Small Business | Teik Oh

Don’t Forget To Plan For Contingencies

Jan 12 2021

If one thing 2020 has taught us, it’s that you can’t predict the unpredictable!

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m all about planning.

That’s why I preach about how small businesses need to prepare business plans. I write about marketing plans. If your small business was beginning to grow I’d be talking to you about strategic plans and risk management plans!

No, what I’m saying is that you must continue your planning habit and prepare your plans for your business so that you can look ahead, understand what might happen, and decide what you will do to take advantage of opportunities while mitigating the threats.

However, while you are doing this, your process needs to also understand that your plans must include contingencies.

This means identifying different, possible contingencies or scenarios.

You can certainly identify multiple scenarios and then plan for each eventuality, but I think that’s taking the attempt to recognise uncertainty a little too far!

The most practical way of planning for contingencies is to identify the most likely scenario (given what you know right now), identify a likely worst-case scenario, and identify a likely best-case scenario.

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Clean Up Your Business While You’re Quiet

Jan 05 2021

OK, so it’s early January; you’re still full from the celebratory food and drink, and you may not have opened your business in the New Year yet.

Even when you open this or next week, maybe because of the usual holiday period and a little virus it will be a bit quiet in these first few weeks.

Well, instead of doing nothing, how about taking advantage of this and cleaning up some things in and around your business? Now is a great time to tidy up inefficiencies, catch up on some administration, finish those new ideas you have, and make plans for the future.

Here are some of the things you can do around and in your business when it’s quiet.

First, you can sit quietly over the next couple of days and prepare your business plan for the coming year.

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Happy Holidays – And Some Useful Resources

Dec 22 2020

Whatever you celebrate, we at Teik Oh Dot Com send you season’s cheers, our best wishes, and happy holidays!

2020 has been one ##$$%% of a year, hasn’t it?

We hope you get to take some time off from working hard at the growth and success of your business, especially during these difficult times.

In the time and room during your holidays, take a deep breath!

As you relax and consider next year, you may want to scroll through some useful resources to use next year as you create Strategy, show Leadership, and Grow your business. Here are some free tools and resources you may find useful:

Comment 13

How Much Time Do I Need To Prepare A Business Plan?

Dec 15 2020

My work is advising small businesses on growth strategies.

Most of these small businesses turn over several hundred thousand dollars to 4 or 5 million dollars in sales and employ anything from zero to 10 or 20 people.

They are not huge.

At this size, they don’t have a lot of spare capacity and they tell me that while they want to get organised, while they want to plan ahead and be clear about their business direction, while they understand how a business plan can clarify their daily confusion about what to do next, they are worried they don’t have the time and capacity to take on the task of business planning.

So the obvious question I’m asked is how much time do you need to prepare your own business plan?

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Pre-Planning Your Business Planning

Oct 20 2020

Believe it or not, one of the most important tasks before you start any Business Planning is to plan for how you will actually conduct your planning.

If you start without doing this, you are likely to go awry during your planning process.

To me, this is similar to how you decide on your holiday before you make plans for your holiday.

You have to make certain foundational decisions like when you want to take the holiday and where you want to go.

Without this information, your planning of the holiday could go sideways – you might book the wrong dates that clash with something else, or book somewhere inappropriate for the season!.

The first step in any Business Planning process is to “Get Ready To Plan.”

So let’s go through the decisions you have to make in order to make your Business Planning process smooth and efficient.

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Increase your sales through a highly focused marketing plan!

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Category - Small Business

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Don’t Forget To Plan For Contingencies

Clean Up Your Business While You’re Quiet

Happy Holidays – And Some Useful Resources

How Much Time Do I Need To Prepare A Business Plan?

Pre-Planning Your Business Planning