Cultivating Your Pathway to Success: Don’t Leave Your Company’s Future to ChanceWritten by Howard Lewinter
Any successful CEO, president or business owner will tell you, operating a business is a formidable task. Every day brings an endless blizzard of problems, decisions and meetings. It can be easy to lose sight of one of most important tasks facing any company leader -- developing a long term plan to ensure company’s future growth and success. Many entrepreneurial businesses don’t do any planning, claiming they will just “wing it,” “go with flow” or “fake it till they make it.” Savvy executives understand value of planning. These executives understand that not only is daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly planning critical, but an annual business plan or strategic plan is crucial for its value, adding structure to both organization and its day-to-day operations. Strategic planning examines issues facing company, and plans in advance how each will be addressed. Developing plan forces you to invest time examining critical issues facing company when you have luxury to evaluate options before you must determine how to best proceed. The plan will help you evaluate internal and external issues. Consider too how world events could impact your company and outline steps to maintain your current business should worst occur. Planning in advance establishes roadmap that ensures you meet all of your goals. The plan will reflect best ideas from a wide range of individuals within company, including specific input from key departments. The purpose is to pull together vision for company – not just in short term but long term as well. Each member of planning team must be committed to process and its ongoing requirements, truly thinking through each element. Let’s look at steps involved to develop a strategic plan. Gather Information Gather information on: 1) The company: evaluate strengths and weaknesses, analyze sales statistics, potential opportunities and risks involved. 2) Employees: review policies and procedures. 3) The industry: identify industry trends or influences. 4) The competition: what are they doing better than you, and where are you stronger competitor? 5) Suppliers and other vendors—are they supplying you with best goods and services at very best price? 6) The client: Who is your customer? What is your unique selling position? Why do customers give you sale or why don’t they? 7) The future: Utilizing a time line, what key issues must company face in order to plan for future?
| | What Licenses Do I Need to Start My Company?Written by Henry Coleman
What License do I need to start my company? This is single most popular question we receive, representing over half of all queries to our question & answer site for small business owners.There is, unfortunately, no complete answer to question. Every state, county, and municipality has a different set of rules and regulations regarding licensing. There is simply no way to catalog all requirements for a specific type of business or location. What can you, as a potential business owner, do to comply with all licensing requirements? We strongly recommend that you contact your local business chamber of commerce for answers to all local business registration questions. These organizations exist to provide both new and existing businesses with resources to succeed. In some cases, especially if you are located in a large metropolitan area, you will have a choice of chambers for both your initial answers and possible membership. I recommend you contact each one to make certain that you receive same licensing 'story'. If you receive conflicting information you should be able to follow up with relevant regulatory bodies to get correct information.
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