak for the description of your ideal group of customers. The name evokes the image of hitting the bulls-eye during a game of darts.

This topic is one important area of business know-how where you start with certain knowledge, and gain much more as you sell and evaluate your selling.

In this step, we guide you to write down what you know now about your target customer, possibly including:

• If consumers – age, gender, income, location, lifestyle, etc.
• If businesses – company line of business, employee size, evidence they buy your business category.

Planning Step 5 – Develop your elevator pitch

During the planning workshop, we will help you develop a marketing system that permits you to tell your company’s story of customer benefits in a variety of formats, ranging from the front of your business card, to a selling brochure, to elaborate selling copy on your website.

The length of what you say about your company may vary, but it all starts with you creating what is known as “your elevator pitch” so named by how much time you have on a typical elevator ride to pitch someone on a business idea.

In this planning step, you will have a chance to try out your hand at capsulizing your selling story in twenty five words or less.

Planning Step 6 – Create a call to action

Ok, you’re face-to-face with a prospective customer. You have described how your business can benefit her and she is interested.

In this planning step, we help you think through what one specific action you want this prospective customer to take next. Some of these include:

• Go to your website to learn more about a specific product or service.
• Sign up for your free teleseminar next week.
• Give you a problem and let you come back with a written solution.

Planning Step 7 – Develop a sales prospecting system

In order to achieve your desired sales goal you will need to be able to continuously identify, approach and close sales with new customers.

To do this you need what is known as a sales prospecting process.

During this planning step, we will guide you to use any of a number of common techniques to do this including:

• Contact your network of personal contacts – friends, neighbors, business colleagues, college friends, et al.
• Join organizations whose members can become customers.
• Speak publicly to establish yourself as “an expert” in our field of work.
• Enter into joint marketing relationships.

Supplemental Option:
Marketing System Set-Up Services Package

Let the pros set up your marketing system!

Our team of experts will complete the following marketing support tasks for you:

• Create an eye-catching logo design.
• Design and print 500 attention-getting full-color business cards.
• Develop a Word Press-based business website with placement of your selling copy, plus Search Engine Optimization, traffic analytics and setup of email accounts.

Click here to see examples of each part of the marketing setup package.

$950

 

Transaction Secured By

Planning Step 8 – Setting up your marketing system – creating your business identity.

Once you have committed your marketing strategy to writing, it’s time to build the foundation you need to bring your plan to life.

In this planning step, we guide you through the following organizational decisions:

Planning Step 9 – Setting up your marketing system – the power of the Web.

With the advent of the Internet every new business in the world suddenly received an incredibly powerful marketing ability – the power to transmit a company’s selling story, product and services assortment and a wide variety of other useful around the world, on a 24/7 basis for costs that average less than $15 per month, and the power to systematically send selling messages to customers and prospective customers for a fraction of a cent per message.

During this planning step we will inform you of the steps necessary to establish an effective online presence and how to use it’s marketing power properly.

Planning Step 10 – Setting up your marketing system – joining the Web

In this planning step, we explain two different ways you can go about setting up your company’s web presence.

Which path you choose depends upon your personal temperament.

Planning Step 11 – Setting up your marketing system – writing your web content

The colors and shapes on web pages are designed to get a visitor to stop and spend a minute or two on the site.

The copy on the site is what helps turn a visitor into a customer.

There are three areas of content you need to initially focus on in writing for your website:

• Your homepage.
• Your About Us page.
• Your product or services page.

Like a number of other marketing planning tasks, you will start your work during the planning workshop and continue forward on your own after you leave.

Planning Step 12 – Setting up your marketing system – using e-mail marketing

If you just launch your company website and let it sit there you’re really missing out on one of the greatest marketing powers of the Web – interactivity.

One of the most commonly used forms of Web interactivity is e-mail marketing.

In this planning step, we will demonstrate the steps necessary to set up and use e-mail marketing.

END OF DAY ONE PLANNING SESSION

Solo Entrepreneur Option

$900 per person

Two Payment Plan:
$450 at enrollment
$450 thirty days later

Two Partner Option

$1350 for two partners

Two Payment Plan:
$675 at enrollment
$675 thirty days later

Day Two

By the end of day two of the Two-Day Intensive Planning Workshop, you will:

Planning Step 13 – Put it together in a marketing strategy plan

Now, it’s time to take the pieces of your marketing strategy and put them together in one unified document.

To achieve this we have provided you with a Marketing Plan Summary, contained on the DVD we gave at the beginning of the workshop.

You will want to go back and review your work on the previous planning steps before you start to enter narrative in answer to each question in the summary document, which has been written in MS Word to permit you to add, change and otherwise modify the summary document as much as you wish over the next weeks.

Planning Step 14 – Organize your business legally

In reality, how you choose to legally organize your new business has as much to do with your financial concerns as it does with legal requirements.

During this planning step we will discuss the three most commonly used legal forms and explain the impact each has on you financially.

Before you make your final decision on legal form, we recommend that you speak with a local accountant to clarify the connection in your specific case between choice of legal form and the level of financial protection you seek.

NOTE: If you choose to incorporate or set up a limited liability company (LLC) we include directions in the Online Services Set Up Guide on how to open an account at mycorporation.com, our preferred vendor for online legal registration.

During this step, we also caution you to make sure that there are no other local or state legal requirements your business must fulfill.

Planning Step 15 – Organize your business financially – determine your costs and pricing

Here we discuss a critical juncture in your new business planning.

Without a careful and honest examination of your business’s expected costs you will not accurately set your pricing or fees and you will be unnecessarily limiting the profits you can gain from your imaginative marketing plan.

Planning Step 16 – Organize your business financially – set up your accounting

Survival and growth of your company depends not only upon setting appropriately profitable pricing, but it also demands that you collect money owed to you and keep a close eye on expenses you are paying.

This process is greatly accelerated through the use of accounting software. Our recommended choice is QuickBooks Pro marketed by Intuit.

Since there is a detailed tutorial on using QuickBooks contained on the software dvd, we will not cover the program in detail but instead will talk about the general discipline of keeping good financial records.

Planning Step 17- Organize your business financially – set up your banking

Unless you intend to keep your company’s income under your mattress, you will need to set up a business bank account to hold your revenue and provide quick access to it to pay bills.

During this planning step, we will cover the basics of bank setup and discuss how you go about accepting credit card payments.

Planning Step 18 – Organize your business financially – complete financial projections

You don’t want to proceed “in the dark” as far as the financial results of your business.

One of the most appealing features of QuickBooks is the ease with which you can use the financial information you have inputted to create a wide variety of financial statements, as often as you wish.

In this planning step, we will present the basic financial statements and explain the importance of each. We will also talk briefly about having online access to your business bank account.

Planning Step 19 – Organize your business financially – understand your tax obligations

This is the one topic we cover in the Two-Day Intensive Planning Workshop that is usually not of much importance until some months into the future.

But, it is important for your overall financial control that you understand now how your business taxes will be handled when tax filing time rolls around.

Planning Step 20 – Organize your business operationally – set up your support team

You may be running your new business on your own, but it does not mean that you must be working all by yourself.

During this planning step, we will discuss the importance of building a support team to assist you as the CEO of your business.

You may wish to start by hooking up with a local small business accountant. And a local graphic designer can be very useful also. Plus as you network to grow you business you likely will meet some other business owners who seem to offer wisdom and experience. You can ask them to serve in an informal advisory group for your business.

Planning Step 21 – Organize your business operationally – set up your production process

If your chosen business involves offering consulting services you may not think of it as one that “produces something”. But the truth is that almost every product or service sold is done so through a multi-step preparation process.

During this planning step, we will demonstrate from one of our own products the need to set up a reproducible and reliable process for preparing to deliver what you have promised.

Planning Step 22 – Organize your business operationally – decide upon your human support

We’ve already mentioned building an advisory group for your business.

But, chances are good that you will also need some specific “hands on” help from time to time.

During this planning step, we show you how to combine a variety of types of human assistance to boost the growth of your company – contractors, freelancers, online service providers, vendors, and others.