Thursday, July 19, 2007
A Comprehensive, Detailed And Effective Business Plan
I've had many discussions about business plans and the need to spend time creating one. To me, a great business plan is not something that is written and then put in the filing cabinet. A great business plan is part of the everyday course of business; almost like a road map of sorts. An effective business plan can be a touchstone for improving your business even as you conduct business.
An "active business plan" is one that is used as reference; it changes as the needs and capabilities of a business change; it evolves with the company and works to allow the company to grow and be effective. I believe an "active business plan" should include milestones, calendars and methods of measuring the success, profitability and effectiveness of all aspects of the company.
A well developed business plan is much more than a description of a company. It serves as a guide to conducting business and helps the business person explore strengths, weaknesses and opportunities. There are many aspects to an effective business plan and I've posted on this topic many times.
I received a small business newsletter from AT&T today and I followed one of the links. It pointed a new section of their website called "The Watercooler." http://smallbiz.att.com/yourworld/watercooler This section has live, interactive and archived resources for small business people ranging from accounting to marketing and all point in between. On the right side, there is a category of links titled "most popular" and the very first link was to the following article.
How To Develop And Use A Business Plan
A well-prepared business plan is more than a necessary tool to seek funding. It should also be a functional road map for your growth strategy.
For any business to be successful, it must be started and operated with a clear understanding of its customers, its internal strengths, its competitive environment, and a vision of how it will evolve to compete in the future. A business also needs money to start, to operate, and to grow. By expending the effort to develop a comprehensive business plan, you will have a powerful tool for attracting investors. Your business plan is the roadmap for your company. It clearly states where you are, how you got there, and how you plan to proceed.
This Business Builder steps you through the process of developing a comprehensive business plan. Although businesses may vary with regard to the products or services they offer, there are specific elements that a potential investor will look for in any business plan. Therefore, every well thought-out business plan includes a description of products and services, a competitive analysis, a marketing plan, a management plan, and a financial plan. Your business plan will provide you and potential investors or lenders with a clear understanding of your objectives, strategies, and financial viability.
What You Should Know Before Getting Started
- Why Write a Business Plan?
- Tips for Creating a Good Business Plan
- Who Should Write Your Business Plan?
- What Lenders Look For
Process for Developing Your Business Plan
- Begin the Plan with a Summary
- Describe Your Company
- Analyze Your Market and Determine Your Strategy
- Describe Your Product/Service and How They are Produced
- Describe Your Management Organization
- Describe Your Operations
- Develop Your Financial Forecast
- Determine Your Proposed Financing
- Outline Your Plan(s) for the Future
- Other Considerations
Copyright © 1999-2006 Edward Lowe Foundation. www.edwardlowe.org All rights reserved.
Whole article http://smallbiz.att.com/article/PL20_0200
As I look at how my business has evolved in the past few months, I can see a need to revisit the business plan. It reminds me of all of the times I've written about the importance of keeping the plan current and using it as guidance. Things have been happening very fast in my business, but reading this article and taking a look at my last revision of my older business plan, I can see that I need to give this some time.
Time... that's one of those things it seems we as business people lack the most eh? Well, investing time in planning can actually create time where it didn't exist before. Making the effort to thinks things through, create new processes and discovering ways to delegate, assign or contract areas of need can actually manufacture time.
As my little company grows, the time has never been more right for a comprehensive, detailed and effective business plan. Once the August issue of Soky Happenings is complete, I will be writing out a new "skeleton" from which to start building my new plan. Perhaps I'll share parts of the process without letting any cats out of the bag. (grin)
Labels: planning, small business
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Time The Real Measurement Of An Effective Webpage
FINALLY! Someone gets it!!!
Nielsen Scraps Web Page View Rankings
Jul 10, 10:12 AM (ET)
By ANICK JESDANUNNEW YORK (AP) - A leading online measurement service will scrap rankings based on the longtime industry yardstick of page views and begin tracking how long visitors spend at the sites.
The move by Nielsen/NetRatings, announced Tuesday, comes as online video and new technologies increasingly make page views less meaningful.
Although Nielsen already measures average time spent and average number of sessions per visitor for each site, it will start reporting total time spent and sessions for all visitors to give advertisers, investors and analysts a broader picture of what sites are most popular.
read all @ http://apnews.myway.com//article/20070710/D8Q9P8I80.html
I've been using the "time on site" vs the number of page view for years. I've always known that if a person is spending 1.5 seconds on a page, they didn't read it, they just reacted to something they saw and clicked on it. They click on 5-10 pages and then leave, what did they take away from the website? Not much I venture.
Alternatively, pick another session when a visitor only views 3 pages but stays on those pages for a minute or more and now we have accomplished something! They have actually read what we have published and thus, the message has been effectively delivered. I've always believed this and tried to explain to my clients that time per session is much greater than number of page views.
Interesting, not long ago "hit count" was used as a measuring stick. I fought that one too. Simply put, each web page is made up of pictures, graphics and other files. One view of the page could result in many "hits" on the server so the number is inflated. Sure, 1,000,000 hits looks great on the pie chart, but it sure doesn't help measure the actual reach of the website.
The article quoted also make another great point. In this new era of "Ajax" website where only small elements of the page change as needed, the actually page address may never change. That said, it is still possible (and important) to review the logs to see what elements are being requested so the site can continue to offer popular elements and eliminate unused sections.
It is possible to get a "page view" count by monitoring the Ajax elements that are called, there is no doubt, and to me, those would qualify as a page view. For advertisers however, it's hard for them to measure their effectiveness without knowing how long their ad sat in front of the visitor and then of course, did the visitor click it, or ignore it?
Then there are the flash games, video and music streams that may cause people to loiter on a page for a long time. Again, depending on the media, you can measure the number of "full views" vs a simple click by matching the IP address with the amount of bandwidth transferred.
For example. The video presentation of the widget is 100mb and has 45 clicks. YEA! We have reached 45 potential customers. Right? But a closer look indicates that only 500mb have actually been downloaded. This is where you have to look closer. Odds are that only 2 or 3 visitors actually watched the video and several others watched a portion of it.
(Insert long post about effective media production and communications techniques here.)
The point is, a small business person should make himself or herself familiar with how the web works, at least enough to question their service provider to produce statistics that truly represent the effectiveness of the website. Just as we quantify the dollars we spend on other forms of advertising, we should quantify the effectiveness of our virtual presence as well.
It really depends on how much you rely on the internet for your revenue, or how much you would like your internet revenue to grow, as to how much time, effort and money you should invest in analyzing the traffic through your website.
For example, if you have an online store and rely on the revenue from that store to support your business, then you should be looking at the browsing habits of your visitors. Where are they coming from? What are they looking at? And yes, how long are they spending on each page. You may quickly see an opportunity to sell a product by discovering that people are spending time on a product page and not buying. You can look for reasons why they are not buying; heck, you may even discover that the "add to cart" button doesn't work.
Watch your stats! If you don't have good stats from your service provider, there are a number of free and fee ones out there. Google "web stats" for more information.
At the end of the day, I don't sort my visitors by the number of page views; I sort them by the length of time they spend on the site. I then order the results by the length of time they spend on each page. Now I can see what people think is interesting and what they do not.
Happy selling!
