by: Tina Valiedi
Planning your business is the critical starting point. You need to map out your business. Where do you plan on going with your business? What steps are you going to take to get there? How are you going to market your business. All of these questions should be answered in your business plan.
Some people are excellent at planning. Others are not. The problem is, we were never taught how to plan in school. So how do you begin planning? It's an acquired skill, it won't appear over night.
The first step to becoming a successful planner in learning your personality type. Once you learn who you are, you can learn to plan according to you personality type."Personality Plus: How to Understand your Personaltiy" by Florence Littauer, is an excellent book on learning about your personality type. It is easy to read and comes with a personality profile test.
Don't worry if you feel like you're not making any progress. Learning a new skill, especially planning, takes time to learn. Be patience and persistent. Start your in planning in baby steps.
Let's begin by learning to plan out sales calls.
First, how many sales appointments do you want or need for the month? Let's say, you need 10 appointments each month. If the an appointment is about 2 hours long, you will need 20 hours total for the entire month. Take out your monthly calendar and mark of 20 hours.
Now lets take a step back. What did you do to get those appointments? You made phone calls. You need about 20 phone calls before you got those 10 appointments. How long were you on the phone, about 15 minutes. Now block off that time on your calendar.
Before you start making phone calls. Put a list of your contacts together. Have there name, address, phone number, even secretaries names if needed. To help you make those calls, write a sales script. Use the script as a reminder.
This is the beginning steps of planning your business. You can use this formula for almost every project.