Small Business | Teik Oh

Why Do You Need A Business Plan?

Nov 20 2018

In my 35 year career, I have only known a handful of small business owners who have prepared a business plan.

I find this astounding.

You would not leave the house to go shopping without some sort of plan – even if only in your head – about where you are going, where you would look to park the car, what you will wear with one eye on the weather, what you will buy, and how you will pay for it. Without this, how would you know whether to turn right or left at the end of your driveway?

Yet people start their businesses and run them for several years without thinking the journey through! Even worse, some people would read my example of the shopping trip and say “I’m just like that – I have it all in my head, that’s good enough.” Really? You are going to invest thousands and years into your business and you think it’s enough to have a thought kept in your head?

If you own an emerging business, relatively new, maybe 5 or 6 years old or so, and you are finding that you work hard every day but not seeming to get anywhere – if you find that for the last few years you have tried one idea before thinking of another and switching but not getting any co-ordinated growth forwards, how’s that undocumented “thought” working for you?

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The 5 Stages Of Business Planning

Nov 13 2018

I have been working with small business owners for over 35 years and I am still amazed every day that the large majority of small businesses don’t have a business plan!

Let me run through these familiar statistics again – 80% of small business startups fail within the first 5 years; statistically, the main reason these failed small business owners cite as the reason for their failure is that they did not foresee their best path forward. That’s code for “did not have a plan.”

If you are an emerging small business owner with a relatively new business, and you do not have a business plan that you are working to, every day must be an adventure!

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How To Automate Your Business And Take A Holiday

Sep 04 2018

Here is a good measure of how your business is doing – as a business – and as your life’s achievement: can you take four weeks off and have a real holiday where you are not checking in?

Ultimately, that is the business we all started – the business that is successful and profitable and provides you with a lifestyle. But most of us work in businesses that are quite the opposite! Most small business owners are tied to their businesses and even if successful and profitable, certainly does not provide that lifestyle we all dreamt about. Most small business owners will be worried about taking too long a holiday from their businesses in case something goes wrong.

This fear can take the form of an angry customer that nobody else knows how to handle or what to say to him. It can take the form of an error in the day to day processes that only you know how to fix, or a new employee requiring training that only you can give her, or a decision about some outcome that nobody else can make.

The question is really about how you take the business that depends entirely on your knowledge and your ability to make decisions, to a business that runs like an automatic ticking clock? Read More

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Why You Need Systems

Jul 22 2018

Most people start their business to obtain financial abundance, to finding fulfilment in doing good things for their customers, but ultimately to find freedom and lifestyle.

Yet for many, they find that freedom and lifestyle elusive! They find themselves tied to their business, unable even to have a decent holiday when they are not constantly reading email or checking their phones. At work, they start their day checking messages, telling people what to do about all kinds of minutiae, constantly re-training replacement staff, repeating the obvious and then ending up late at night going over the books. Even when they find the income to hire staff, they find themselves constantly telling them what to do or checking their work or correcting their work.

Most business owners work hard – but they work hard on the wrong things. As business owners, we need to identify what really matters – what builds the business. Systems allow us to do this. Read More

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How to Research Your Industry

Jul 15 2018

In business, knowledge is power.

The more you know about your business, the industry in which it is operating, your market and the outside forces affecting your business, the more you can plan and strategise.

Specifically, when you are starting a new business, one of the most important things you need to know is information about your industry. In my online training course “How To Start Your Own Business,” I dig deeper into the need to research your industry in preparation for startup.

Why do you need to research your industry? You know what you’re doing right? You’ve probably been working in your industry most of your working life, why can’t you just hang out your business sign and open the store? Read More

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Increase your sales through a highly focused marketing plan!

SMART Marketing: In this book, the owners of a small business are led through the SMART Marketing 7 Step Process to produce a marketing plan targeted at their most desirable customers. Any business can use these principles and in 4 to 6 weeks implement a plan to get them through the door! Find out how...

The SMART Marketing Workbook: Companion to “SMART Marketing”, this workbook sets out the SMART Marketing process in 7 workshops for you and your staff to complete questionnaires and templates that at the end, form the marketing plan you need to sell your REAL product to your REAL customer! View now...

Category - Small Business

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Why Do You Need A Business Plan?

The 5 Stages Of Business Planning

How To Automate Your Business And Take A Holiday

Why You Need Systems

How to Research Your Industry