The Business Plan: Make A Change

In my most recent post, I discussed valuable tips from capital investors Martin Zwilling and Shervin Pishevar in regards to securing investment funding for your new venture or project. I’d like to expand on that discussion with some practical applications of this professional advice. Without spilling the beans on the details of my own venture, I will highlight some useful ways to beef up your business plan when pitching to investors with references to my own business plan.

First and foremost is the social media factor. If you haven’t discovered the value that a strong social network has for your business yet, then I’d suggest you research some success stories that have resulted from smart social media utilization. After reading through the confusing yet inspirational email composed by Pishevar a few times, I decided to add some more kick to the social media portion of my business plan, especially as it pertains to marketing efforts. I did so by adding a “Gamification” segment.

We’ve discussed Gamification in the past, and there’s no denying the fact that this concept of making every day life less boring by adding gaming elements to the mix is catching on with businesses on a global level. If utilized properly, Gamification can bolster a social marketing campaign by providing visitors with incentives to delve deeper into a company’s products and services. For example, instead of offering promotional codes to Facebook account holders simply for “liking” my page, I will encourage them to go one step further and truly discover the company with a brief but enjoyable social game that allows them to earn discounts by inviting other friends to play the game. While this strategy may seem somewhat lacking in imagination, it still provides me with a unique opportunity to educate my target market without forcing them to dig for information on the company. What’s really cool about it is that you can inject whatever content you choose to in social games, such as embedded links to various landing pages on your website. It also creates a self-perpetuating method of driving more traffic to your Facebook page through invites to friends.

Of course, there is also Zwilling’s advice on providing logical and reasonable numbers that clearly demonstrate return on investment. This can be accomplished easily enough by mass amounts of research. Here are some questions that I have attempted to answer throughout the course of my own business plan: How are similar products and services selling in my target market? What sales strategies are my competitors using and how effective are they? Finally, what are my advantages over my competitors, and how can I capitalize on those advantages and turn them into net income? These questions are best answered in the financials, sales, and operations sections of the business plan, assuming you are following some type of “successful business plan” template.

Of course, I have chosen these areas to make changes based upon the advice of the professionals because I believe they are key points in my business plan. How I intend to market my business and generate revenue are two questions that any investor will ask, and they represent what I feel are the greatest strengths of my business. Naturally, just as each business is different, so too is each business plan. So, it’s important to understand every aspect of your business before finalizing your business plan and presenting it to investors, because it will allow you to pinpoint the strengths of your own business and what you feel will be the most important aspects of the plan that will really drive it home for investors.

Easy, right?