Rewrite your plan

“Businesses should thoroughly review and revise their business plan on a regular basis.

But this is where the difficulty lies.

Entrepreneurs are full of good will and make a lot of verbal agreements, but they lack the necessary time and expertise to put their up-to-date business plan in writing.�

Boudewijn Dupont, entrepreneurial coach for ambitious businesses

This is a practical, compact book for budding entrepreneurs by Hans Hermans.

Published by Compact Publishing VOF Kortestraat 23, 2930 Brasschaat, Belgium (+32) 485 72 74 02 hans@compactpublishing.be www.compactpublishing.be Copyright Š Compact Publishing First edition, November 2013 Original title: Herschrijf je businessplan Publisher: Compact Publishing Design: M-idea, www.m-idea.be ISBN 978 94 91803 xxx All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a digital database or published, in print, as a copy, on microfilm or by any other means, without the publisher’s prior written consent.

REWRITE YOUR PLAN 49 ORIGINAL TIPS TO DEVELOP A STABLE BUSINESS

HANS HERMANS

After the start-up phase‌ become an entrepreneur Typical for any start-up phase is a lot of trial and error, insecurity, small-scale activities, being in the position of the likeable underdog, a personal service, a lack of knowledge and maybe even naivety...

Many entrepreneurs favor this start-up spirit. I know small traders who still feel like they are just starting out, even after 15 years. They stay fresh, try out new concepts, broaden their horizon, soak up impressions and are constantly retraining.

Big companies are actually also looking for this valuable startup mentality. They encourage their staff to act like a budding businessperson/entrepreneur, to think outside the box and to get to work at low cost.

But still... Once you’ve soaked up every piece of advice this book contains, you can leave the start-up phase behind you. You are now an established self-employed businessperson, entrepreneur or even the managing director of an SME. Of course, you still exhibit the same flexibility, eagerness and guts as when you first started out, but now you have added to that the maturity, expertise, ambition, drive and stability of an entrepreneur.

The transition to becoming an entrepreneur is not an easy one.

After using our previous publications ‘Getting Off to the Right Start’ and ‘Starting from Your Garage’ to help establish your dreams and plans, you now need the guts to start with a clean slate. Rewrite your business plan with a new vision in mind.

Conclude the test and start-up phase and make an official start to the chapter of entrepreneurship. And why not celebrate this transition by organizing a party for family, friends, business relations and everyone who believes in you?

I, for one, would love to be there.

Sharpen the saw (with thanks to Stephen Covey for this vital insight) and don’t forget to have a lot of entrepreneurial fun, Hans

Rewrite your business plan

tip 01

A couple of years ago, you came up with a business plan as a budding entrepreneur, the main focus of which would have most likely been revenue, a first salary and a first profitable year.

Now the time has come to write a new business plan, adapted to the current situation and your current entrepreneurial goal. This will help you focus on the bigger goal you have subconsciously been chasing for years.

“Our story has evolved these past few years, due to changes in the market, our interests and experiences”, an entrepreneur friend told me. “We wanted to present these new concepts more clearly. This way, we too could take the necessary mental steps and create different expectations in our customers.”

As is often the case, each step they took with their little startup business would lead to another, without any logical order.

In the meantime, their new story had started deviating from the original idea to such an extent that it became necessary to devise a new website, name and logo. In order to come up with these, they also renewed their business plan.

“By rewriting our business plan, my partner and I got on the same page. We used to have frequent discussions about what we should and shouldn’t do. Now, this has been clearly set out in writing. We are more consciously working towards our goal and we are able to decline projects that do not bring us any closer.”

Vet your partners 

tip 02

Vet your partners

Choose partners that suit you, but beware – never give partners your complete trust! You should always stay in charge of your own business. Decide who to collaborate with and when to end a collaboration.

As one CEO told me when I was writing this book: “I invest a lot of time, money and people in vetting potential partners, holding tentative discussions and looking for possible agreements. Any differences are discussed until we reach some form of clarity and we closely follow up on our relationship over the course of the next few years.”

“Don’t forget that a partner will always remain independent.

He or she sets their own priorities and has their own problems to deal with and they won’t always share those with you.

One of my old partners, for instance, was supposedly very solid financially. But in reality he completely abused my trust and used my money to pay off his debt and jet off on private vacations.”

The CEO has since realized that he’s better off running his business by himself. He will only enter into a partnership with experienced people who know the market, business models that suit his own and when he has a good feeling about the potential partnership.

 Rewrite your business plan

Know when to stop

tip 03

Determine in advance how much money you want to invest on a yearly basis and stop spending once you have reached this limit. “From the very beginning, I had a clear idea of how much money I wanted to invest in my business idea”, says consultant and entrepreneur Karl Indigne.

For the launch year of his shaving balm business, he had a total investment capital of 7000 euro at his disposal. Today, Karl wants to invest a yearly sum of 10,000 euro, taken from the profits generated by his consultancy business. His goal is geared towards this amount.

“The first year, I was still figuring out what I could do with this amount of money, what type of packaging I could choose, while making sure the quantities I was producing were within reason and slowly figuring out whether there was a market for it, etc. The following year, I was already able to reap the benefits of this learning curve. It took less time and money to launch a new product. Now, I draw up a budget based on the price per unit. I make sure to keep any investments and risks to a minimum. If a large supermarket wants to stock my products tomorrow, I will refuse, because I can’t and won’t finance the necessary production costs in advance. This way, I want to use my own means to grow and gradually produce bigger quantities at lower prices per unit and bigger margins.”

Develop a thick skin 

Develop a thick skin

tip 04

“Take criticism on board. Those who listen will grow exponentially. Those who won’t listen and who always feel the need to defend themselves, will never progress. Some people say ‘Criticism is the breakfast of entrepreneurs’. You need a thick skin and a lot of wisdom.

It is therefore a good thing to surround yourself with other entrepreneurs. They actually felt the pain of being an entrepreneur. They know what it’s like to invest your own money and take risks, to dangle at the edge of a precipice. Imagine following the advice of an advisor who isn’t himself an entrepreneur … which then lands you into debt that will haunt you for the rest of your life … I see this all too often.”

Inge Geerdens, founder and CEO of CV Warehouse

Know when to stop  Disguise your service as a product 