Here are some highlights of the podcast:

Ron Johnson: So I guess it’s safe to say that all small businesses want to grow and prosper, but what are some of the dangers of growing without a proper planning?

Casey Wilson: Well, in any business model, Ron, growth means expanding your capacity. You are either adding physical plants, adding personnel, adding technology or production capacity, and adding more people, more staff, and of course, expanding your customer base or your market area, maybe even going international. And since we’re talking about change, maybe even adding or deleting a whole product line or service offering.

That typically means two basic things: one, you need financing to fund the expansion; and two, when you fund that expansion, that means you’ve increased your fixed expenses and your overhead, so that’s going to need to be covered by an increase in business to cover those fixed costs and drop some profit to the bottom line.

And it’s a good point here to mention that, of course, as you know, and many of your programs have mentioned, the Small Business Administration has numerous financing products that are designed for this, like the SBA 504 Loan and the 7(a) Guarantee Program. So, that whole financial piece is extremely important in planning to grow. And then, that’s just the first part, then you have to be thorough in preparing to operate and control the expanded business. Now, the business owner and the founder gets further and further removed from the day to day production, the day to day sales, the day to day customer service.

So the owner has to put systems in place that allow that owner to be sure the business is running efficiently. And more importantly, for a small business person that the business is running up to the standards they first founded their business on.

And now you’ve got the whole array of excellent management skills that would be required, along with the management information systems to allow you to, once again, meaningfully analyze your business and run it. And again, of course, the SBDC counselors are available to provide an objective eye in that whole process.

The big danger is, in growth, that a business owner would commit resources, and the company’s future, to expansion without a solid understanding of what’s going on in the industry, or a solid understanding of what customer behavior has become, or even what the true cost of expanding is.

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Anticipating Change:  Staying Current with Your Business Plan

Featuring Ron Johnson interviewing Lester Wilson, Retail Industry Manager at the Maryland Small Business Development Center.

( Transcript)

If you have any comments about keeping your business plan up to date please leave them in the comments section below. Thanks!

Here are some highlights from the “Making Your Business Plan Work for You” podcast by the SBA:

Ron Johnson: Tell me, Ernie, how does a business plan help an entrepreneur effectively manage the day-to-day operations of their business?

Ernie Post: Ron, the business plan is going to outline three key segments.  It is going to outline the financial goals of the business, it is going to outline the marketing goals of the business, and the operational goals.  Consequently, once those goals and benchmarks are defined for each of those three critical areas of the business, it is going to allow the entrepreneur to go back at the end of each quarter and assess how they are doing against their planned projections for each of those critical areas.

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Making Your Business Plan Work for You

This podcast is an interview by Ron Johnson with Ernie Post, Director
Pennsylvania Small Business Development Center at Kutztown University in
Pennsylvania

(Transcript)

Business plans accomplish 2 main objectives:

1. Show the world (and financers) you’re serious.

2. Keep you focused… guide you toward your goal of business success.

This short podcast will help you create a solid business plan for your new Florida business.

Some highlights from the “Creating a Business Plan” podcast:

Ron Johnson: Which businesses should prepare a business plan?

Don Martin: A short answer to that is everyone needs to prepare a plan.  We have many clients.  A third of the clients that come to Kutztown SBDC in our website are already in business but because their business is changing because of trends – cost of energy is one example, the global market – suddenly they need to sit down and again re-plan.  “What is our product?  What is our service?  How are we going to market it?  Are the numbers working?”  So more than ever, existing businesses and start-ups are all in the process of writing the plan.

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Ron Johnson:  Don, what do you need to consider before you begin writing a business plan?

Don Martin:  I think the key things that we work with our clients on before they sit down to write that plan, I always ask a really critical question, “What is it that makes your small business unique, the product or service you are going to offer?  How are you going to differentiate yourself in the marketplace?”  We want them to think about that.  We talk to them about the target market.  Who are you going to be able to sell your product and service?  What are the demographics?  What are the psychographics of that?

We walk them through exercises to help them so they begin to understand that, again, unless we understand our target market, we will not have a successful plan.  And of course the key to marketing is always how am I going to be able to reach my target market?  Am I going to use ads?  Am I going to use the yellow pages?  Is it the newspaper?  What about a website?  How do I make that website?  So that is the marketing question.

And finally, integrated into marketing, there is always a very simple one:  If I have this product, what price can I sell it at so at the end of the day, there is a profit left for the business owner, and we call that the financial component of a business plan.

Creating a Business Plan

Ron Johnson interviews Don Martin, a Business Counselor and Trainer from the Pennsylvania Small Business Development Center at Kutztown University

If you are thinking about starting or expanding a small business,
having a good business plan may be the difference between success or
failure. Learn how to develop a good business plan.

( Transcript)