by Karina Carrero of KJS3 INC
Email: karina.carrero@kmcbusinessconsultingnetworks.com
Website: www.kmcbusinessconsultingnetworks.com
Very few small and medium-sized enterprises start their business with a clearly structured and functional business plan. It is also no guarantee of success if you did it at the beginning and it only remained on paper as a requirement for a loan or initial investor and you put it aside once you started running the business.
Be more efficient from the start of your business
There is a temptation to set up a fully structured company from the beginning, with equipment, offices, and advertising expenses like those of large corporations. Of course, if you have the budget, maybe you can afford it. Even if that is your case, I invite you to put these ideas on the table to make better use of the initial capital you have available:
1. Define the strategy for the launch of your business
At this point, I recommend starting with the product or service you have available initially and test market acceptance. You can start with simple market research, and launch a test product or service and evaluate the acceptance. This can be the first stage for your business plan and many of these activities can be developed with the support of third parties specialised in these topics. You will save yourself a significant investment in the usually overstretched publicity for the launch of your product.
2. Be as lean as possible with start-up costs.
Initially, I recommend having as simplified a cost structure as possible, having only the smallest possible staff and the most economical facility options available to you. Then, with the validation of the product or service of the business, you will be structuring the phases of progress in spending to accompany a potential increase in demand that will occupy or require more sophisticated capabilities in your company (for example: salespeople, customer service, after-sales service, among others). Because the most painful mistake for a business is to establish idle capacities from the beginning.
3. Take care of every "penny" of the initial investment.
Having a dashboard or control chart that you can keep in an accounting system to keep track of the use of money will allow you to determine how it is used and make timely decisions that are aligned with a change in business strategy. If you don't have a dashboard, you will have to invest at some point in a costly service to audit and organise the business finances, which will lead you to allocate budget not foreseen at the outset for this organisation.
4. Have trusted advisors aligned with each stage of your business.
Part of your initial investment should consider incorporating the support of experts to help you steer the business in the right direction. You must validate that these people can guide you in making the right decisions to support you in the points indicated above. It is a common mistake for entrepreneurs or businesswomen to turn to these services when the business is already in such a level of problems that they really have little room for action, or they only hire a person to define the business concept, but the execution is not properly planned ("the plan is perhaps good, but the execution fails").
5. Develop digital media with failure to execute as described therein:
This is one of the most controversial issues when starting a business, usually a significant income is allocated in the initial definition of a website and social networks that are far from the execution of the business, that is, the entire digital platform shows a company that is far from the actual execution capabilities. You may have interesting options of systems available on the market such as InterFuerza that can give you an integrated solution and that allows you to take digital resources forward with minimal effort and at no additional cost.
It is very important to invest as much time as possible in planning before launching the business, defining the stages of its growth in a realistic way and having a platform that allows you to have the necessary information to make decisions in a timely manner. Finally, large companies had a few stages of evolution before becoming what they are today.