Have a good plan for your business – Part 3 (if you missed Part 2, CLICK HERE)

Planning for your products, services, and Intellectual property

In our last entry we started the Organizational Plan section of your business plan. Your assignment was to develop your Business Summary.

Hopefully you now have a good grasp on what your company is, what it does well, and a basic strategy on how you are going to reach your goals.

Today we will begin discussing specific sections of your business to help you develop a strong in-depth organizational plan.

Describing your products and services for a business plan

There are three main categories your business can fall under:
• Distributor (wholesaler) / manufacturer
• Retailer / e-tailor
• Service provider

Manufacturing

As a manufacturer you will need to describe the process of creating the product and explain whether you will need to employ the work of humans, machines, or a combination. Explain the parts that will play in manufacturing your product.

Elaborate on the process including materials you will use, how many steps are involved, how long it takes to manufacture the product, and the amounts you wish to produce.

Don’t forget to describe how you will be getting the materials and machines needed for manufacturing. Find out how available those materials are to you and if the material needs to be shipped to you; figure out the costs and turnaround time.

Retailing/e-tailing

As a retailer you will most likely sell a variety of products so it is important to get organized. Make a list of the products you plan to sell. Describe their usefulness and the specific target markets they are sold to.

Decide on and list any vendors and distributors you plan to use. Once you have chosen the right vendors explain how the products will be shipped to you.

Does the company deliver the product ala drop shipping? Do you have to or want to handle picking up the product? How much will it cost to get the product to you?

Make an analysis describing the way you will handle your inventory. Decide when you plan to refill stock, and the amount of specific products you will need for your inventory.

Find out your wholesale costs for each product then decide on your mark up.

Lastly, if it is your job to ship the products, explain how the customer will buy the product. Will they buy in-store or online?

What will you charge for shipping? How long will it take to ship to the customer? Will you make overnight delivery available?

Providing services

If you provide a service or an entire selection of services, this section is extremely important because as a service provider you will use much of the information you write here in your procedures. Try to be as detailed as you can.

First, list the services you will provide to the customer. Describe how clients receive the service as well as how long these services will take to be distributed.

Second, explain the process that you and your staff must undertake to issue the service to your clients. Describe the amount of staff needed to perform these services.

Third, describe the payment process; for instance, do you offer continuous service with recurring fees? Or perhaps the client pays before or after the job has been started, half now half later, etc…

Developing intellectual property

Mo matter what type of business you are in you must develop and protect any ideas specific to your company using copyrights, patents, fictitious business names, logos, trademarks and procedures.

Unfortunately, the world will live in isn’t perfect and there are some people out there who would like to take advantage of companies through frivolous lawsuits.

Make sure you protect yourself by registering any intellectual property to the right government agencies. Another option, if you are not sure where to register your intellectual property would be to get legal advice from an attorney.

Make sure you get and keep all supporting documents in an easy to locate reference file cabinet. You never know when you might need them.

Please feel free to email us with any questions you may have on this section or contact Assurance Advertising for a consultation.

Join us next time when we talk about location, location, location.