Why You Need to Have a Business Plan

After reading the steps in creating a business plan, you may start to think that this is something you simply do not have time to do. However, having a business plan is among one of the most important steps when starting to make money online. Here are just 10 reasons why your business needs a plan.

Have Your Goals Written Down

Whether your goals are financial or not, having those goals written down is extremely important. It means that you can look back on them when times get tough and you start struggling for money. It will also give you the push you need to make your business better, whether through a different marketing strategy or by creating new products.

Your Reasons for Starting the Business

As well as the goals, this will give you the chance to write down your reasons for starting your business. This could be because you want to start making money yourself or because you want the ability to choose the times and days that you want to work. Remembering why you started the business in the first place often helps those when times are hard, money isn’t coming in and the motivation starts to dwindle.

Gaining Financial Assistance

Lenders and investors need to see a business plan to determine whether you are worth lending to or investing in. Some will read the whole plan, while others will stick to the executive summary. Without a plan, it is unlikely that you will gain any financial assistance, which will mean that you need to support your business from your own savings.

Deciding on Extra Costs

If your business is growing, you may think about renting a space. This could be to store your products for shipping or an office to offer your services. A business plan will help to show your growth and financial predictions and will help you determine whether the extra costs really are worth it at that time. You may find that you are better off waiting for another year.

Handle Lawyers and Accountants

The next benefit is the ability to share your ideas and plans with professionals, such as your solicitor or accountant. You do not need to share all the plan and can select snippets that are specifically for them. For example, your accountant will need your financial sections and your lawyer will need to look into managerial and goals.

Help to Sell Off Your Business

If part of your exit strategy is to sell your business, then you will need a plan to aid with that. The plan will help potential buyers see the initial goals, the profits and losses and the managerial team. This will help potential buyers determine whether it is worth their money. Likewise, if you plan to leave your business to family, your plan will help them determine the next steps to take to continue your legacy.

Help Value Your Business

Like with selling, if you come to need to make a valuation on your business, the plan will help with that. There are many reasons why you will need to evaluation the total financial worth of a company. You may be getting divorce, you may need to sell it on, you may find that you are struggling financially or it may be for tax reasons. Those are just some examples. The plan will inform the person valuing your business about what the business does, the cost of everything that the business does and the profit expected from the everyday happenings.

Create a New or Side Business

There are times that you will want to create a second business or a side business. This may work in-line with the current one or be a completely new business. By having one plan already, you will be able to use that to be able to create your new business plan.

To Expand Your Business

As a business grows, you may decide to open up a new store or expand it to offering a brick and mortar shop as well as an online one. By having your business plan, you will be able to see if this is possible and look into the steps to make this possible. Your business plan is easily adaptable to add on business growth and you can update your goals as you do this.

Track Your Milestones

As you develop your business and create a plan, you will need to set milestones. These are goals that have set dates for the completion by. The benefit of having them on a plan is that you can track them. You will be able to determine whether you are on schedule with any updates and with the creation of your company. By staying on track, you will show that you are determined to make this happen, which will help any loan application or looking for investors.

A business plan will help your company in many different ways. Whether you are a freelance photographer, eBay seller or wanting to set up a new company, you should create a business plan today!

What to Include in a Business Plan

When starting your own business or looking to make money online, a business plan is something to think about. This is especially the case if you are going to make money from a hobby or start an eBay sellers business. Businesses without a plan are lucky to last more than six months. The question is what you put in that plan.

The Executive Overview

The first part is a summary and is extremely important. This is sometimes the only thing that lenders or investors will look at. It gives a brief summary of the business – why you are doing it and the products you will offer.

A Short Description

Now you can go into a little more detail. This is where you explain the idea behind the business and the reasons why you are offering the products or services that you are. Why do you want the business to do well? Some lenders and investors will read on to find out more about the type of business you will run and want to know the motivation behind it. If anything, this is a great reminder for you when the times get tough because it is also the place to put your business goals.

Your Marketing Plan

Marketing is an important part of any business so creating a marketing plan needs to be on your business plan. You should detail your audience, places to promote the business and how you will make sure you cover all these basis. Promotion is the only way that you will build a customer base as it is the only way they will know about you.

Your Financial Expectations

Of course, finance is an extremely important part of your business. You will need to have an idea of your expected turnover for your business plan; this is another important part for lenders and investors. Most people do a three or five year business plan but you could opt for one year if you are not too sure at first.

Business plans can be changed and should be changed when goals, finances and marketing options change. As your business grows, you will start to want more and more will become available. Your aspirations need to become more challenging to gain something extra out of your work, as well as gaining more income.

Take the time to create a full business plan. While you may think that this is just a short term thing, it could potentially become a way for you to make money residually forever. Having a business plan will make it more realistic and give you the chance to turn your short term goals into larger ones.

Should You Outsource Your Customer Service Call Centers?

Outsourcing the customer service call centers is something that all businesses have the option of. Outsourcing offers a number of benefits and leads to the use of virtual call centers. However, there are also some downsides to doing this and these are something to look into.

Advantage of Outsourcing the Call Centers

The main benefit of outsourcing the work is that there are no full time employees that need to be worried about. It is possible to hire freelancers who offer professional phone answering services or a company that can offer a 24 hour phone service. This means there are less worries about setting up a contract and going through a hiring process.

Outsourcing often means that the employees work from their own homes or the company that they are hired by, which means fewer costs for your company. There is no need to set up a location for the customer service call centers and no need to spend money on building leases and any other costs.

The hiring process can be a lengthy time, which is where there are benefits in outsourcing the job. When it comes to looking for a professional phone answering service, you can just look for a company that has already hired the personnel or look for freelancers. While you will still need to do some research into the skills and capabilities, it is much easier than finding out whether someone is willing to work for your company full time.

It is possible to set up a 24 hour phone service by outsourcing around the world or hiring freelancers or companies that work at different hours. 24 hours customers services are a great option, depending on the type of service that you offer, as problems never seem to occur during business hours. This will also help with a business that runs online and is offered to people all over the world.

Disadvantages of Outsourcing

For those with a local company, outsourcing the customer service call centers may not be the best idea. The problem is that there is no guarantee that the employees will be based locally – unless that is a specific that you look for. There is a big move in local or national call centers instead of outsourcing to other countries since this is something that customers prefer; they prefer to deal with people who understand what they are talking about.

Another disadvantage is finding out whether they are doing their job correctly, especially when it comes to freelancers. Keeping track of their skills is much harder and tracking the hours that they really work is difficult as they are not in a physical office. This is even harder when it comes to a 24 hours phone service as you will not be awake all the time to make sure that the outsourcers are working when you are hiring them for.

It is also harder to check the skills when it comes to a professional phone answering service; even when hiring a company this is harder. You will need to do a lot of research but will hardly ever see the people face to face; you will have to go off reviews online and the information that the freelancers provide, which could be inadequate or less than you would look at when hiring full time staff.

Outsourcing could help you save time and help you work in other areas of your business. However, there is the downside of spending more money. It is worth looking into all the pros and cons before deciding whether outsourcing your customer service call centers is worthwhile.

How to Tell a Work from Home Job Is Legitimate

Many people are now looking for ways to make money online. The problem is that many opportunities to work from home are scams. It is important to take the time to research any opportunity to ensure that each one is a legitimate work from home option so you can make money with the internet and not lose it.

Don’t Pay Upfront

You should never pay for a work from home opportunity upfront. No legitimate company will ask for this, apart from those that have already made a name for themselves as being reputable – and they will be for initial training or for supplies. You never have to pay to start taking paid surveys or for online writing opportunities.

The companies that I know of that ask you to pay a small amount upfront are:

• Weight Watchers to become a leader – the money is for renting the equipment and for the goods that you intend to sell at your meetings.
• Ann Summers to become a party host – the upfront costs are for the items that you will show off to the guests so they can see before they buy.
• Avon to become a seller – the costs are for the items that you have to use as sellers when it comes to Avon parties.
• As you see, the upfront costs are not for the actual job when it comes to legitimate companies, it is for equipment and for products.

Research the Company

The internet is a wonderful place. Not only will you be able to find ways to make money online, you will also be able to find out if work from home jobs are legitimate. If companies are running a scam, it is likely that someone knows about it and will have declared that through a review or forum. Simply type the name of the company and then “review” or “scam” and you will find out whether it is the real deal or not.

If there is nothing about the company then it is likely new. There are some worries about being the first to be scammed so it is important to take a few of the other steps to make sure this is a legitimate work from home opportunity.

If It’s Too Good to be True…

…It probably is. This is the common rule to use when looking around for work from home jobs and online money making opportunities. Scam artists make their jobs sound like your dream role, usually offering absurd amounts of money for very little work. They usually ask for a payment upfront too, which is where they make their money.

If they do not ask for a payment, look into how they make their money. It could be doing something illegal, such as money laundering without realising, or by taking a high amount of commission at the end. Be wary and always use your common sense.

Know the Jobs to Avoid

There are some types of jobs that always scream “scam”. It is worth knowing what these are so you know the ones to avoid when you do a search for ways to make money online. There are also some that are legitimate but it takes a long time to find well-paying ones that are not scams. This list includes:

• Transferring or wiring money
• New start-up kits
• Call centre roles – can be legitimate so do some research first
• Virtual assistants – again can be legitimate so do your research
• Mystery shopping – if you want to do this, there are some legitimate websites that mystery shoppers sign up to. Never pay to become a mystery shopper and you should never be forced to do a task unless you agree first.
• Envelope stuffing – again it can be legitimate but that is not always the case

You can make money online but there are scam artists out there. Be wary when looking for legitimate work from home jobs online and take the time to research them. This will help you make money and not lose it!

Make Money Online Through Fiverr

Fiverr is a website available for those looking to make money online. It offers the chance for people to offer their skills for $5. The seller sets the terms and Fiverr takes a commission of 20% for each sale. The question that many people ask is whether it really is possible to make money through Fiverr.

Small Jobs for $5

The trick is to offer a small job for $5. Do not offer something that will take you hours to do as it will not be worth the money. I offer a small writing gig for $5 where I will write up to 500 words or rewrite up to 700. I know I can do the majority of topics that people as for in about 15-20 minutes, including proofreading, so it does work out worth the money for me.

Free Account

There is nothing to pay to create an account and start selling through Fiverr. However, the downside is that they take 20% of the commission and then up to $1 when you withdraw your earnings to PayPal. This is a lot as it means that you are gaining less than $4 per gig in the end. Fiverr support their commission by stating that they make it easy to sell products and services to buyers and make it a safe place to trade. They are the middle man as you cannot organise sales between you and the buyer.

Promoting Your Gigs

It is possible to promote your gigs through various online methods, which helps to make money online. Fiverr highly recommends using Facebook and Twitter but you can also add a link on your blog, through websites, in forum links…anyway that you find to promote your gigs.

It is also possible to use the money you make to buy gigs on Fiverr. Plenty of people offer services to promote you or help you gain more exposure to your gig. This is a cheap way to quickly gain more traffic and potential sales.

Offer Something of Value

You want people to refer you to others, give you good feedback and come back in the future. The best way of doing this is by giving them something of value. A number of sellers have often stated to oversell but this often defeats the object of the gigs and lowers the value of the gigs for you. My advice is to deliver exactly everything you say you will and make sure you understand the instructions straight away. If a buyer is being difficult, there is nothing wrong with cancelling the gig or getting in touch with Fiverr support to help mediate between the two.

It is possible to make a lot of money online through Fiverr but the trick is to offer something small. Find out how long it takes you to do something and determine the best way to price that as a gig. This will help you work at an hourly rate that is perfect for your cost of living.