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Writing a business marketing plan is always the first step to achieving your business goals. It’s important to create a well-researched marketing plan because it will surely lead you to a profitable and successful sale.

If you’re planning to put up your own cleaning business, it’s imperative that you have your own marketing plan even if you’re catering to a niche market. This will assist and guide you in your daily decision-making which in turn, will be your key to success.

Let me give you some tips on how to start your business marketing plan to keep your commercial cleaning business thriving despite our sluggish economy:

Tip 1: Planning on how to allocate your capital is one of the factors you need to consider when creating a business plan.

On the one hand, spending on expensive but quality cleaning materials and equipment might lead to slower return on investments. On the other hand, if you scrimp on equipment and cleaning materials, the quality of your service would most likely suffer. You obviously have two choices: cheap equipment but faster ROI or expensive equipment but slower ROI. The key here is to find a balance between cost-optimality and quality service.

Tip 2: Setting a price can make or break your cleaning business. Is your cleaning service priced too high or too low?

Your business marketing plan should also be based on the law of supply and demand. If your business is located in an area wherein there is pretty much non-existent cleaning business, then you could price it accordingly to position yourself into your customers’ mind as the market leader. However, be sure to provide quality service so that your customers’ will get their money’s worth. If your cleaning business is located in a highly competitive neighborhood, then you have to lower your prices accordingly. Always keep this in mind whenever you’re studying the pricing strategy: your markup should be within the reasonable value which leads me to…

Tip 3: Know your competition. Are there are a lot of cleaning services sprouting left and right in your neighborhood? Do you still want to take the risk strong amidst the strong competition? If yes, try to set yourself apart from the rest of the pack. Offer complementary products that your competitors haven’t thought of yet.

Tip 4: Set a deadline. When is your target launch? When do you expect to break even or recoup your investment?

Setting a deadline will drive and motivate you to be consistent. This will also keep track of your progress as well as help you spot your strengths and weaknesses.

More often than not, these factors are often taken for granted. What makes a business marketing plan effective is when you exhaust all possible scenarios. Once you’ve come up with the best AND worst possible scenarios for your cleaning business, then it’s time to put your plan into action!

Jeremy Gray is a successful entrepreneur and a commercial cleaning business owner. He also owns and maintains CleaningBusinessSecrets.com. Head to his site if you want more information on how to write an effective business marketing plan.

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/strategic-planning-articles/top-tips-for-creating-a-business-marketing-plan-1366670.html

A business plan’s table of contents is presented just after the cover sheet, giving a full overview of the sections within the plan. Why, you might ask, is a table of contents needed if the plan is intended to be read straight through, from start to finish, by its audience of potential funders? The reality is that readers will often want to jump around during and after their reading of the plan if they become engaged enough to consider it an option for funding.

Looking at Strategic Fit

Readers will be concerned with the strategic fit of your business concept. Strategic fit is how the activities of your organization work in concert to contribute to your competitive advantage. For example, if the competitive advantage discussed in your competitive analysis describes building a premium brand based on high quality, discussion of coupons and rampant discounting in your marketing plan may not jibe. In a sense, all of the aspects of your business must build towards achieving the competitive advantage you mention. There is good reason for readers to flip back to this section as they examine the rest of the document.

Comparing Numbers

Another reason why readers may jump around is to compare the numbers you present in the financial statements and financial summary at the end of the plan with the methods and tactics you detail earlier.  They will look to see that, in their understanding, you will be able to accomplish what you say you will within the level of expenses you describe. They will also want to check that your revenue projections are reasonable given the market size and specific customer target markets you detail in your industry and customer analysis sections.

Preferences of Individual Funders

Different individuals reading your plan will have different backgrounds and expertise. They may feel most comfortable evaluating the section of your plan related most directly with their expertise (such as marketing, operations, finance, or human resources). For this reason, your plan must make it easy for readers to jump to any section they see fit. While the section may build upon ideas discussed in previous sections, each should also stand alone to a certain extent.

Eric Powers is associated with Growthink, a business plan consulting firm. Since 1999, Growthink has developed business plans for more than 2,000 clients. Call 800-506-5728 today for a free consultation with a Growthink business plan writer. Or, if you’re writing your plan yourself, Growthink also offers a business plan template.

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/strategic-planning-articles/business-plan-tips-your-table-of-contents-1367040.html

photo credit: Adam Tinworth

Small business start up money is a highly sought after commodity as more and more people are trying their luck at self employment.

Statistically, the odds of small business start up success is less than 20% within a 5 year period.

A large part of the reason for getting your loan request turned down, and the basic reason start ups end up failing in large numbers in the first place, is the mistakes made when seeking financing.

Here are my top 7 small business startup money seeking mistakes.

Mistake #1 – No borrower risk.

The biggest single mistake I see with people seeking startup capital is that they ask a lender for 100% of their capital requirements.

Risk needs to be shared between borrower and lender. Startup situations, depending on their nature, typically require the borrower to invest anywhere from 30% to 50% of the total capital required into the deal.

A personal equity investment not only reduces the cost of borrowing but also provides some serious skin into the deal that indicates a strong commitment on behalf of the borrower.

Mistake #2 – Purposeful Business Plan.

For most small business start up money, a business plan is a required part of the application.

Fundamentally, this is an important requirement for someone getting into any business. Unfortunately, most borrowers look at this strictly as an academic exercise to get financing with the only purpose of completing the business plan being to satisfy a lender requirement.

A business plan should always be prepared from the point of view that the primary benefactor of the process of creation and preparation is the underlying business. If this approach were taken more often, start up situations would achieve greater success, faster.

Mistake #3 – Poor Working Capital Projections.

Start up situations tend to intensively focus on the assets they need to acquire, the space they’re going to lease, the leasehold improvement cost, and other initial expenditure outlays required to get the business up and running.

What tends to be either missed entirely or poorly estimated is the realistic cash flow required to operate the business until such time as the business can sustain itself on a month to month basis.

Part of the reason for this is a working assumption that the business will immediately be cash flow positive in the first month of operations. In most cases this doesn’t happen, the shortfalls are financed by personal credit cards because of the lack of planned working capital, and the borrowers end up in credit card hell, paying high interest rates with potentially no way out.

Unfortunately, creating more realistic, and potentially conservative cash flows may indicate that you don’t have enough money to actually get started, so the temptation is to be overly optimistic in order to make the numbers work, which statistics show is a bad idea more often than not.

Mistake #4 – No Real Marketing Plan.

For most retail and service start ups, the marketing plan consists of placing some advertising, offering some grand opening specials, and sitting back and waiting for the flood of customers. Advertising can be very expensive and if you don’t know what you’re doing, you can burn through all your available cash pretty quickly.

From the financier’s point of view, they want you to be able to clearly articulate what you’re going to do and why its supposed to work along with the related costs. Lenders typically are not very good at assessing marketing plans, but they can likely tell if one is missing or grossly incomplete/unrealistic.

One of the most powerful ways to support your marketing strategy and related tactics is with written orders or letters of interest, or letters of intent to do business with you once you open.

Mistake #5 – No Rationale For Key Assumptions

Even if you have a plan and realistic cash flow projections, part of being credible is articulating what you’re attempting to do in a logical and clear to understand format so that someone who potentially knows nothing about you’re business can follow along.

If a request for small business start up money is logical and contains well documented assumptions, it automatically stands out from the pack.

Be clear on how you came up with each and every number you represent in your application package and why you feel they are relevant to your business case.

Mistake #6 – No Expertise and Support Team

One of the first questions that goes through any lender’s mind when someone asks them for small business start up money is whether or not the person requesting financing has the knowledge, expertise, and support to make the business successful.

Too often, individuals do not document and support their own expertise relative to the business venture. This can be done through a resume, examples of previous related work experience, letters of reference, a list of contacts that can provide verbal reference, etc.

Outside of your own skill set, what type of team have you assembled to support your efforts? In many cases, small businesses can start out with no employees outside of the proprietor(s). But you can still have a virtual team which can include an accountant, bookkeeper, lawyer, marketing coach, technology service support, and so on.

Mistake #7 – Poor Presentation

The discussions you have with a lender and the information you provide to them either inspires them with confidence or turns them off.

It may take weeks to get a loan approval, but it can take mere seconds to loose any realistic chance of even being seriously considered.

Outside of the obvious need for good grooming, neatness, and punctuality, the presentation process usually falls apart because the presenter is not sufficiently prepared to impress the heck out of the lender.

But making a good impression is not just about being enthusiastic and confident in your delivery, its also about being able to articulate the details of what you’re trying to do and why it would be a good investment for the lender.

Too often, individuals seeking start up funds do not prepare in advance for their discussions with the lender and just “wing it”, potentially destroying any chance they might have had to get the small business start up money they were looking for.

Brent Finlay makes it easy to understanding business financing. Learn how to locate and secure proper financing for your business. To receive your free 6 part mini-course visit the small business credit and financing website