Ambitious Entrepreneur – Business Planning: Creating your roadmap to success

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Do you have a business plan that you regularly refer to? If not, you could be jeopardizing your ability to reach your business goals.

In fact, we’ve all heard the saying: “Fail to Plan – then Plan to Fail,” which is exactly what today’s guest believes will happen if you don’t have a solid business plan in place to guide you.

On today’s show Annemarie Cross interviews Fran McCully – Virtual Bookkeeper and Principal from Your Administration Solutions who believes that your business plan is the roadmap to building a successful business. And without one, it’s impossible to run your business effectively.

Fran talks about:

• the key elements you should include in your business plan
• why performing a comprehensive market analysis is so important, especially it you want to identify how you can distinguish yourself from your competitors; as well as
• steps you need to take to ensure you can achieve your business goals.

Fran also draw on her 30 years combined experience as an executive assistant in finance and budgeting to talk about why having a virtual bookkeeper (to help you keep track of your expenses and finances) is so important if you want to maximize your overall profitability. That means more money in your pocket!

If you haven’t created a business plan, or the one you’ve put together previously is outdated and sitting at the bottom of your filing cabinet, then grab a pen and paper and make sure you write down the practical steps that Fran shares to help you create a strategic business plan that will help you grow your business in 2012.