The keys to business success

Dear entrepreneurs

Today I would like to discuss what you can expect by using our business plan software (Business Plan Pro), while writing your keys to success section - found under the Executive Summary in Business Plan Pro.

In order to assist you in addressing this section of your business plan, I decided to write a few short blog posts on this subject – as this topic is close to my heart (please see my business plan guide for more detail).

Let me ask you in very, VERY plain English – what factor (i.e. event, action, decision, lack of action or decision as well as any circumstance) in- or outside your business has the potential to “break” your business or planned business? In addition to the first question, I also need to ask a second question – what has the potential to “make” your business?

Please close your eyes to my low quality English but I thought it was not a bad idea to start the discussion in this way. You see, we are sometimes too caught up in all sorts of educated discussions about business. We use words to impress others (and even ourselves), instead of focusing on “first things first” – i.e. the most important aspect of “business”.

For example, business risk consultants prefer talking about “adding value to your business”. What they actually try to say is that they want to assist you in identifying your business risks so that you can know when it is worth the money to implement countermeasures, preventing the occurrence or impact (i.e. profit erosion) of an identified risk. (I will not discuss the reasons for this phenomenon today – perhaps another day).

Fact is business is about making a profit (i.e. REAL profit, NOT only showing a profit on paper). It goes without saying that profit erosion, though experienced by all businesses, is not the business objective of any company (show me the entrepreneur or business owner that likes to lose money )

When we think in terms of “keys to success”, we should keep in mind that success is but one side of the coin. The other side of the coin is “keys to failure”. Simply put, what are the main factors that will cause your business making a profit or to increase the profit? The other side of the coin; what are the main factors that will cause your business to fail?

Let me provide you with an example: An Internet (e-)Publisher has to utilize different online avenues to market their books, magazines and other products. One key to success will therefore be their ability to utilize the different Internet marketing avenues to market their e-publications. For example, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) should be one of the main keys to success (or failure). If they do not have success in this area of Internet marketing, they won’t be able to reach potential customers on the Internet. As they are purely an e-commerce business, failure to reach the 1^st page of, for example, Google, would spell failure with capital letters. As easy as that… or as a friend of mine always says, “it is what it is”.

My wish is that this first blog post on “keys to business success” would make you start thinking around the lines of your top business risks.

Personally, I face several high risks. One of them is the risk that our web site can be offline for more than an hour. In simple terms, it would mean that we lose sales and on top of that we would also run the risk that search engines’ robots cannot reach us (or rather the web site ), and, eventually, take our web site out of their indexes – with the end result that search engine users cannot find us at all.

So, what are your keys to success/failure? Perhaps it is time to identify your top five (5) strategic risks…

If you have any questions, you are welcome to contact us at blog@business-around-the-globe.com

Warm regards

Michiel Jonker, CISA

Tags: Business Plan, Business Plan Software, business risk, keys to business failure, keys to business success