The Business Plan: Goals And People (Part 3/6)

 

Goals

So, you have your business details and your executive summary. Next you will want to start considering your company's goals. What does that mean?

Generally you will want to develop three different sets of goals. These goals should be:

Short term goals: goals that you would want to achieve in the next 0-12 months
Medium term goals: goals that you want to achieve in 12-36 months
Long term goals: goals that you want to achieve in 36 months onwards

Some examples of goals:

My short term goal is to acquire a reasonable share of the market and to have 2 long term contracts in place by the end of the first year of trading. I also hope to be leasing my own premises and generating a turnover of over £80,000

My medium term goal is to expand the business in year 2. At the end of year 3 my target is to have a turnover of at least £180,000

My long term goal is to have a strong management team in place to allow me to have time to develop new products and markets

Resources

Further examples of company goals can be found here: Goals and Objectives
further information on goal setting can be found here: How To Set Business Goals

Management and Staff

Now a look at the people that will make this all work for you, your management and staff.

For staff it will be important to record in your business plan:

• Key information
• Explanation of everyone's role in the business
• Details of relent experience within the business
• Details of any skills gaps
• Details of any additional training required

SWOT Analysis

To make it easier to find skills gaps analyse your:

• Strenghts
• Weaknesses
• Oppotunities
• Threats  

This process is often referred to as a SWOT analysis. More information on SWOT analysis can be found here: How To Do A SWOT Analysis  and example SWOT analysis are included here: Example SWOT's

That's all for this section, but please look out for the next blog post where I look at products, services and market research.

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