Writing a business plan for your Solo Entrepreneur business doesn’t accept to be a alarming project. If you can acknowledgment 10 aboveboard questions about your business, you can be accessible to go.

The key to success is to acknowledgment all of the questions in abundant abyss that if a acquaintance asked you to advance in this business, you’d say yes. Most importantly, accomplish abiding you almanac your business plan somehow…whether you address it by hand, blazon it into your computer, or put it on stickie addendum on your wall. Keep it achieve accessible area you can accredit to it if you are authoritative important business decisions. And, accomplish abiding you analysis it monthly–or, even better, weekly–and amend it at atomic annually.

1. Your Dreams: What do you wish your business to accommodate for you? (think time, money, freedom, who you plan with) Be specific–how abundant money, how abounding hours, if do you wish to “retire”.

2. Customers: Who are your barter and what do they want/need?

3. Articles and Services: What products/services will you accommodate to accommodated customer’s needs?

4. Markets: Area are your barter and what do you apperceive about them as a group? “Where” ability be geographic, it ability be what affectionate of places they adhere out, or area they go to acquisition articles or casework like yours. What is their age, income, gender, hobbies, ancestors structure, etc.

5. Your Style: How will you ability barter and what will you say? Your methods of extensive barter needs to bout with area your barter are–and with a bulletin that they can chronicle to.

6. Competitors: Area abroad are your barter acceptable to get this charge met? Acquisition out all you can about how your competitors price, market, and accommodate service.

7. Your Uniqueness: How will your product/service accommodated customer’s needs abnormally than your competitors? Consider how your claimed character impacts that.

8. Your Abilities: Of the abilities all-important to run your business, what do you do well, and what do you charge advice with?

9. External Resources: What people/technology/services will abutment you in the abilities you charge advice with?

10. Fulfilling your Dreams: How will your business accommodate the affectionate of alive ambiance you desire, both in how abundant time you spend, how you accomplish your work, and how abundant money you make? Here’s area the elastic meets the road–make abiding you can appearance how you will advertise X bulk of artifact or account at Y price, awning your expenses, and ability the goals you set in 1. above.

Once you can acknowledgment all these questions, accept it advised by some trusted, accomplished professionals who will accord you cold feedback. Consider a business coach, as one such resource!

A lot of people never start businesses because they believe they don’t have enough money to do so. Unfortunately, these same people don’t realize that many of the world’s most successful companies were started on a shoe-string budget by an entrepreneur with limited resources. Below is a list of tips to help you save money when you’re first starting a company:

* Manage your finances in MS Excel, not Quickbooks.
* Manage your contacts in MS Outlook, not ACT.
* Get free legal and accounting advice from law/business students or lawyers/accountants who are willing to do pro-bono (free) work.
* Look for and join organizations that support youth entrepreneurs and small business owners.
* Hire unpaid interns and make their job exciting.
* Partner with somebody instead of paying them.
* Use credit cards.
* Get free, professional advice from SCORE, Teachers, and Professors.
* Get investments from family and friends.
* Find organizations who incubate startup companies or companies who might have office space that might be willing to let an aspiring entrepreneur use it. Perhaps, your school will let you use their copy machines and phone lines.
* Swap services with a company instead of paying them.
* Learn how to do graphic design and web design yourself. If you have these two skills, the startup costs of every business you have in the future will be dramatically reduced.

If you look at those Corporations in franchising today you see the great companies that use these systems to move markets and deliver products and services to America. Franchising is obviously a power play in the marketing strategy game book. General Motors uses the franchise system or special teams, dealerships, to move their products in each market. Now take your mind to the “Family and friends Program” in Telecom, that is still being done by all those selling mobile communications. Think of some of the ways hyper type marketing has been done in so many areas and market sectors with so many different niches or market segments. Think of the new term appropriately named as viral marketing thru the use of ezines, forwarding emails and adhoc networks of friends and acquaintances within one’s email box. Look at the organic evolution of a real virus and how it gets what it needs within your body; virus vector modeling is fascinating as it is so close to grass roots political campaigns, referral marketing or Internet link exchanges.

If you look at the demographic software used to break down markets into pieces; that exact computer modeling is used by the CDC to estimate the growth or exponential risk of a runaway virus. Just ask anyone in Atlanta’s CDC research center about this. You do not have to read as many books as I to figure this out. Books like Virus Hunters of the CDC, Cobra Event, some of Tom Clancy’s stuff and I submit to you that to stop a virus mimic one, to catch an International Terrorist become like one in mind with special teams, to catch a socio path become one, to catch a corrupt politician hire a criminal, to expand a brand name or market a service or product model your efforts like that of a virus. After all that is the best design evolution has come up with and they along with the cockroaches will be here long after the human species has died out or headed for distant stars.

To stop an expanding business competitor operate like a big Corporation or a government, create choke points, become the back ground of the gamma subject target, watch for flipping patterns and mirror their efforts. Studying business strategy is more than just reading business textbooks in college and a few of the Best Seller business books on the list. It takes entrepreneurial thought processes, good observational skills and a little abstract thought. Think about it.

Does the idea of running your own business sound exciting? Do you have a business up and running and want to take it to the next level? I’ve found that the answers to these 5 questions can make or break any endeavor. Of course there are lots of other areas that must be addressed, however these will get you moving in the right direction quickly.

Once you have these answers, you’ve created a basic and relatively painless Down and Dirty Business Plan?.

1. What problem do you solve?

You MUST begin here. If you don’t know what problem you solve, you don’t have a snowball’s chance. What real need do your potential customers/clients have that isn’t be fully addressed yet? Where’s their pain?

2. For whom do you solve it? or What is your niche?

In today’s economy, the best (many say the only) way to market your goods or services is to be very specific about targeting your potential customers. You can locate them, they can find you, and others can refer to you. This is scary for most entrepreneurs because it means saying “No” to some people. Let it go. It works!

3. Who’s your competition?

It’s time to become a stealth researcher. Who else is doing anything like what you’re doing? What’s their niche? How do they market? What do they charge? How long have they been in business? How are they unique?

4. How will you market your business?

Study your competition. What’s working for them? Model their success. Improve it. Think outside the box. Where does your niche hang out? Will you network, place ads in local papers, or do some PR? How about using Google pay per clicks?

5. Why you?

Why will your potential customers go to you instead of the competition? What makes you uniquely qualified to solve their problem(s)? Is there a specific solution you have that they don’t? Can you be more cost effective and/or efficient? Is your service unparalleled? If you don’t know why they’d choose you, your market won’t know why either!