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A Weather Warning For Your Business

The recent cold snap in the UK has ground many transport links to a halt, closed hundreds of schools and impacted the normal running of day to day life greatly. If economic times weren’t tough enough already this extended period of snow has delivered another blow to business and in particular small firms.

Whilst the full cost of the impact is to be fully calculated (as it’s still rising), the anecdotal evidence highlights a tough environment. Small businesses have felt the impact of workers unable to get into the office because of transport chaos, or issues with child care more so than some larger businesses.  A downturn in the volume of transactions due to customers staying in their homes during the poor conditions, or the difficulty of managing the supply chain due to transport issues have meant few companies have escaped.

Of course if your company imports and retail sledges and skis you might be seeing an unexpected boom. There is also a case for independent retailers and grocers seeing customer footfall increase as consumers ditch the car journey to the supermarket in favour of the 5 minute walk to the local shop.

What level of impact and exposure your business has to the weather conditions will of course vary greatly from others depending on the nature of your business, your communication infrastructure, your geography and that of your workforce.

Whilst it may now seem a little reactive and probably too late, now would be a good time to look at contingency plan for your business. This plan should look at issues such as the recent cold weather but also other problems such as postal strike, power failures or viral outbreaks such as Swine Flu. Now we’re not saying you should have a plan as detailed as a 1960′s government nuclear fallout strategy but it would be worth thinking about some of the following…

1. Supply Chain – do we have a back up if our 1st route to market is lost (ie: Royal Mail postal strike)?

2. Remote working – Are we capable of running our business if access to our premises is blocked and/or our workforce are unable to get here? – access to web-mail, cloud software. etc.

3. Do we have an alternative method of selling our products? Traditional retailers who can’t operate their store may be able to maintain some level of sales via an on-line operation.

4. Can our business operate on a workforce attendance less than 50%? What changes can we make to allow this?

5. What is our recover plan/options? If you can’t operate the business what levers can you pull to get back on track?

Limeminds recommends you take sometime to pull a 1 page document covering these areas and any others that may impact your business. Any areas you feel exposed in should be made a priority.

If you would like Limeminds to work with you to analyse the company’s position and provide a clear solution plan we can be contacted via consultants@limeminds.com

January 13th, 2010 | Tags: , , , | Category: Business Planning | Comments are closed

Marketing Template

marketingWriting a marketing plan for a business or product is the first and most critical step in making it a success. In this article Limeminds aims to provide you with a template from which you can develop your own marketing plan over and over again.

1. Executive Summary – This section is the headline, the grabber and the summary of your plan. Whilst it will be positioned at the front of the plan it will most likely be written last as it encapsulates everything your marketing plan aims to deliver.

Try to keep the summary around the 350 words mark and make it to the point.

2. Situation – What is the need for the business/product? What does the current market look like?

You should look to answer these questions and others through a mix of techniques

a. SWOT analysis

b. PESTLE analysis

c. Competitor analysis

This section should also include commentary on the market and its current trends, an overview of you company and it performance in this area and an overview of the customers including size of market and type of customers.

3. Objectives or Targets – This section should be used to define what success will look like. Provide your marketing and financial goals along with some commentary as to when they are there.

4. Strategy – Here you will describe the plan to deliver your objectives, work around the 4 P’s (Product, Price, Place & Promotion). Highlight your USP and describe in detail how you will reach your target market.

Within this section you may want to include an overview of alternative strategies, this may add weight to reasons why you decided upon the chosen strategy.

5. Implementation and Budget – The final section should give the details of how and when you will implement the plan and how much you expect it to cost. Detail and accuracy are key here especially if you require an investor or manager to agree to your plan.

July 26th, 2009 | Tags: , | Category: Business Planning, Marketing | One comment - (Comments are closed)

Killer Questions to Analyse your Business

Here are a few of our killer questions that you should ask yourself and your team about your business when analysing your current position and performance.

  1. What’s working in your business?
  2. What’s not working your businesss?
  3. If you had to rate the effectiveness of your business what would it be (1 – 10)?
  4. What would need to happen to get to 10?
  5. Where are your biggest opportunities?
  6. What are your biggest challenges?
  7. What is the one thing you would like to do but can’t due to resource of budget?
  8. What is working well in your industry overall?
  9. What is not working well in your industry overall?
  10. What do you see working well for your biggest competitor?
  11. What do you see not working well for your biggest competitor?
June 1st, 2009 | Tags: , , , , | Category: Business Planning | Comments are closed

LimeMinds Small Business Marketing Support

LimeMinds have now launched a new service for Small Businesses to help them create effective marketing plans. LimeMinds can how be put to work in developing a marketing strategy for your small  business in 3 ways:


1> By the Minute – Hire LimeMinds to advise your business on online and offline marketing, analyse your competition  and industry.

2> Create a Marketing plan or Strategy - LimeMinds can be hired to create your business an effective marketing plan.

> Act as your virtual Marketing Director - Many small businesses would benefit from having a dedicated marketing director or manager. LimeMinds virtual Marketing Director allows your business to access to have that resource.

For more details about these and other services click here.

April 26th, 2009 | Tags: , , , , , | Category: Marketing | One comment - (Comments are closed)

What does a good business plan look like?

Writing a business plan can be a challenging and lengthy process for any potential enterprise but is absolutely critical if you need to secure funding to start your business. Even those businesses who do not require start-up funding should create a business plan as this is the document that will guide you through an maintain your focus on the key issues and goals of your business.

In this the first part of our business planning series LimeMinds will take you through the basic structure of the plan and cover the important elements your plan should contain.

Writing a Business Plan is a little like writing a CV,  there are many different ways to style, format, present your plan but the core contents should cover the same issues. Whilst the content is ultimately the most important part of the plan, its style and format can have a massive impact on how it is received and ultimately if anyone will invest or fund it. A successful Business Plan should contain (in our opinion) 6 main parts;

Part 1 – Position and Personnel

This section is where you will highlight the overall position of the business to date. It should describe your business idea and the people who will be involved in making it happen. Describe your product and service and the skills that you and/or your management team posses.

Part 2 – Research

This is the section in which you need to demonstrate that you understand the market you wish to operate in and the customers your business will serve. This section should also contain information on your potential competitors.

Part 3 – Business Strategy

What is your Marketing & PR strategy? What is your pricing and promotional strategy? How will you compete against other companies? This section is your opportunity to define how your business will position itself in the market.

Part 4 – Operations

How will the business be managed day to day? Considerations should include manufacturing processes, employee requirements, legal matters. You need to cover all aspects fo the business to convey how you will make your Business Strategy happen.

Part 5 – Financial

This section is where you can forecast the financial of the business. Cash Flow, P&L, Balance Sheet they should all be included and you need to be as accurate and realistic as possible. We will be discussing some potential tools and techniques that can help with this in later posts.

Part 6 -Controls

You need to demonstrate to any financier that you can manage and control all the elements of your business; sales, finance, production, etc. What processes and procedures will you put in place to keep the business running smoothly.

Those are the main 6 parts any business plan should contain, you may wish to include others such as an executive summary which pulls the plan together in the form of a one-page document, similar to a director’s report in any company’s annual report.

We will be covering each section in further detail so subscribe to our RSS feed or Email Feed to keep up to date with our releases. You can also contact LimeMinds to review and develop your business plans via email: consultants@limeminds.com

Happy Planning.

March 3rd, 2009 | Tags: , , , | Category: Business Planning | 4 comments - (Comments are closed)

3 Tips for Managing your Business in a Recession

With the recession in full swing and its impact being felt throughout the economy now is the time to make sure your business is ready to stand up to the test.

Whilst Small Businesses will undoubtedly feel the impact of the reduced availability of credit and a contraction in the spending of both business and consumers, there are a number of strategies or ideas which they can implement to help them through these difficult times.

Three areas which you can focus your business are:

Attitude and Agility

Whilst attitude may seem a little simplistic and maybe more a kin to the ‘PMA’ philosophies, your attitude to the business and the industry in which it operates as your company’s leader is extremely important in motivating your staff to keep driving the business forward in seemingly desperate times. As the leader of your business it is your attitude that will determine the determination and engagement of your employees.

If you are a single person enterprise a positive attitude will enable you to keep focus and maintain your alertness to new opportunities within your market.

Your agility or more specifically your business’ agility will prove invaluable in a difficult trading environment. Your advantage as a small business over your bigger competitors is the ability for your business to remain agile and to react quickly to changes in the market. You as a small business owner can make quick decisions to seize opportunities much faster than a large business which will need to mobilize great swaths of personnel and compete numerous rounds of decision making meetings in order to change cultural behaviors.

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”

Charles Darwin

Keep alert to market changes and remain positive in your attitude to them. Allow your business to remain agile and maintain the speed at which you react to these changes. Remember to take advantage of change you don’t need to be the first or the pioneer but being part of the early minority will prove extremely rewarding.

Value

Your customers and clients are also finding times tough at the moment and they will be challenging their employees, suppliers and customers to deliver more value then ever before. If you can position your business and its products or services as one of great value then you will have a great competitive edge, but do not take value to simply  imply lower prices. The businesses that will thrive in this value driven environment will be the ones that deliver value in more creative ways. Some questions to ask yourself when considering your firm’s value proposition are;

  1. What value do we add to our customer’s business?
  2. What value do we add to our customer’s people?
  3. What do our products/services deliver in terms of value?

Continue reading “3 Tips for Managing your Business in a Recession” »

February 16th, 2009 | Tags: , , , , , | Category: Business Planning | Comments are closed
 
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