The Seven Steps to Creating an Inspired Business Plan
Business planning is an extremely enjoyable, ongoing process for me — now. But I remember when it was a struggle, a “should”, something I felt I “had” to do as a business owner, but that didn’t give me much joy. I had spent years creating successful plans as a fund raising professional (quite easily, I might add), but for some reason, I felt a great deal of resistance within me when it came to creating a plan for my own business. That resistance ended up being complex and required a lot of clearing.
Part of my resistance to business planning was because I really loved working with the spiritual laws, and I didn’t want to get caught up in some of the “negative” energies around business and money I witnessed in the material realm. And, of course, I associated business planning with these energies!
But, gradually, my polarized way of thinking changed. Reading this sentence in Sanaya Roman and Duane Packer’s book, Creating Money, assisted that transformation: “It will take less of your energy to attract, save and create more money if you are in harmony with both the spiritual and man-made laws of money.” And, if you’re a business owner, one of the man-made laws of money is business planning. So I set out to develop a business planning model for myself that harmonized the physical and metaphysical laws of commerce.
A Manifestation Tool
Many wonderful dreams and business ideas never materialize because they have not been clearly envisaged and grounded. A written business plan enables you to get very clear about your vision for your business, to ground this vision in the physical world and to align/focus your energy as you act on your plan. It’s a fabulous manifestation tool!
Inspired business planning integrates both the spiritual and man-made laws of business development together. Specifically, it:
- connects you to the higher purpose of your business;
- helps you clarify what you desire for your business;
- supports you in clearing any resistance to having what you desire for your business;
- anchors you in a consciousness of faith and love;
- gives you a space in which to receive guidance from your highest levels;
- translates that guidance into the action steps of your plan, as you discern what business-building strategies to use and structures to put in place that will allow you to receive what you’re desiring; and
- quantifies the financial aspects of your business.
The Seven Steps to Inspired Business Planning
Inspired business planning is a continuous process that will help you develop your business naturally, utilizing both your intuitive and intellectual capacities in an integrative way. As you go through this process, you’ll notice that you feel more balanced and aligned, that the steps to build your business become clearer and you’re more trusting and relaxed about the results. You’ll experience much growth and expansion.
Inspired business planning is a seven-step process:
1) Determine the higher purpose of your business.
From a spiritual perspective, what function is your business meant to serve? What’s your role in the evolution of humanity and our planet, and how will your business allow you to fulfil this purpose?
2) Create key intentions for building your business.
Like clarifying the higher purpose of your business, intentions are part of the “visioning” aspect of your plan. They are the broader goals you establish that will help you fulfil your purpose. What are your intentions?
3) Identify specific objectives and targets you desire related to each intention.
Also part of visioning is defining objectives and specific targets you aim to achieve for each intention. Objectives are more narrowly-defined goals; targets can be both the quantifiable or unquantifiable results you desire. What are your objectives and targets?
4) Tap into your guidance system to determine the action steps associated with each intention and corresponding objective(s) and target(s).
Spending time quieting your mind through meditation or other techniques and thinking/receiving ideas from your highest levels will lead you to the action steps of your plan. What action steps are you guided to take?
5) Clarify your financial inflow and outflow.
How much will it cost you to operate your business, create your offerings and get them out to the world? What level of revenue are you open to receiving on a monthly and/or yearly basis? How will you price your offerings to match that revenue level?
6) Clear resistance that may come up as you create and implement your plan.
Resistance is a belief, thought and accompanying feeling that disallows your natural state of well-being. The intention of building a prosperous, fulfilling business can bring up any number of fearful, resistant thoughts and feelings. These can prevent you from creating a business plan in the first place or from taking the actions your plan describes. What resistant beliefs, thoughts and feelings do you have about creating and implementing your business plan? How can you release this resistance?
7) Operate from love and faith by using prayer, visualizations and affirmations.
When you operate from love and faith, your actions are more joyful and inspired and you more easily attract clients and customers. Prayer, visualizations and affirmations are powerful tools that will anchor you in a state of love, trust and surrender. What prayers, visualizations and affirmations will support you as you build your business?
The real gifts of inspired business planning are in the process of creating the plan and implementing it, without being rigidly attached to the plan or its outcomes. So it’s helpful to remain flexible and allow your plan to change and evolve as you gain more knowledge, guidance, perspective and clarity. Keeping your inner focus on higher essence states such as joy, generosity and gratitude is also important. As Sanaya Roman and Duane Packer say in Creating Money, “the process of getting there is the quality of being there.”
Copyright 2008 Mary C. Davis
Question about business plan
What's congress business plan to put money in the hands of the citizen majority?Working poor,unemployed anyone who has fallen prey to a failed system of business & representative Govt.
If they want to see bail-out business plans, then i want to see business plan for the legal citizens or the supposing owners.
- Business
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19 Responses
Glad you liked it, shortly there will be more being added to help start-ups and early stage businesses..
well, now that Paulson has his Tight Republican Grip on that 700 Billion i don't think he is gonna let any of it Trickle down to us regular folks, again~!
Sure, I can help. Email me the plan.
Andrew Miller’s video on Business plan layout and writing tips
thank you very much sir
The best thing you can do is speak with your accountant or a business consultant and they will help you write this part of your business plan.
I don't recommend anything other then a good word processor. There is no need to purchase software specifically to write the plan.
Resources showing what a plan should look like are avaiable at the SBA and Score as you mention, after that using a good word processor should be all you need.
Helpful video. Inpiring and informative. Does anyone know any good business plan competitions to enter? Has anyone heard about the launch together business plan comp? Is this the first year they are doing it? I love the video they have on the website. Someone should post it on here. Comments appreciated
Go to http://www.sba.gov , http://www.score.org or http://www.bplan.com for instructions on how to write a business plan and sample business plans.
Keep in mind that if your potential business doesn't contribute to the betterment of mankind…grants are hard to come by.
Also, SCORE is invaluable in that old school retired business people give you advice and direction.
And last but not least, the SBA stinking blows. They tout how they help small business, minorities, women, etc…
but from personal experience, you need to have mass collateral to get SBA backing.
I went to open a salon. I had an immaculate business plan that I developed with SCORE and the Small Business Development Center at the local level. My credit score was 780. I owned 2 houses with approximately $100,000 equity between the two of them. I had over $60,000 in savings, a 401k, iras, stocks, bonds, etc. Net value far exceeded what was "required". I didn't want to use my savings or refinance my houses to open a salon. I wanted to borrow $125,000.
Because I was not buying the building in which I opened my salon, I was turned down by 10 stinking banks – all telling me that if I'd buy the building (yeah right…it's a huge strip mall) that they back me because THEN and only then, would they feel as though I had the proper type of collateral to make them comfortable. Oh – and they would only lend me $250,000 or more toward buying the building to establish my salon. WTF?
Long story short, I used my own savings for my buildout, leased my equipment and told the SBA to freaking bite me. Been in business 5 years, I paid off all my leases after 2.8 years and myself back the buildout money the following year – and all profit is now mine.
When I first started my research and my business plan, an accountant told me that less than 1% of all businesses that ask for SBA backing get it. I didn't believe him then, but after being 86'd by 10 top banks, I believe him now…Phuck the SBA.
If I can do it on my own, anybody can.
Before you write a business plan do a market study first. After that, you can based your busines plan to your study. The market study deals on what people want or like for thier pets. you should ask them and then base your plan to thier aswers. Always remember that they will be your customers.
Also. dont forget to study your competitors. know why people bring thier pets there.. Dont follpow what your competitor is doing.. but you have to do something in order to differentiate your service from your competitors.
Nice & Helpful video.
Hi Adam, more videos are on the way shortly to help demystify the process..
Good and to the point video Matt. Definitly will use it again for reference towards build my buisness plan outline. Thanks!
If you're only really asking about training, then it would depend on the size of the business. If there's only about 1 – 10 people, then it would usually be the duty of the owner to train new staff, as he or she would be the person with the most interest in ensuring that everyone knows what they are doing. If you go into 10 – 30 or so staff, you'd probably have an operational or production manager who should take care of training.
Most businesses don't fail because of inadequate training though. As you pointed out, it's more about lack of planning. I ran my own small businesses for a few years, and I made sure to only hire people that didn't need any training!
Is your concern that businesses fail because of no proper training programs?
According to the book “The ABC's of Writing Winning Business Plans: How to Prepare a Business Plan That Others Will Want to Read — and Invest In” http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0446694150/powerhomebizguid by Garrett Sutton, below are some tips to make a winning business plan that can get funding:
- Money follows management. Investors look first at the people involved in the company. If you are just starting out and don’t have relevant experience, investors expect to see that you have an experienced team of advisors and employees helping you in the business.
- Make sure you “sell” the one reason your business will become profitable.
- State clearly the strategies you will employ to get the word out about your business. Your business plan must show how you will leverage the Internet, public relations, viral marketing, and other strategies to attract customers.
- Present realistic estimates of the time, energy and costs of building a successful business. Do not underestimate or overestimate revenues. While investors know your numbers are simply guesses, they want to see that your numbers are within the “range of reality.” Be careful of your financial statements: this is one area where you can easily lose credibility if presented poorly.
- Benchmark similar companies to show that you’ve done your homework and researched the market.
- Your Executive Summary is your calling card. If it is not a winner, investors may not even read your entire plan. Emphasize your own as well as your team’s track record in the Executive Summary.
- Before sending your business plan to lenders and investors, send it out first to a few in order to get feedback. You’d want to correct your plan if someone tells you that you’re way off mark, rather than have a potential investor tell it to you and lose the chance to get the funding you need.
Here are some resources that can help you write your business plan:
- SBA Business Plan Basics http://www.sba.gov/starting_business/planning/basic.html
- PowerHomeBiz.com Creating a Business Plan section http://www.powerhomebiz.com/startup/businessplan.htm
- Entrepreneur.com Writing a Business Plan section http://www.entrepreneur.com/bizplan/0,7253,,00.html
You may also want to review some sample business plans to see how it actually looks like:
- Bplans.com http://www.bplans.com/sp/businessplans.cfm
- MOOT Corp Business Plan competition winners
http://www.businessplans.org/businessplans.html
- VFinance – View hundreds of real business plans in pdf format. http://www.vfinance.com/home.asp?bps=1&ToolPage=bps_main.asp
- Business Owners Toolkit Sample business plans and information on how to create a plan. http://www.toolkit.cch.com/tools/buspln_m.asp
- PlanWare Planning software and information. http://www.planware.org/
- Virtual Business Plan Walk through the design of a business plan. http://www.bizplanit.com/vplan.html
-SBA Business Planning Guide http://www.sba.gov/starting_business/planning/basic.html
- Small Business Advancement Center http://www.sbaer.uca.edu/business_plan/businessPlan.pdf
- Sample Business Plan General planning guide created by the Canadian Business Service Center. http://www.cbsc.org/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=CBSC_FE/display&c=GuideFactSheet&cid
- Business Plans Index – A subject guide to sample business plans and profiles for specific business types from Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh. http://216.183.184.20/subject/business/bplansindex.html
Some recommended books are :
- Business Plans Kit for Dummies
- The Complete Book of Business Plans : Simple Steps to Writing a Powerful Business Plan
- Writing Business Plans That Get Results : A Step-By-Step Guide
- Business Plans For Dummies®
- Your First Business Plan : A Simple Question and Answer Format Designed to Help You Write Your Own Plan
Purchase a "Business Communications" textbook at the second-hand bookstore in your town. They will most definitely have reports and business plans which you can use as a guide.
A business plan does not guarantee a businesses success. However, if it is a well written business plan then it will provide a good platform for the success of your business.
You wouldn’t build a house without a plan right? Well, with business its the same thing, planning provides the foundations that you can then build your business upon.
The quote attributed to me on February 8, 2010 at 1:25 pm is NOTME. Please remove. I do not own a salon.