Three basic principles of a business plan

As an entrepreneur, you must have a great business plan if you want to succeed and scale your business higher as fast as possible. Having a business plan makes you put systems and structures that enable your business growth in place. It makes you vision-focused, and at the same time, helps you to deal with realities that will suffice in the market. Just like anchors keep a ship steady and safe during the storm, the same way your business plan keeps you steady in the face of harsh realities. However, from time to time, you may need to go back to your drawing board and modify your plan. When creating a business plan, there are three basic principles you should keep in mind; they are as follows:

Your product must solve real-life problems
One way most entrepreneurs miss it is to create products or offer solutions that are not solving people’s problems. Business is fundamentally about solving people’s problems and getting paid for it. That means there is an already existing market who has a problem, in other words, a set of people with a need and the purchasing power to buy what will meet their need or want. As such, before you draw up a business plan, you must make appropriate findings of the problems of your target audience. The customer is king, and power is in their hands. If you will not answer the requests, you have no business being in business. Your product, either good or service, is not a mere product, it is a real-life solution to real-life problems. If you are not sure about your product providing the needed solutions, you can run a feasibility test. If it succeeds, then you can go back to your board and plan rightly and bigger. If it fails, you have to go back to making research and developing new products. Keep in mind that serving the market is what will give you a market share, establish you as a force to be reckoned with, enable you to compete effectively with others, and provide more ways for you to scale up your business.

You must have an effective marketing strategy
Having a great product, a real-life solution to real-life issues is essential, but it will not thrive in the market if not backed up by an effective marketing strategy. Being in business without advertising what you do is like winking at a beautiful girl in the dark, no matter how much you wink or how beautiful you appear, you will never win her over because she cannot see you. Having a great product without executing strategies that will get your product in front of those who need it, win over their hearts, convince them to buy and turn them into loyal advocates of your brand, is like being covered with a bushel in the market. No one will see you, and therefore, no one will buy. As much as you make a budget for product development, you also need to have a budget for a marketing campaign. Your ability to sell triumphs other abilities you may have in your business. The marketing aspect of your business is where you fully execute your ability to sell. Besides granting you a portion of the market, depending on how effective your marketing strategy is, it can help you in toppling the leaders in the market and establish you as the go-to in that field. As part of your strategy, you should exploit the importance of a trading account.

You must have a strong customer policy
In any type of business you may be in, you must have a fundamental understanding of the fact that the customer is king. No matter how business savvy you are or how great your product may be or how effective your marketing strategy is, the customer controls the reins of your business. You will not sell your products to spirit beings or animals, so you need to factor in how best you can serve the customer in your business plan. This should be stated in your customer policy. How are you going to treat your customers? Are their perks for your customers? In which manner will you relate with your customers: professional and friendly, courteous and open, etc. Since they are spending their money, customers will always want to be treated right. They will always consider how you treat them over how great your product is or the influence of your marketing campaign on them. Never undermine the place of your customers in your business; without them, you have no business.