Main Reasons Why A Business Plan Fails

Having a business plan is an important part of starting a new company that you cannot afford to skip. Regretfully though, simply having an established plan is not enough to guarantee success. Here are seven different areas that your business plan may be lacking in, and why those mistakes could be very costly to your company:

Not Enough Research

Diving into a new marketplace is a challenging endeavor. Doing so without the proper amount of research is suicidal. Make sure that you thoroughly understand your field before investing in your new business.

No Distinct Focus

You may have constructed a pretty comprehensive business plan outlining your business idea, but no specific goals or ways to achieve them. This can leave you spinning your wheels but not going anywhere.

All Planning, No Doing

Inversely, some entrepreneurs spend all of their time planning their new business. While thoroughly planning your new business is crucial, it’s also vital that you take action. All planning and no doing may cause your startup to be forced to alter plans before even getting off the ground thanks to constantly changing market conditions.

You’re Not Really Connecting With Your Customers

Understanding your customers and their needs is one of the first things that any new business needs to do. Just providing a new product won’t cut it – you need to understand why your customers want this product, what will make them choose you over your competition and how to keep them happy after the sale.

Less-Than-Optimal Location

If you’re opening up a retail location or professional office, location is still key. While the advent of the internet has made business location less important for many companies, it is still crucial in a number of industries. Even if your business may not need a prime location to garner foot traffic from customers, selecting a location that benefits the distribution of your products or services (such as having direct access to a major roadway or interstate) can save money and time as your business grows.

Not Enough Focus On Your Finances

Too often, new entrepreneurs get so caught up in the day-to-day operations of their business that they begin paying less attention to the money coming in and going out each month. While starting a new company can be time-consuming, maintaining your financial focus early on is needed if you plan for your business to outlast the start-up phase.

Too Much Focus On The Front-End

Obtaining new customers may be important, but so is retaining the customers that you have already gathered. Repeat business is much easier and cheaper to get than new customers are, and cultivating relationships with previous customers can be more beneficial in the long-run than most other marketing efforts.

Your Plan Is Too Rigid

No matter how good your business plan is, be open to change. The business world is quite dynamic, and companies that aren’t able to adapt to new developments and trends can quickly become antiquated.

Too many entrepreneurs feel that by simply creating a business plan, their company will draw in investors and have a strong focus. In reality, your business plan is only as strong as you make it, and too often important sections are missed or not given the proper focus. By developing a more comprehensive business plan, your company can avoid a number of the shortcomings that mean disaster to thousands of new startups each year.

Article Written By: Tracey Fieber. Originally Published On: http://traceyfieber.com/main-reasons-why-a-business-plan-fails/#!

Stop Worrying About Sales and Build Relationships

When was the last time you saw a billboard, TV or a print ad and said to yourself, "Wow that brand really cares about me and I am going to buy that product?" Let me guess: Never. What is stopping brands from reaching out to consumers personally and actually helping them out?

Most big corporations are generally risk-averse and like to play it safe, when it comes to engaging with customers in public. Giant billboards, TV/radio ads or print ads on newspapers/magazines are all safe ways to market to people. It does not involve any direct interaction with customers and hence very little chance of a negative reaction, but the problem is consumers of 2013 are all blinded by traditional ads. Revenue from traditional advertisement channels are at an all time low.

It's important to not only look at social media as a channel to get your message out there but also as a way to truly build meaningful relationships with potential and existing customers. Here are two ways that your company can make the most of your social media marketing efforts.

Look beyond direct brand mentions.
Instead of simply monitoring and taking a passive approach to social media, businesses need to start being aggressive. Everyday there are thousands of people inquiring about potential purchases on Twitter but the brands are overlooking these conversations.

Watching for brand mentions and measuring sentiment is great but it doesn't always lead to results. For example, in the U.S. alone there are about 6,500 posts on Twitter everyday where people are talking about buying a car and asking for suggestions about car make/model. This statistic shows a significant number of opportunities for every single major carmaker.

Unfortunately, most brands are currently happy to only listen to their brand mentions and respond to customer service issues, which significantly limits the potential of the brand.

Start a conversation naturally. 
Many brands simply do not know how to start the conversation. They think that because a person did not mention the brand specifically or the company's Twitter handle that it is not proper to start a conversation. An important thing to keep in mind is that sparking up a conversation on Twitter is sort of like dating. The first thing you say to someone you find attractive or somewhat interesting isn't going to be “will you marry me?" Instead, you're going to enter that conversation with a sincere smile and start to nurture the relationship with some meaningful conversation.

Sparking up conversations as a brand works the exact same way. Brands should avoid seeming too pushy so the best bet is to engage with people without going for the immediate sale. In some situations a customer will be further down the buying process and in those cases, it's perfectly fine to go in for the sell. But when that's not the case brands need to focus on establishing trust and validation. If you look at the network structure of Twitter it is indeed ideal for having a conversation and not just "pushing" one way content to your followers.

For example, if a potential customer tweets "Thinking of getting a car this summer. Any suggestions?" This person is not talking directly to any specific car company, but if a representative from any major car brand reached out to him and just offered a suggestion, it might be well received. The best case is he will engage back and go into a local dealership of the brand that engaged with him. The worst case is he or she will ignore the Tweet. But even if it doesn't result in making a sale, that person might broadcast the conversation to their followers by retweeting or liking it.

This type of interaction is known as "earned media" and is an extremely powerful form of "word of mouth" marketing. The power of engaging with your customers is endless, but the core lies at simply getting closer to them and genuinely helping them out. Yes, it will take time and effort to engage with people one-to-one, yes you will not start counting the dollars from the first engagement, but what you'll do is set an everlasting impression in the mind of the consumer, in a way no TV/Billboard/Print Ad ever could. What are you waiting for? It's time to get into the game.

Article Written By: Tukan Das. Originally published: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/228523
Tukan is the co-founder of LeadSift, a platform to identify actionable business opportunities from social media. At LeadSift, he is the hacker, hustler and the dreamer where he is working with his team to make social sales a reality. Outside of work, he likes to watch cricket, soccer and Jon Stewart.
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