Brilliant Start-Up
The book takes you through the stages of setting up and running a business. It is an inspiring mix of practical information and entertaining writing style. If you’re toying with the idea of setting up a business then this is definitely the book for you. Our business has been going for a few years now but even though some of the book was covering old ground I still found it an interesting read, so I would say that it’s not necessarily just for start-ups. It’s given me a new perspective on parts of our business and I’ve set myself some homework to follow up on some ideas.
The only criticism I would have is the bias towards sales rather than marketing as a whole. There’s a whole chapter which is basically on telesales way before the whole marketing concept is covered, which I found offputting. However, the author began the book with explaining that it would be opinionated and this is an example of that. I can see the point he’s trying to make, I just don’t necessarily agree with it.
My previous book review was, I said, not one for lifting your motivation. This book is exactly that – whether you’re thinking of starting up a business, are in the process of doing so, or (like me) have been running a business for a few years, this book could provide you with the inspiration that you need.
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Preparing a Winning Business Plan
The book takes you step-by-step through the different sections of a business plan, explaining the information you need to compile and giving information about using resources. Each chapter also includes scenarios of different people setting up in business, which helps lift the dryness of the book a bit. However, I did feel that they could have been a bit more directly related to the subject matter of the chapter just covered to see how the advice could be practically applied.
The copy I have is the fourth edition, published in 2003, and it is therefore surprising that resources mentioned give postal addresses but not website details. If there is a more recent edition available I would hope that this has been rectified.
Overall a good information resource to have on your bookshelf but not a book to dip into when your motivation needs a lift.
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A motivated weekend
I’ve got a good dose of motivation this weekend – feeling full of energy and enthusiasm. Maybe not the best thing if I was hoping for a chilled-out relaxed weekend, but great for tackling some business planning. In fact I got up nice and early this morning to have a head-start on it.
What am I planning? What we can do to start bringing in more money. I honestly didn’t go into business to make huge amounts of dosh, I’d be more than happy with a comfortable income that allows us to keep on top of the mortgage, buy the occasional book/dvd/computer game and have an occasional meal out. Not much to ask is it? Well, the truth is we haven’t quite achieved that yet. Don’t get me wrong, I’m really happy with the progress the business has made over the last couple of years – I thought at this point we’d still be relying on part-time jobs but instead both of us are working full time on the business, which is great. However, our financial situation is a bit pathetic. I’d say we’re just about ‘getting by’.
So, the ultimate aim of my business planning is to make more money. We’ve had a few ideas of things we can try out but with the day-to-day running of the business it’s difficult to find the time to focus on them. Well, I guess that’s what evenings and weekends are for… Using the framework set out in Steve Parks’ Start Your Business Week by Week I’m going to set aside one evening a week and one day a weekend to do some ‘business planning’. Although our business is up and running it will be an interesting exercise to treat our plans for business improvement as if it was a new business. Will see how it goes!
How’s your vision?
I had a brilliant meeting with my partner this afternoon. All of the ‘self-improvement’ books I’ve been reading recently say that to be successful you need to have a clear vision of what you want your work and lifestyle to be in the future. One of the tips is to imagine where you want to be in five years time and then decide what you can be doing right now to work towards it. As a small example one of the things that I’ve said in my 5-year goal is that our house is tidy and uncluttered, a calm place to relax in. Well, there’s lots that I can do to get to that – how about starting with doing a bit of uncluttering? I could make a list of all the things that I think need doing to get the house as I would want it and start working through it. Make sense?
Where does today’s meeting come in? Well, I realised that I’d been doing all this dreaming of where I want to be in the future but hadn’t actually asked my partner how he felt about that vision. What if he was dreaming up something entirely different (hopefully not living with a tall brunette, seeing as I’m rather short and fair…). So a couple of days ago I asked him to give it some thought and this afternoon we sat down to go through it together. And you know what? He was completely happy with what I had written down (no bossing from me, honestly). Goes to show that we’re on the same wavelength.
The outcome of the meeting is a list of things that we need to tackle to move towards our goal. We have another meeting planned for Monday morning to make a more specific action list to work through. Feeling hugely positive as a result of that and can’t wait to start actively working towards our future.
