Archives for March 2019

Good afternoon. This is Danny Laws from DaBrian Marketing Group. First time ever going live from my office. So this is going to be interesting. First and foremost again, Danny Laws, I’m the principal owner of DaBrian Marketing Group and, so today I wanted to talk a little bit about business plans. We work with a number of clients in the US, some of that as well in the UK. Periodically we happen to come up against the challenge of having clear goals and objectives in terms of what we’re trying to accomplish as an agency. And so what is often very useful for us is having a business plan that lays out those clear goals and objectives for us, as well as giving some level ground in terms of our clients and the people that we work with. So we wanted to bring that information to you today.

So in terms of sharing that information, getting business owners off on the right foot, giving you a couple of resources to speak to, right? So we want to make sure that we’re giving you that information so that you can do what you need to do. Right? And so I have to my one side here, I’m looking at some notes to kind of high-level things. So if you see me glance off, that’s really what I’m looking at. Just so you’re aware. But, essentially what is a business plan, right? It gives you, an outline of goals and objectives for the future and how you want to go about achievement and achieving them in a nutshell. I’ve seen business plans range from, you know, five or six pages to 22 pages dependent upon the graphs, the information of financials, those types of things that are involved in business plans.

So, it can be a rather daunting task. And there are a number of different things that you can do in order to make your life easier in terms of putting together a business plan. Right? So, the other piece of this is why do you need a business plan? Simply it gives you some direction. It gives you direction, your organization direction and allows you to revisit that plan and perhaps pivot or adjust when you need to further down the line. So, um definitely something that’s important. And as I mentioned before, I’m working with an agency or working with consultants and any type of business space. Right? We want to make sure that we’re able to take that information and take action on your behalf. So it’s often very useful in terms of what’s your vision, your mission, your unique value proposition, what are the values that are important to you?

Those are really good things for your agencies, your partners, your marketing folks. If somebody is providing a service um for you as a vendor, for them to have that information at their fingertips, so that they might be able to use that information and act on that information best on your behalf. Right? So definitely something important you want to take into consideration. Let’s talk a little bit about resources for business plans. Right? So, being in a greater Reading PA area, I would definitely speak to a Greater Reading Chamber Alliance, if I’m not mistaken, Jobany over at the Greater Reading Chamber Alliance on the small business side has been helping organizations perhaps not with a formal plan, not, don’t hold me to that, but in terms of putting in thinking about some of these items.

So what is your vision? What is your mission, what’s your story, what’s the story behind your brand? Those types of things. Putting together recommendations and kind of helping companies walk through that process and work through some of those things so that they had them. It gives them some clear direction. So Jobany, Greater Reading Chamber Alliance, definitely a great resource in the greater Reading area. I would also recommend SCORE. I myself have used SCORE, in a number of different ways and those individuals can come together, help you with your business plan, give you some resources, some ideas, act as a sounding board for business plans to best to have you hit the ground running as efficiently and effectively as possible. And they’re great resources as well. And they’re also located, if I’m not mistaken, in the same building as the Greater Reading Chamber Alliance, they come into that building and they partner with you to pull those things together.

Right? So definitely a great resource there. The other one that I would recommend that I’ve also used in the past as I was going through the business planner, revisiting business plans, is LivePlan. Which is an online software to put together business plans. Relatively inexpensive, if I’m not mistaken, you know, $15 or less on a monthly basis and you put together the plan. It also gives you some updated reminders, in terms of, acts as a check-in if you will. Via email, in terms of progress and where you’re at on certain things. So I found that, found that to be rather useful for me. In terms of followup and follow through that, that was a great benefit. I liked that it was really relatively easy to use. And so, it didn’t hurt for you to be able to pull some of those things together in terms of pulling together a business plan.

It was very easy, pulled in a chart for you, gave you some templates to kind of have to work off of. So I thought that that was a value. So that’s why I figured I’d share. The other piece of this that I think that, that I want to mention again, we’re DaBrian Marketing Group. We’re an agency. So we do happen to have a free one-page business plan with metrics that is, that is on our site. So, in terms of helping our customers is something that we put together internally that kind of speaks to the mission statement, value proposition, you know characteristics of the brand, what’s important to you, what’s the story and essentially strategy tactics, metrics that align to that, that are often very important. So when we start talking about a lot of the business plans, the information is all over the place.

So what we tried to do was pull together one document that kind of gave you that and I happen to have one here. It speaks to the strategy, tactics, metrics, the goals. So how many goals do you have on a quarterly basis, who’s the owner of that metric or that outcome is also listed on the document and then a section for comments and results. So definitely something that I would encourage you to take a look at. If you don’t have a plan or you don’t have a formal document, it’s rather easy. It’s a one-pager that kind of stays with me to kind of keep me on track as a business owner as well. So I would say it’s a free tool. It’s on our site if you’re interested in looking at that. If you go to the search bar that’s in the top right-hand area of our site, put in a business plan and you’ll be able to skim through the results, click the button, fill out the information and downloaded and you’ll be able to use that document free of charge.

The other piece and in terms of today, I’m going to try to keep it brief again is an actionable tip. And so what I would say is as an actionable tip is one if you haven’t already done so create a business plan. If you’re a business owner if you’re looking to start a business, if you haven’t touched your business plan in three years, you know, now it would be the time to do that. Revisit it because the technology, things are moving, things are changing, the environment and our consumers are, are becoming more diverse and how they go about shopping and purchasing. So it’s definitely something that I would encourage you to revisit. I would recommend revisiting your business plan quarterly. That’s just my recommendation because we’re in the marketing and mark tech space, if you will, because of the ever-evolving technology and needs of the market.  

That’s often important for us. It gives you ability to adjust and if that doesn’t work for you, at least annually to take a peek at it just see where you’re at. The last thing for today that I would ask you to do is I’d love to get some feedback on the video. We don’t do this very often. This, again, this is our first time. So tell us what you think of the video in the comments.  The other thing that I would mention is if you’re interested in more free information, come to our blog, subscribe to our blog, follow us on social media. We generally try to put out something on a blog at least, you know, I’d say two times a month in terms of those components. We’re getting more involved in the video as you can see. And so we want to continue to bring you useful information and some actionable tips on for those individuals that are trying to do it themselves. And for those business owners that are just those business owners, those marketing people that need additional resources. So we’ll keep trying to provide that information and try to be useful. Even in as a competitive a market, we’re always trying to be useful for the people that are around us and supporting the greater Reading area. Stay tuned. Thank you very much, and I hope you have a good day.