Once you have composed your thoughts and gotten your ideas about your business on paper it’s time to organize those thoughts into a “readable” document.  It should be clear and concise.  Tell the reader how to unlock the door and turn on the lights to turning off the lights and locking the door behind them when you leave.

One of the most important steps here is to tell the reader simply how you are going to do business.  Don’t explain in great detail about how your order forms read or what color pen you are going to use but include as much as possible to let your reader be able to visualize the business and try to see it through their eyes.  Try to avoid vernacular that is specific to your industry, for example, we use the word “flooring” in the piano business to describe inventory financing to people inside our industry, and then try to help the reader understand what it is you are doing and how you plan to accomplish that.

Once you have that in understandable language and you feel your job is complete, turn to someone you KNOW you can trust that is outside of your industry to read it and give you constructive criticism of what they have read.  You know that if you do this and they understand it then you have a workable business plan.  If not, then you may have to change a few things.

Now that you have that in shape it will be time to move to step two which is understanding finances and how they are going to relate to your business plan and lastly we will look at goal setting.  What is your plan?  What is your exit strategy? Do you plan to retire with this business? etc.

Thanks for reading and I look forward to hearing your comments.

One last thing.  I will be setting up an e-commerce site here to help you in your business.  We are planning a few products that will be helpful to you.  I am in contact with a few people who may have interesting ideas and valuable input.  I will let you know as it progresses.

Ric Overton

http://ricoverton.biz, http://ricoverton.me, http://ricoverton.com, http://pianosd.com