A good business experience

Busi­ness plan saves the day

In the fall of 1996, our graphic design com­pany took a hit from the explo­sion of inex­pen­sive desk­top pub­lish­ing soft­ware. It seemed that every company’s switch­board oper­a­tor was knock­ing out newslet­ters and brochures while never miss­ing a call. No one appeared to care about dou­ble spaces after peri­ods or saw a dif­fer­ence between inches and true quote marks.

At the same time, our city rede­vel­op­ment agency was look­ing to develop tourism. They needed accom­mo­da­tions for the flood of tourists sure to head this way.

Oppor­tu­nity was knock­ing or maybe, rear­ing its ugly head? I talked it over with my hus­band. “This is too hard. We need new com­put­ers. We need new clients. Let’s apply for rede­vel­op­ment funds to open a bed and break­fast,” I said.

“Yep,” he said. I breathed a sigh. Help was on the way.

How­ever, it was what he said next that changed our lives. “The County is spon­sor­ing a work­shop for new busi­nesses. Let’s take it.”

I said okay, the instruc­tor said, “Write a busi­ness plan.”

That work­shop taught us much; writ­ing that busi­ness plan, much more.

As we devel­oped the new busi­ness plan, we con­sid­ered the cost of the invest­ment in both time and cash. Then we com­pared it with pur­chas­ing a cou­ple of new com­put­ers and learn­ing HTML to rev up our 1990s era skills. It revived our enthu­si­asm for the busi­ness we really did love and opened our eyes to new possibilities.

The busi­ness plan turned in at the end of the class was not a plan for open­ing a B&B. Instead, it called for expand­ing the graphic ser­vices we already offered. In sum, best thing I did was to see that it was eas­ier to green up my own lawn than to plant a new one. Writ­ing a busi­ness plan let me see that clearly.

Norma

Tip:

Before scrap­ing your cur­rent busi­ness, get out your dusty old busi­ness plan. See where you can fan new life into your busi­ness with addi­tional new prod­ucts or ser­vices. Com­pare the ROI for start­ing up a new busi­ness from scratch to the ROI for updat­ing your exist­ing business.

Want to learn more about our graphic design busi­ness and how our ser­vices night help you? Click here.