Hi There! I have been self employed since 2004 as a freelance graphic
designer and photographer. My customers are really happy with my services and
I have been steadily growing my clientele since then. But that involves as
you all might already know very hard work and good working principles. The
result has been that I have experience a higher demand for services and in
the past two and half years the pace has really picked up as more and more
new clients want to obtain my services. Also due to this demand I have also
widen my services into many areas of the marketing scenario as far as
providing graphics sketching, printing, signs, web, services and even some
guidance to some of my customers. I want to start a business that follow the
same ethics and principles that I have applied to my freelance experience and
I am thinking about forming an LLC, I found out that I will need a Business
Plan before I can go any further. How difficult it will be for an individual
to get one together and how would you recommend I start? I really need to get
this done and I will need all the help I can get, so any advise will be
greatly appreciated!
JGabriel | Community Moderator |
11/19/2012 - 5:01 pm
Hi, Welcome to the SBA.gov Community! Alteria offers great advice. To help you build your business plan, you may also want to visit the tool to help you get started. Best of luck!
A Business Plan might be a little more formal than what you need. While I
think that a business plan is a good idea to give overall guidance, the main
reason why people create a plan is because they are looking for financing.
From what I can see, you already have a business and want to grow it and
formalize it. If the above is your intention, and you are not looking for
financing, there are a lot of business plan components that can be
streamlined since the plan is for internal consumption.
First things first, you already have a business. This is not so much an
exercise in creating a business, but a plan of where do we go from here.
There are several free guides out there as to how to write a business plan.
In your case, I would concentrate on the core of the plan starting with:
Your market. Your post shows that due to demand, you have been flexible and
expanded into other areas. As you might have already noticed some are
probably more profitable than others, while others are probably more trouble
than they are worth. A good plan would assess your ability to maximize the
business opportunities present.
Your competition. Who are you going against? What made you land those
customers? If you can repeat that, you can continue to grow. Is there
something your competition is doing that you can do?
Marketing. Growth comes from new customers or upselling to existing
customers. Your previous analysis of your market and competition should tell
you how to proceed here.
Operations. This is about putting down what you intend to do. The trick is to
translate those actions into numbers. Let’s use an example: Your market
review shows you that every time that you have been engaged to come up with a
company logo, not only have you been excellently compensated, but it has led
to additional work from those customers. You have decided to set a goal to
obtain 10 logo design jobs next year.
You figure that in order to reach potential customers you are going to design
a great shiny glossy brochure touting your services to local businesses. You
know that you will need to spend money with a printer to print those out, you
will need to spend money to get a database of prospects, and you will need
money to spend on the direct mailing. You got to translate your business
initiatives
Financing: Whether or not you will need external financing will depend on how
ambitious you get on your operations. The great thing about this is that you
are already have a baseline after working as a freelancer for several years.
Hey, welcome. Business plans are an essential part of a business. They really
help you think out your business as well as how it will be run, marketed,
etc. I would suggest going to the URL below to read up on them and speak with
a SCORE counselor. I really enjoyed the time I had with them and it opened my
eyes.
Feel free to send me an email with any questions. I just started my company
up and am working on getting my site together with search engines, etc. While
I don't know everything I would be happy to share my experience thus far.
JGabriel | Community Moderator | 11/19/2012 - 5:01 pm
loanuniverse | Window Shopper | 11/19/2012 - 2:47 pm
think that a business plan is a good idea to give overall guidance, the main
reason why people create a plan is because they are looking for financing.
From what I can see, you already have a business and want to grow it and
formalize it. If the above is your intention, and you are not looking for
financing, there are a lot of business plan components that can be
streamlined since the plan is for internal consumption.
First things first, you already have a business. This is not so much an
exercise in creating a business, but a plan of where do we go from here.
There are several free guides out there as to how to write a business plan.
In your case, I would concentrate on the core of the plan starting with:
Your market. Your post shows that due to demand, you have been flexible and
expanded into other areas. As you might have already noticed some are
probably more profitable than others, while others are probably more trouble
than they are worth. A good plan would assess your ability to maximize the
business opportunities present.
Your competition. Who are you going against? What made you land those
customers? If you can repeat that, you can continue to grow. Is there
something your competition is doing that you can do?
Marketing. Growth comes from new customers or upselling to existing
customers. Your previous analysis of your market and competition should tell
you how to proceed here.
Operations. This is about putting down what you intend to do. The trick is to
translate those actions into numbers. Let’s use an example: Your market
review shows you that every time that you have been engaged to come up with a
company logo, not only have you been excellently compensated, but it has led
to additional work from those customers. You have decided to set a goal to
obtain 10 logo design jobs next year.
You figure that in order to reach potential customers you are going to design
a great shiny glossy brochure touting your services to local businesses. You
know that you will need to spend money with a printer to print those out, you
will need to spend money to get a database of prospects, and you will need
money to spend on the direct mailing. You got to translate your business
initiatives
Financing: Whether or not you will need external financing will depend on how
ambitious you get on your operations. The great thing about this is that you
are already have a baseline after working as a freelancer for several years.
Good Luck!
Alteria | Window Shopper | 11/18/2012 - 9:01 pm
help you think out your business as well as how it will be run, marketed,
etc. I would suggest going to the URL below to read up on them and speak with
a SCORE counselor. I really enjoyed the time I had with them and it opened my
eyes.
Feel free to send me an email with any questions. I just started my company
up and am working on getting my site together with search engines, etc. While
I don't know everything I would be happy to share my experience thus far.
http://www.sba.gov/category/navigation-structure/starting-managing-business/starting-business/how-write-business-plan
http://www.score.org/
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