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{image by The Dreamy Giraffe}

Today we have the third guest post from July’s Special Guest Blogger Elle Roberts of the Creative Business Co. Elle is passionate about the importance of business planning – something so many of us kinda leave to fall by the wayside. Check back each Friday in July to find out what she has to teach you about business planning! 

This week I have two more questions for you, and next week we will talk about “what’s next”.

Before we go any further I will just quickly recap what we have covered so far.

Business planning is vital to the success of your business. Once you write down on paper the things you are doing in your business, and the things you want to be doing with the business you get so much clarity that actions often change subconsciously.

It is hard with creative businesses to fill out the standard templates you can download, often they are full of jargon and irrelevant questions so we read the first few pages and then place it in the third drawer of our desk promising to come back to it later.

I would love for you to write a comprehensive business plan, which takes you on a look at your current offerings, your competitors, your marketing strategy, budget and projections. BUT I do understand that this is an overwhelming process. Often one we feel like we can’t afford the time away from the busy work to do anyway.

My hope for you is that if nothing else you will write down the answers to these five questions and you will start to see that business planning is not as scary as you imagine.

In fact, business planning is simply planning for a successful business, it should be a fun and energizing experience.

To recap, the questions asked in the previous posts:

  • Why? Why are you in business – go as deep as you can with this.
  • What tasks do you perform in your day to day business that get you “crazy” excited?
  • How much money do you need to live the life you want?

That’s not too painful right? Now on to today’s questions.

What does your ideal business look like?

In other words define your version of a successful business. This is really important because if don’t define success for ourselves early on, how will we know when we have made it?

The cool thing about it is everyone is different and success is personal. For some it might be based around income, size of the business or recognition. Other may be simply striving to increase their income so they can contribute to the family income. Whatever it is for you is right answer.

Define it as clearly as you can, if the dream for you business is to have employees take the load of you think about what tasks they will take over and what tasks you would now be doing.

As with the money stuff last week – have fun with it! And if your ideal business scares you a little that is a good thing!

Dream big with this.

Ok last question:

What are five things you can do this month to move towards your goal?

Is it time for some action steps!

These can be anything and it will depend on what you decide your goal is. It could be as big as applying for a loan at the bank so I can buy better equipment.

But they can also be small things. For me personally I am almost at the point where I need to hire someone so one of my tasks this month was to research wages, tax and superannuation information.

This step helps you start taking real steps towards the bigger dream. It is great to sit down once a month and think of 5 things you can do to move closer to your ideal business. Fit them in amongst the day to day to do lists and start making progress on a bigger scale.

In his book the Art on Non-Conformity, Chris Guillebeau states:

We tend to overestimate what we can complete is a single day and underestimate what we can complete over longer periods of time.

I have asked my 5 questions, I hope that you are busy writing answers down. I will be back here next week to talk about what to do with the answers to create a solid foundation for your business.

I would love to hear your thoughts so please comment below or find me on various social media sites and say hi.

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Elle is the marketing maven behind the Creative Business Co. where she educates creatives in the art of business.

She’s running the Artful Business Conference in Brisbane on September 5th and 6th, featuring Tara Gentile, Megan Auman, Jennifer Lee, Jess Van Den, Lisa Walsh, and Russel Allert – get your tickets here!