Entrepreneurs' Live Business Plan 6

Today's To Do List 

Write Down Key Objective 1 - Financial Goal

List the Services/Products You Will Offer

Allocate a Value to Each of These Items

Read Article "Choosing The Best Name For Your Business"

Decide on a Name for your Business

By now you will have set your first Goal - financial turnover - if you haven't and are struggling with what to put down I suggest the following.  Of course, your first financial budget will be a "bit hit and miss" and especially in today's tense economic environment.  A good starting point is: a) to calculate what your current monthly expenses are; b) add on what extra expenses you will incur in your new business; c) add on 20% for contingency expenses; d) the total amount per month x 12 becomes your financial goal for your first year in business.

Now that you have set your Financial Goal/Financial Objective you need to break down the services/products that you will offer to reach this target.  If you offer multiple items list these in the template provided and allocate a realistic annual financial target for each of these.  This is the beginning of the "how to" reach your annual turnover, we refer to these as the tasks.  The tasks need to be listed, dated, allocated to the person responsible and measured.  The template provided allows you to do this in a very simple format. I find that once your ideas are on paper it's easier to analyse them as they become more tangible.

Once you have identified your service offering it is time to start thinking about a name for your business.  Keep it simple, short, memorable and specific. The above article will help you to choose the name for your business.  Put it down on paper, in your business plan and "feel" how it feels.        

If you missed our previous tutorials check out the Programme Recap for a very speedy catch up.

     

Entrepreneurs' Live Business Plan 5

Today's to do list:

• Watch Zig Ziglar's video on Goal Setting
• Refer back to the article Gearing Up for 2011
• Complete your 3 Goals in the IntBzStrategies Word document
• Subscribe to the Irish Government's Tender website 

 If you have missed the previous articles you can catch up on the "Flying Start" by just clicking on the links given below.

PROGRAMME RECAP

1. We identified that "everybody wants to be happy" or fulfilled or satisifed 
2. Write down your personal motto for living
3. Familiarise yourself with Google Calendar
4. Set up Internet Banking 
5. Set up a PayPal account (or other internet payment system)
6. Start researching your business - Google Alerts
7.  Read for Inspiration 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, S. Covey -  
8. Wheel of Life 
9. SWOT Analysis 
10. IntegratedBzStrategies Docs. 
11. Excel sheet for income/expenses  IntegratedBzStrategies Docs. 

Flying Start Business Plan

It never ceases to amaze me that people don't have a life plan or business plan.  We have wedding plans, holiday plans, weekend plans, party plans and more - a plan for every event except for our most prized event "life".  Why is that?  Make today the day when you put a value on your gift of life.  Put a plan in place, it's not written in stone, just on paper.  I won't quote all of the well used cliches about plans/planning, safe to say, your life is in your hands, why not live it the best way you can.

The flying start life/business plan allows you to customise it and make it your own.  This is a totally free resource.  Much of the work is done for you, all you have to do is change some of the headings or content.  This programme is written in conjunction with free resource from YouTube and other Social Media content and uses only the best of the best. Let's get started, check out below what we have covered so far and catch up. I suggest reading the previous articles on the Entrepreneurs' Live Business Plan, contained in this blog. Some of the links will take you to videos, others to published articles and some will take you to IntegratedBzStrategies website, where there are prepared documents there to facilitate you.

PROGRAMME RECAP

1. We identified that "everybody wants to be happy" or fulfilled or satisifed 
2. Write down your personal motto for living
3. Familiarise yourself with Google Calendar
4. Set up Internet Banking 
5. Set up a PayPal account (or other internet payment system)
6. Start researching your business - Google Alerts
7.  Read for Inspiration 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, S. Covey -  
8. Wheel of Life 
9. SWOT Analysis 
10. IntegratedBzStrategies Docs. 
11. Excel sheet for income/expenses    IntegratedBzStrategies Docs. 

 Tomorrow we will set Goals, easy as 1,2,3.  Happy planning

  
 

Twitters Give Me The Jitters

After reading the below article and to get started click on the links in the headings. 

As a novice to Twitter, my impression of it was a "teenage like message centre".  However, having spent some time researching and working it, I have to say it is truly amazing. I am in awe of the information that is shared by the Twitter community and the relevance that people who are serious about their business apply to it.  If I knew then what I know now, I would have saved myself a lot of wasted time.  In an attempt to save novice tweeters from the same fate I have set out, what I call a "Master Class" or flying start to Twitter.  I have no doubt that the experts out there would have much to add, but this will give you a quick start and as you go you should educate yourself on the full content that each of the recommended disciplines has to offer:

Some Do's

1. Know what you want from Twitter
2. Write a Twitter strategy
3. Identify 20/30 key people,associations,news feeds to follow
4. Follow back those that follow you (particularly at the initial stage)
5. Un-follow those that don't follow you if you feel they don't add value
6. Send a direct message to each follower - including your web/blog or special message
7. Schedule your tweets (Hootsuite/Tweetdeck/SocialOomph) to be sent throughout the day
8. Acknowledge retweets, mentions, direct messages
9. Retweet those tweets that will have value to your followers
10. Ensure that you share something original, of intrinsic value to your followers
11. Try to keep your tweets to 120 characters, easier for others to retweet
12. Use it for information and education
13. Embrace humour and have some fun with it
14. Be careful it can be addictive!

Some Don'ts

1. Bore your followers to death by constantly tweeting the same message
2. Follow just anybody for the sake of following
3. Constantly try to sell
4. Be negative, rude or derogatory
5. Retweet others' messages unless you have clicked on the link to check it out for yourself
6. Forget -this is also part of your image/brand 
7. Don't follow and unfollow too many people at once, Twitter has built in limits (50-follow and unfollow in one day) 

 

TWITTER 

A website, owned and operated by Twitter Inc.,

which offers a social networking and micro-blogging service.

HOOTSUITE

A Social Media Dashboard. It provides  a website and online brand management service, which publishes to websites such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Foursquare.

JUSTUNFOLLOW

Lets you un-follow twitter users who do not follow you.

BIT.LY.

Is a utility that allows users to shorten a long URL,

share it, and then track the resulting usage.

It also lets you follow twitter users who follow you.  It also provides stats.

KLOUT 

Klout identifies influencers on topics across the social web and gives you a personal score.

TWEETEFFECT
Find out which of your Twitter updates made people follow or leave you. This is a great monitoring tool especially in the beginning when you are trying to develop your theme and strategy.

 

NUTSHELL MAIL

Get the latest activity on various social media accounts in one place, in an email update.

SOCIALOOMMPH
Socialoomph allows you to set up an automated message to automatically follow new followers and acknowledge them.  There is a host of statistical and other information available on here.  I use it particularly for the automated DM. (direct message for my new followers)  

TWEEPI
Tweepi is a simple collection of Twitter tools: Geeky Follow, Flush, Reciprocate and Cleanup. I use it to select followers or friends of somebody I consider of value - you can set up a dashboard of criteria such as Klout score, location, followers, friends, tweets, etc.  You can also use this to "unfollow" people who don't follow you and many other features. 
 
 TWELLOW 
Twellow is a directory of public Twitter accounts, with hundreds of categories and search features to help you find people who matter to you. I use it to find people locally and also for specific industries.  It's like the yellow pages of Twitter.  It is very important to list your business here.  It's free.

PAPER.LI

Organizes links shared on Twitter into an easy to

read newspaper-style format. Newspapers can be

created for any Twitter user, list or #tag.

TWILK.COM

Takes your Twitter followers' profile photos and

 puts them on your Twitter background.

TWICKIE

Is a free service that fetches Twitter replies for

you (and gives you an easy way to view AND export them).

Easiest way to archive a Twitter response thread

TOPFOLLOWED.COM

Helps you grow a larger, more diverse, and more

valuable network on Twitter.

BUBBLETWEET

Say "Hello" To Your Followers With a Video

BubbleTweet

ONEFORTY.COM

This is an amazing site for Twitter apps. Many of which are not necessary for you but good to know about.

SEARCH TWITTER.COM

This is a very powerful  search tool for companies - globally or locally

Updaded 2/02/2010