Writing a business plan is a fundamental step to ensuring your business has every chance of succeeding. Common statistics state that 9 out of 10 businesses fail on the first 5 years of operation, and of the remaining 10%, 90% fail in the following 5 years.Why? There may be a number of reasons – from poor customer service, inadequate product, poor logistics management and cost control. However, the number of businesses that do not define their goals and map out their path to success is phenomenal. Taking the step to define your business goals, plan where you want to go and what you want to achieve will place you in an increased position of future success and realization of your dreams.Below is a list of the areas you need to consider when writing your business plan. These steps will help define the business goals, the reason for existence (of the business), and define the direction you will take.Step 1 – Define your visionYou may know inside your head why you want to start a business, and what business it will be. However, your staff will not know this information, and after a time, you too will also forget some of the details. Write down what your mission is – your purpose and vision for the company. This sets the tone for all business and actions taken on a daily basis, working toward achieving your mission and purpose.Step 2 – Set your goals and objectives for the businessThink big. Do not let your own limitations impact on what you think your business is capable of achieving. Define what you short (less than 12 months), medium (1-3 years time frame) and long term goals (usually 3-5 years timeframe) will be. Think of topics such as how much revenue do you want to generate? How many outlets will you have? How much passive income will it produce for you in the future? How many customers on your database will you have? What will be your geographic area of influence? These goals will be a combination of your personal goals for your own life blended with that of the life of the business.Step 3 – Define your USPIn order to stand out form the crowd, it is imperative that you know and define your USP – Unique Selling Proposition. What it is that you offer and provide that is different to other people in the market? It may be that you offer additional services to your core product; it may be that you have a more personalized customer service approach; it may be your after sales service and warrantee on the product. What is it that your customer will be attracted to above other businesses offering the same service or product? Once you know this, then you can use it as a focus for your customers to recognize you and remember you.Step 4 – Know your marketHave you ever thought up a brilliant idea and began to investigate it, only to find out that another business has already started with that exact same idea? This happens daily to many people, but do not be discouraged. The marketplace is huge and can support a number of businesses providing the same service. Look at petrol stations and dry cleaners as an example. So, get to know the market – your market. How many competitors are there? What do they offer? What have the trends been in the industry? What might be the future trends and predicted growth/decline of the industry? Are there any benchmarks you can base your business performance on, such as profit margins, expected turnover per business size, and so on? Once you have a broader picture of the market you are entering into, you will be better equipped to handle and maximize your potential business growth.Step 5 – Know your customerWithout doubt, this is one of the most important aspects of running a business. You must know your customer. For the most part, products or services that are not a necessity, and where there are a number of suppliers for the same item, your customer will buy on emotion. Understanding and defining why they do what they do is the key to success. There may be a number of factors that are common amongst your target audience for your business services. By researching and finding out what these are, you will be able to see what areas you can focus on where there is a need, and what areas will not interest them. Write down what your ideal customer will look like, behave like and want from you. Seeing your business through their eyes will help to highlight your strengths and any weaknesses you might have.Step 6 – Research the demand for your businessIt is important to know what the demand is for your product, before spending large amounts of capital on your business. Do not go off your ‘gut instinct’ as to whether there are droves of people waiting to buy your product. The simple rule is this – if the demand exceeds supply, business will be great. If supply exceeds demand, your business will eventually die. A saturated market can only support a few businesses, and often these organizations have a USP clearly defined that helps them stand out from the rest. Secondary research can be conducted from your home (via the Internet), the library and some government offices, that can help you ascertain the levels of demand for your product or service. Primary research – talking to your target audience and gathering the data yourself – may be needed. This is by far the better option of finding out the results know, rather than spending your savings and capital on a business that gives a low or negative return in the future.Step 7 – Set your marketing goalsHaving completed the market research and defined why you want to do business in the first place, you will need to set some marketing goals. These are goals that relate to your product, your price, your distribution or provision of service, and your promotions. So many organizations want to start at this end of the planning process, but they miss the most important areas. Your marketing goals will need to be measurable and help you reach your primary objectives for your business. For example – how many products will you sell? What product development strategy will you have? What are your price margins? How will you deliver your product or service to your customer? How will your customer know about you, and how will you promote your business? These are all sample questions designed to generate ideas and goals for the marketing of your business.Step 8 – Define your marketing strategyHaving defined your marketing goals, you will need to plan in detail how you will achieve these goals. How many items will you produce, and at what price margin (that will give you your desired revenue goal)? What delivery system and what geographical area will you cover? In what areas and how will you promote your business? Will you use TV, radio, or print advertising – or all three? You can be very specific if you have to, as this is one of the major plans you will be referring to through the course of your business life, so be comfortable with it and know how to use it.Step 9 – Take Action!This is the MOST important step of all. Take action! All of the preparation in the world will never earn you a single dollar if you don’t actually open your doors and make the phone calls that will bring the customer to you. Even if your business planning process has highlighted that maybe this area of business isn’t for you – don’t let that stop you from finding one that is. If your ultimate dream is to be happy, healthy and wealthy, then there is a business for you. If you are doing something everyday that gets you closer to your ultimate goal, then your business plan will provide the direction and focus for the journey. So, begin taking action today, and reap the rewards that will follow.
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Digital Camera Photo Printing Tips
Home photo printers are getting better and better! Printing digital pictures at home has always been fairly easy, but now it’s also able to give great quality. My personal view is that 90% of the time a printer needs to have no less than 6 ink cartridges to reproduce a good photo print. This gives it a better chance of accurately rendering colors and producing smooth graduations between different ones.But even with a decent printer you can still mess up easily! We’ve all been infuriated by seeing our favourite snaps slowly emerge on the printer tray with a horrid red or blue tone that destroys the actual light! What little steps can you take to ensure this doesn’t happen, and that printing digital pictures on your home photo printer leads to good results every time…?Color Management Tips:So, the problem we’ve got to overcome is that computer screens and printers work on a different color system. The image on your monitor is made up of pixels in the RGB (red, green, blue) system. Meanwhile your printer produces photos made up of little dots of ink (dots per inch/dpi) comprised of the CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, key black) colors.Printers blend together the inks from their cartridges to accurately capture the colors in a photo. This leads to slight differences in the colors represented on a screen, which are built of individual pixels. But don’t worry, it’s easy to bridge this gap in color systems by playing around with the settings on your printer’s software.Firstly, here’s what I do to make sure my monitor is displaying photos as they should be printed. I calibrate the monitor using a ‘colorimeter’, like Spyder or ColorMunki. Then, I take picture in fairly plain daylight that features someone’s skin. This shot is then send off to a really top notch professional company, who render the colours and tones brilliantly. This print serves as a guide and standard against which to judge those produced on my own printer.What next? Well, successful photo printing involves making adjustments to the settings within the printer software, or ‘printer driver’…Using the Printer Driver:In Windows this can be accessed by going ‘Control Panel’ > ‘Printers and Faxes’ > ‘The name of your printer’. Then select ‘Printer’ from the toolbar and ‘Properties’ from the drop down menu.Printer drivers usually come complete with a few preset options, or ‘profiles’. A profile is just a combination of ink, paper and printer settings that will lead to good results. So do try these out, but you can fine tune things manually as well.If your printer is turning out images with an inaccurate color tone, giving everyone green skin or bright red lips (!), enter the ‘color management’ section of the printer driver. Here you can tweak the intensity of cyan, magenta, yellow and black in your prints, by simply using the sliders shown.Keep making changes until you get a print that accurately reproduces your on-screen photo and looks similar to the professional job you had done.Using Photoshop To Control Output:You can make the same adjustments to paper type, color intensities and so on using Photoshop or other editing software. In Photoshop go File > Print > Page Setup > Printer > Properties to access the settings.Do be sure to specify that the settings you have configured in Photoshop will determine the appearance of your prints, rather than those in the printer driver. Otherwise it’s possible to ‘double up’ and get very bad results.So if your digital camera photo printing has been less successful than you would have liked so far, making use of the color management options available in the printer driver or editing software should help you see an improvement.So, color management for photographers is actually pretty simple, and will greatly enhance the standard of your prints. Getting to grips with your printer driver, and Photoshop’s printing options is also well worth while.
Being Smart and Savvy With Designer Inspired Handbags
These days it can cost a small fortune for a genuine designer handbag. Fashion handbags can easily reach into the thousands of dollars and lucky are those that can justify spending that amount on a fashion accessory. Luckily the handbag market has spawned a full collection of designer inspired handbags that feature designs very similar to the big names in fashion for a fraction of the cost. Sometimes referred to as knock-off or replica purses these stylish handbags allow fashion forward women to attain the look they want at a price they can afford.No matter what style of handbag you are looking for, you’re certain to find a designer inspired model that matches your unique taste. Totes, hobo bags, clutches, satchels, messenger bags and pouches can be found all over the replica purse market and come in a wide variety of designer styles and collors. Handbags available in the replica market are near identical to the originals and many people won’t ever know the bag you’re sporting is a knock-off.With the economy the way it is it’s getting harder to rationalize spending excessive amounts on fashion and accessories. But that doesn’t mean chic women need to sacrifice their sense of style. Instead women can save money and still look great by opting for designer inspired handbags that offer high quality craftsmanship, spot-on decorations and adornments and plenty of features to keep pace with today’ modern women.Other people who can benefit from replica handbags are retail store owners who want to provide their clientele with the latest fashions at prices that are affordable. Many wholesale handbag suppliers feature terrific lines of designer inspired purses that can be bought in bulk at discount prices. Don’t worry about not making a profit, when smart and savvy women get a look at these stylish purses and the low prices it’s an easy sale. Succeeding in retail takes foresight and knowing that people are pinching pennies to stay above water in today’s bad economy makes the decision to stock up on replica fashion accessories is a smart one.Looking great doesn’t mean spending a lot. While some women are slave to certain labels the savvy shopper knows that a replica handbag will still carry the chic style a woman wants from a purse without the eye-popping price tag. So if you’re a fashionista who needs a certain accessory to complete a outfit or a retailer who needs to buy wholesale handbags for a shop, check out the options in the designer inspired market.