5 Advantages to Starting Your Business with a Plan

Much like a New Year’s resolution, many of us can get carried away with the excitement of a new idea, goal, or plan for future success. But what separates an imaginative daydream from real-life achievement? Strategic, measurable, and well thought-out plans.
 
Vital to your success, a business plan serves as the framework for your organization. As an owner or entrepreneur, you just can’t expect to function in all the roles needed to run a profitable company. A solid roadmap allows you to alleviate some of the pressure by providing a guide to recruit the people and resources you’ll need to make it past any critical points of failure.
 

1. Clear Away Any Doubts

Putting a pen to paper will help you evaluate your business with a critical eye to identify barriers to growth and opportunities to create actionable solutions for your business. Think about the short-term and long-term goals you’d like to accomplish. Carve out time to evaluate outside factors that can impact the success of your business such as current industry trends, the economic environment, and the impact of technology on your products and services. Reach out to the partners and resources located in your area. Don’t wait for things to happen, prepare yourself for changing market conditions, and set yourself up for success.
 

2. Map Out Your Business Goals

Get motivated to do more. A set of specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and timely goals will aid in maintaining success for all of your professional endeavors. Draft objectives that will provide direction and outline a way to quantify your success. Clarify where you are and where you want to be. An established blueprint of your intentions will prepare you for better cash flow management.
 

3. Define Organizational Structure

If you’re in the position to grow and hire more staff, you will need to have a divisional structure that best suits the needs of your company. These can be vertical or horizontal. You can have them organized as a whole, in departments, or units; centralized or networked. Configuring this will help you identify the talent you’re lacking, and how the parts of your business function together.
 

4. Track Execution and Results

Make sure the plan is working! Your business plan is a living, breathing document—one that you should review and revise periodically based on your progress. Use the data to make course corrections and equip yourself for better outcomes.
 

5. Access Loans and Other Resources

To get the resources you need, you’ll have to demonstrate that your idea is substantial enough to support with capital. Financial institutions, like us, will use your business plan to evaluate your company’s ability to handle debt, and in some cases, equity financing. Detailed information regarding your cash flow requirements, a description of assets, capitalization, and projected financial performance, make this an ideal document to review. Authenticating the facts on your business’ performance allows our credit union to identify and evaluate risk more accurately.
 
Hudson Valley Credit Union is built for business, and we’re here to be your partner in success. With regional expertise and experience, we can help get you started.