If you are thinking about taking classes to earn your master’s degree in clinical mental health counseling, you should also consider an internship to help you gain practical skills and experience before…
The success of the business that you want to carry out is highly depends on how solid the business strategic planning that you set.
When we fail to make a good business plan, that means we are actually planning for a failure.
Therefore, when we want to start a new business, we must be able to formulate a solid business plan.
How to Formulate a Business Strategic Planning
For those of you who may be planning to build a new business on a small scale, then all you need is just a simple business plan that is concise.
The content of a “simple business strategic planning” should include the following aspects:
- Description of the business and the uniqueness of the product
- Market potential analysis
- Marketing plan (marketing plan)
- Production plan and business operations
- Cash flow projection
Let us discuss one by one briefly.
1. Brief Description
A simple business plan should start with a brief description of your business. What is the product or service that your business offer, and what is uniqueness about it compared to your competitor.
For example, one of the businesses I run is selling business books and self-development.
The unique point: the title of the book is eye catching and the content are written in a down-to-earth and easy-to-understand language. Another unique thing is that every purchase of a book package will get an attractive audiobook bonus (not many of my competitor’s business book products provide an audiobook as the bonus).
2. Market Potential Analysis
Next, the business plan needs to analyze the market potential of the product or service you want to market out. Is it big enough and have good prospects?
Do a check on the market potential. You can do it by looking at the sales figures of products that are similar to the product or service that your business is going to sell (or identical products).
For example, when I wanted to start writing, publishing and selling business books, I researched how many business and self-development books were sold around.
In addition, I also see the sales of similar products from other authors who sold their books directly (direct selling) through online channels.
On the other hand, I also looked at the number of readers of my blog and social media followers; and predict how many of them will buy the books that I market.
From the various data, then I can estimate the market potential of my book.
3. Marketing Plan
Furthermore, the contents of the business plan should dissect the marketing plan that you will do. This is one of the keys that will determine the success of your business.
In the marketing plan, you need to at least describe:
- What are the types and content of the promotional materials
- Where will the promotion take place (online/offline?)
- How is the process of getting customer prospects
- What is the provided marketing budget; and for anything
- How many sales targets will be obtained through marketing costs that have been spent
For example, when I want to launch a book that I write and market, I plan the advertising material that I will publish.
Then, I determine through which channels I will do the marketing. In this case, I rely on thousands of paid advertising and emails that I have to carry out sales promotions during the launching period.
In addition, I also set a sales target during launching. I am one of those people who prefers small and easy-to-reach targets when setting a target. In my opinion, this is a better way than setting a very high target that are not achievable (the cost of failure can be very high if the target is too ambitious).
Studies also show that achieving business targets that are easy to reach (because we have set small targets from the start), in the long term will actually make us more consistent in taking action. This is better than setting an overly ambitious initial target, and then failing to achieve it, then eventually causing motivation to plummet. Disappointed because ambitious targets failed to be achieved.
So start small. Create easy and reachable targets.
4. Production Plan and Business Operation
Furthermore, the business plan also needs to outline a production plan or business operations. For example, how is the production process (if you produce it yourself)? How is the supply of raw materials and availability of machines? How many employees are needed?
If the product is purchased from a supplier; who the supplier will be a partner; how to pay; as well as how to store stock in the warehouse?
5. Cash Flow Projection
Another key part of the business plan is the cash flow projection. It describes:
- Sales target (and income) per month
- Expenditure plan per month
- Maybe at the beginning of the month there was still a deficit (more money going out than money coming in).
However, you must determine when or in what month the cash flow target to be surplus. This is because only with positive cash flow, your business will survive.
Final Thought
Statistical data shows, only 50% of new businesses can survive more than 5 years. And only 30% of businesses can last up to 10 years.
The chance of business success will be higher if our business starts with a solid business strategic planning.
Smartphone addiction has been developed since the development of the technology. But, have you ever wonder what happens to your brain when you look at a screen for too long?
What does our brain power have to do with smartphone addiction? It turned out to be very closely related.
Delayed Gratification
Various scientific studies show that a powerful way to hone our brain power is persistence to live something deeply and in a long enough duration. This process requires the power of concentration and a deep focus of attention on what we’re doing (Duckworth, 2017). Our brain will expand positively when we do this process.
In addition, our mental strength and mind will be more resilient when we can do thing is known as “delayed gratification” (Mischel, 2006). Or the ability to delay instant gratification or instant rewards.
Delayed gratification is the ability to be willing to pursue a long and tiring process, to postpone immediate pleasure, in order to achieve goals in the future. In short, delayed gratification is the ability to float upstream, swim later, or get sick first, have fun later.
Our mental and brain power will grow when we diligently practice concentration and deep focus of attention, as well as the ability to undergo delayed gratification.
Now, all of those key components were shattered and damaged by the presence of smartphone addiction.
Yes, that’s right, the power of perseverance, the power of concentration and deep focus of attention, as well as the ability of delayed gratification. All lay dead in the roar of the onslaught of smartphone addiction that is increasing.
Screen Addiction Will Reduce The Attention Span
In fact, studies on smartphone use confirm this grim truth: using cellphones too often, will significantly reduce the “attention span” in us. It becomes increasingly difficult for us to build deep attention on a point of interest. Our attention span is getting shorter.
Through the pattern of scrolling and clicking on our cellphone screens repeatedly, our minds are trained to keep jumping from one point of attention to the next.
When using cellphones, we often rush from one content to another. Scroll, pause, and then scroll again. This continues to be done repeatedly, every day.
Such patterns train our brains to keep jumping up and down, and never have room to build long and deep focus of attention.
Our ability to build deep focus and long-term concentration becomes increasingly lost due to the habit of playing cellphones that keep jumping and rushing.
Instant Satisfaction Pattern Developed From Smartphone Addiction
In addition, the ability to cultivate delayed gratification skills is also getting rare.
Why? Because when playing cellphones, we continuously get instant rewards. Every time you look at the screen, scrolling and clicking, your brain happens to find enjoyment instantly. Your curiosity is instantly satisfied. This kind of pattern is also slowly growing instant culture. We feel that everything should be like playing a cell phone. Whatever we want to enjoy, it can come instantly as easy as scrolling and clicking.
These habits and mindsets make us even more unable to appreciate a long and tiring process. Without realizing, you ruin your ability to postpone pleasure for the sake of a later reward. Because when we are trapped in smartphone culture, our brains have been trained to get used to finding rewards instantly, or experiencing instant pleasure.
Attention span is getting shorter; loss of focus and concentration; and the lack of ability to appreciate the long and deep process due to the culture of wanting everything to be instant, such as playing with cellphones; all of this has a bad impact on strengthening our brain and mental.
Bottom Line
Perseverance to go through the painstaking process, deep focus and power of concentration, and the ability to delay immediate gratification. All are key components for us to be successful in realizing our dreams.
However, all of the key components collapsed due to the invasion of smartphone addiction.
In other words, smartphone addiction will make our perseverance and tenacity to realize the dream of life slowly turning into death in a very painful sorrow. And with that, our beautiful dreams will also be buried in it.
In this article, we will dissect the causes of stagnation and failure in the business world. Applicable to those of you who have their own business, or are also planning to build their own business.
There are so many variables that causes a business to stagnate. However, if condensed into the most fundamental variables, business stagnation is often caused by only the following two elements. Let’s check them out!
1. The Product or Service Doesn’t Have a Clear USP
USP stands for Unique Selling Propositions. This means that the product or service you are selling has a unique and attractive offer for potential customers.
In fact, so many businesses are stagnant and ultimately fail because their products or services do not have a USP that kicks them, which can make them rise above the crowd.
This means: the product or service being sold does not have advantages. Both in terms of the main function of the product, product features, benefits, and price aspects compared to other products from competitors.
If the product you are going to sell does not have any advantages, uniqueness or advantages, then how will it sell and sell well in the market?
Solution
The solution is to make sure that your business product offering has a valuable USP.
Specifically, there are three steps worth taking in this USP mapping process.
The first step is to make sure that the market for your business product or service is quite broad and has a high potential for demand. Or at least there is a niche market that is worth entering, and suitable for the product you are selling.
The second step, find the specific advantages of your product over competitors’. In this step there are three options:
- Product leadership
- Value for money
- Price advantage
If you want to focus on product leadership, then determine the features or benefits that stand out the product or service that you are going to market. Devote all your energy to actually be able to present products with premium quality.
Value for money is taken as an option if the product or service you are selling is able to provide good benefits but at a reasonable price.
Meanwhile, in price advantage, you can get low product costs so you can sell products at competitive prices, but you can still get a profit even though it may be thin. Price war often occurs in this option. That’s why value for money and product leadership are actually better choices.
The third step in USP mapping is that you really have the capability in the USP choices you have made.
In other words, you can deliver the products or services you sell according to the USP promises. This means that if you choose a value for money approach, then the quality of the product you offer is really worth it, or comparable to the price charged.
Even if you become a reseller, then make sure the product you are selling also has a good USP. This way you will also find it relatively easy to make sales. Don’t be a reseller of products that don’t have a kicking USP and can be a differentiator among thousands of other competing products.
2. The Marketing Process Is Not Creative
In the first stage above, we have to make sure that the product or service that we sell really has a pretty wow USP. The goal is for our business to have a chance to survive, and not get stuck in the middle of the road.
However, the USP alone is sometimes not enough, if it is not accompanied by an aggressive and creative marketing and promotion process.
Many of those who start their own business fail because they are not good at selling.
In fact, selling skills is a key skill that can make us rich, but unfortunately not widely taught in college and school.
In this digital era, many businesses are stagnant because they fail to promote themselves cleverly. This marketing mistakes lie in two arenas.
The first is the mistake of not being able or not being able to do online promotions on all online channels, either through Google Ads, SEO Marketing, Facebook Ads, Instagram Marketing to YouTube Marketing and WhatsApp Marketing.
Today everyone is busy staring at the cellphone screen. If the products and services that you sell cannot appear on their cellphone screens through clever online marketing, then your business will stagnate.
Unfortunately, there are many independent business people who do not master SEO Marketing, FB Ads, or Instagram Marketing solidly. Maybe because you are lazy to study, or maybe because you are reluctant to spend online promotion costs. Or even both.
Professional product photos, graphic design of cool online promotional posters, and strong copywriting – all are basic skills that today’s business people must possess.
Without the skills to create attractive advertising and promotional materials, your business sales can remain stagnant for a long time.
Solution
The solution to this second fundamental causes of business stagnation is quite easy. You can slowly start learning independently (self-taught) various techniques about online marketing (Google Ads, FB Ads, Instagram Marketing) to effective copywriting techniques. In this whole process, self-learning capabilities and resourcefulness (or persistence to find solutions independently) are needed.
Bottom Line
Be resilient. Be resourceful. Don’t be spoiled and lazy. Don’t expect instant results without hard work and without studying online selling skills diligently.
On the other hand, there are now also many services available that provide an effective online marketing process. Do not hesitate to invest in this field, because the impact can make your business sales skyrocket. The principle is: it is better to spend 1 million in promotion funds, in order to get a profit of 5 million than zero promotion funds, but also zero sales.
So, the two fundamental causes of business stagnation, as well as workable solutions.
In every problem, there is always a solution. In every failure, there is always room for improvement.