The biggest question for businesses is whether its business plan is doing all it can to handle unforeseen problems. Some businesses may be bold enough to argue that there is no such thing as a plan for handling unexpected events.
However, there will be some who go by the book by planning ahead and picking a right business plan template, create a holistic step by step strategy and then hire a team that can execute the plan. During the whole planning process, a lot of things can go wrong, this publication seeks to rectify such thoughts by providing you with ten unexpected things every business plan needs.
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1. A contingency Strategy
A contingency strategy is a significantly useful inclusion in any business plan. This usually involves evaluating your business’s critical functions and establishing producers that would minimize the negative impact of the unexpected and make sure that your business’ critical functions could be reestablished to an acceptable level for your business to survive.
You should do the following to come up with a good contingency strategy: cross-train job functions, establish call trees, catalog personnel information, catalog job functions, and develop manual procedures. Coming up with an accurate statement concerning the exact undertaking of your contingency strategy is essential.
2. An Appraisal of the Competition
A business plan should not solely focus on the business; it should also address the competition. A good business plan should include an appraisal of the competition. As a business, you need to assess the strength of the competition or else you will be substituted. To do this a business must assess the current competition as far as terms of service and frequency of service are concerned. Your business plan should assess how your business compares to the competition in terms of the flexibility, pricing and current service. As a business, you can achieve this by surveying current as well as potential customers.
3. Key Employee Resumes
In most cases, a business plan may include a listing along with descriptions of key employees. Then again, as the business grows investors would be interested with the key employee resumes. Investors and leaders alike may ask for such resume with the intention of wanting to know more about the employees. Basically, the business planner can include a short bio in the appendix section of the business plan that highlights the most important areas of an employee.
4. Overestimation or Underestimation of Revenues
If you have decided as a business that you will need additional funding, you will then need to prudently evaluate your needs and then determine the amount you need and when you need it. Most businesses seem to overestimate or underestimate their capital requirements. Therefore, a very realistic business plan should consider any overestimation or underestimation of revenue. A business plan needs to look at every aspect of the business through the planning process. To avoid unexpected revenues issues, a business plan should answer the following questions. What are the most critical needs? How much will I need to operate my business until it becomes self-sustaining?
5. The Need to Be Innovative
As an entrepreneur, you should not wait to be surprised in the future. This is so since it may reach a time when a business may be forced to be innovative unexpectedly. An effective business can achieve great things. However, one of the most important roles is to build a commitment to innovation. Innovation can be realized if the business plan includes ways of recognizing external influences. Therefore, a business can give way to innovation by including in the business plan ways of removing obstacles to innovation.
6. Commitment to Follow
There is no gain if a business emerges with a good business plan, but it does not do well to follow it. Failure to commit to the business may lead to unexpected scenarios in the future. Not following a business plan is a poor strategic choice, because it is against the fact that strategy is focus. Most startups want to do far more than they can effectively do within the business plan. In fact, bright managers may want to seize every opportunity in sight and all at the same time. However, everything you do – not based on the plan rules out something else that you cannot do as a result. To grow your business, you must commit to follow what your business plan contains.
7. A Social Media Strategy
Social media has grown significantly over the years, and it has been impacting businesses at different levels. Therefore, a good business plan should highlight ways of using social media to the business advantage. Any strategic considerations impact every aspect of the business. Approaching social media as part of the business strategy will allow your business to find the right use of social media with a maximum business value.
8. Preparation for Success
A good business will use its business plan to get ready for unexpected success. Most businesses, particularly small businesses do not like to think about the success. When developing a business plan, you should include preparation for success. When a business does not prepare for success, chances are that when it achieves unexpected success, the entrepreneur will be forced to redo the plan.
9. Adequate Insurance
Most business plans have in place business insurance, but is the insurance adequate? One step an entrepreneur should take is to make sure that the business has adequate insurance. This is crucial, since there is little excuse for not having adequate insurance and being caught unexpected when something happens. Know what your options are if something does happen unexpectedly and you need extra insurance.
10. An Exit Strategy
Every business should have a business plan going forward for a number of years. The absence of a business plan is simply bad management practice. However, even with a good plan, you still need an exit plan included in your business plan. There are unexpected events that may force you to exit, such as when retiring or venturing into another profitable line of business.
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