Brilliant ideas strike at the strangest times. Usually, they are forgotten. Every so often, they are remembered and scribbled down or shouted to Alexa. Occasionally, the idea is carried out. However, a great concept alone is not enough for success. Even the most striking and unique business ideas fail without a start up business plan. Begin with the idea, design a plan, and follow through. This article will walk you through how to develop a business plan that can transform your good idea into an actionable business start-up.

A business plan is a description of your business’s future goals, short and long term. Your business plan clearly outlines your business’s envisioned trajectory. As you write, don’t get bogged down with details, but don’t over-simplify. Your plan should include the specific steps you’ll follow to achieve your objectives.

Define your objectives. Designing a business plan begins here. Investors are looking for evidence that your business will be profitable, and this starts with a compelling, concise summary of your mission. What makes your company unique? What is your goal? Who do you hope to influence? Who will benefit from your idea? Is there a market problem your business solves?

Analyze your market. Understanding your target market through careful research is crucial to startup success. Fully comprehend the needs your business will fulfill. Who is your target audience? Where do they live? Which socioeconomic statuses will be able to afford your product? Once you’ve identified your target market, you can recognize and analyze your primary competition. Know who you will be challenging and strive to understand their strategy.

Understand startup costs. Business startups require capital, often more than expected. Consider your cash flow realistically, and briefly summarize your projected financial standings for the first few months of business. An accurate, innovative financial plan is crucial to startup and continued growth, and if you do not feel qualified to tackle the challenge alone, find an excellent consultant to lead your financial ambitions.

Create a product/ services list. Identify what you’ll be providing, what advantages you possess over industry competitors, and what value you provide to potential customers. As you compile a comprehensive portfolio, consider how you might expand your products or service. Consider also how you may market these items to your industry.

Design a management plan. How will your business function daily? What will operations look like? Define specific responsibilities and how these will be distributed among the company.

Evaluate marketing channels. Determine the best marketing channels for your company and define a marketing budget. Then, design a logo and color scheme. Choose which social media networks you’ll pursue, if any. Decide on business cards, a website, etc. This step is important, because it defines how you’ll be seen by the public and how you’ll get your brilliant idea into their hands.

Today’s financial universe is difficult, often impossibly challenging for young and growing businesses. Klein Hall is an accounting and business advisory firm of the future. We are dedicated to leading businesses through today’s financial waters into the opportunities of tomorrow. Contact us today to begin a conversation.

When it comes to launching a successful career in any industry, the first piece of advice fresh hires receive is often to “get a mentor.” These mentors can play an invaluable role in helping you navigate a new workplace, new goals, and new expectations.

But once you’ve left the rat race to launch your own business, the value of a mentor can pale in comparison to that of a business advisor—someone who is intimately familiar with your specific industry and who can provide you with balanced and impartial advice for the challenges you face. Rather than reinvent the wheel and learn from your own mistakes, you can build on the expertise of those who have come before you.

This post will explore the varied roles a business advisor can fulfill, as well as how taking advantage of the opportunity to add an advisor to your team can significantly boost your business’s growth.

Business advisors can come in a variety of forms. Some are part of a collaborative group of local leaders who have similar goals and face similar challenges—a club of female Silicon Valley CEOs, for example—while others may work as paid consultants after retiring from their own C-suite gigs.

A good business advisor will do the following:

• Review your internal systems. After an in-depth analysis of your current strategies or practices, a good business advisor will add value to your company by revising your current practices or offering alternative methodology. Always approach your advisor with a teachable attitude. Your current internal systems may be in desperate need of updating from a professional perspective.
• Help you identify your long-term goals. During the first few years of business ownership, many entrepreneurs are too preoccupied with keeping day-to-day operations going to spend much time focused on their business direction. Working with an advisor to identify a solid, reliable financial vision can give you new direction and help you put productivity measures into place to meet these goals.
• Share your business values. Just like entrepreneurs, business advisors come in all shapes, sizes, and business philosophies. It’s important to find someone whose goals and values line up with yours. No matter how well-intended, guidance from a business advisor whose style is diametrically opposite yours may not provide you with the best decision-making tools.

By finding an advisor who fits the above description, you’ll be well-equipped to begin growing your business. A business advisor can even recommend other consultants to help you with specific tasks (for example, hiring an accountant to audit your finances or hiring an HR consultant to design a nondiscriminatory hiring policy).

It’s important to iron out a clear work plan and scope of duties for your business advisor. You don’t want to risk any miscommunication that could impact the quality of work provided. Don’t be afraid to schedule regular status meetings to assess your progress on identified goals and brainstorm ways to improve matters.

If you’re interested in hiring a business advisor but aren’t sure where to begin, Klein Hall CPAs can help. In addition to general accounting and bookkeeping services, we provide business advisory services to businesses of all sizes and types. To learn more about the services we offer, get in touch with one of the members of our dedicated and experienced team.

In the startup world, stories of multibillion-dollar tech companies being launched from a garage or closet are legendary. But the Small Business Association (SBA) has some more sobering statistics. It reports that about 1 in 12 employer-owned businesses close each year, with only about 1 in 3 businesses still operating after 10 years.

With these challenges, it’s important to take lessons from other businesses’ mistakes without having to learn the hard way. Read on for five mistakes that can seriously cost your small or startup business.

Today’s technology-centered world provides a double-edged marketing sword for startups. It’s easier than ever to promote your own product or service from anywhere in the world—but on the other hand, you have to provide top-notch customer service to retain local customers who can just as easily purchase a similar product online.

As a result, knowing how to serve your customers’ needs—after first learning who your customers are—is the key to maintaining market presence and growth. Studies show that customers are often willing to pay nearly 20 percent more for a certain product or service just in exchange for good customer service. But the other side of that coin means that a single bad experience can send a lifelong customer packing. Knowing what constitutes good customer service for the majority of customers gives you the information you need to steer marketing decisions. 

Fortunately, today’s available data metrics are incredibly sophisticated and can provide businesses with a complex profile of just about every customer. Offering loyalty programs and discounts that link a customer’s purchases to their online profile can give you an even deeper look, allowing you to push sales to the customers who are most likely to take advantage of them.

Part of identifying your market needs includes a tougher task—essentially weeding out the customers who don’t provide a good return on investment (ROI) or who just make your life difficult. Certain “high-maintenance” customers may require far more customer service time from your employees, and the price for their services should be calculated accordingly.

Other problem customers who may need to be culled from the herd include those who frequently make returns or exchanges, who have made multiple online or in-person complaints about service (regardless of your employees’ efforts to address their concerns) or those who have verbally harassed your employees. Whether you simply raise these customers’ rates to accommodate for the issues they cause or bar them from your business entirely, you’ll improve workplace morale and ensure you can fairly compensate your employees for the extra issues they must address.

Although just about every startup business requires a bit of initial solo effort to get off the ground, in order for your business to ultimately be successful, you have to do more than “buy yourself a job.” When you’re too busy getting through the day-to-day to focus on future planning, you can’t give your business the marketing it deserves. Everyone has just 24 hours in a day, and studying the habits of entrepreneurial giants reveals that these CEOs, CFOs, and company founders rarely venture below the big-picture-decision level.  

As a result, being able to delegate day-to-day tasks and decisions to trusted employees and managers leaves you free to do what you do best—pursue expansion opportunities, plan your business’s future, and learn more about your customers and clients. 

Taking a look at the many once iconic mega-retailers that have folded in the last decade shows that, for most, the death knell came from failing to adapt to the internet age. By the time these retailers realized that their sparse, hard-to-navigate, or malfunctioning website was costing them millions in lost sales, it was often too late to regain the market share that had already been ceded.

The lesson to be learned from this is that marketing success requires constant adaptation. It’s not enough to create some basic customer profiles and assume you’ll be able to keep up as they evolve; instead, you need to periodically review your customer data (as well as larger industry and marketing trends) to ensure you’re focusing your marketing dollars on the most up-to-date profiles.

Testing multiple new marketing channels at once and tracking clicks and conversions can give you some quick insight into which efforts are getting the most views (and the most sales).

Even the best marketing and management decisions may become irrelevant if your business lacks sufficient working capital. Absent an angel investor or another source of relatively no-strings-attached funds, maintaining a tight hold on working capital can be the difference between weathering a bad season and shuttering your business. 

Even if you’ve already delegated many of the financial decisions to a CFO or analyst, it’s incredibly important to regularly review your company’s finances and understand what’s being spent, where. If a product or marketing avenue isn’t yielding results within a few months, it should be given a fairly short leash; after all, no business has the time and capital to pursue unsuccessful projects indefinitely.

Maintaining an eye on the horizon (including hoarding cash and capital when a traditionally slow season is approaching) can keep you from being blindsided during a temporary market downturn. And if you anticipate needing additional working capital in the near future, seeking out your loan or cutback options before you’re in dire need of cash can give you the time you need to make the most prudent decision.

Although most business owners make countless other mistakes—large and small—every day, avoiding the biggest blunders a business owner can make should help your startup remain profitable for decades. Klein Hall CPAs can help. We’re a full-service CPA firm that offers everything from business consulting to accounting and tax preparation services to a broad range of clients in the Chicagoland area. Contact us today for more information about what we can do for you.