Most business advice includes doing a business and marketing plan.
From personal knowledge of creating both, if you do one plan you
already have about 75% of the other one.

The other thing I learned along the way is the primary goal of
creating the plans was to give me information so I can make better
business decisions and be more prepared. For others, the incentive
might be to get a business loan.

Either way, the plans are there to guide YOU. If you're doing the
plans for yourself (your eyes only), it doesn't have to be the stoic
document that even you don't ever want to look again.

I noticed that when I did my first round of the plans, it was a lot
of dreaded work because I had no clue what I was doing or what all
the information was supposed to mean. It wasn't until the end of
the process that my little light bulb got brighter and I figured out
that all this work was actually to help ME not the people I showed
it to. That's when I started including jokes, brilliant colors,
encouraging comments, dancing stick people, imaginary customers,
etc.

And being further down the road, I realize there was absolutely no
way to know what was coming during the months of start up. Planning
did help me keep my eye the bouncing ball (although I confess to
straying a few times). I don't know why I was so fearful of making
mistakes when they were inevitable. The point is to find them,
figure out what to do about them, and then move forward. So please,
don't procrastinate doing your plans because they won't be perfect.
Perfection is not expected, and really, do you want to do business
with anyone who expects perfection?

This year when it comes time to update my plans, I plan on making it
something that I'm excited to refer back to, it's not going to hide
in my closet. I'm a bit of a trickster and creative to boot, so
just the thought of having fun with the plans has already given me
incentive to revisit them.

I'd like to encourage you to make your plans something that you look
forward to revisiting - even if you might need to spend a little
extra time cleaning it up for a serious loan officer. And if you'd
like to share some of the fun things you decide to include - we'd
like to hear about them!

Demographics Resources:

One of the elements of both plans is demographics. We've found a
couple of resources that we'd like to share with you.

Some of the best Kitsap County statistics can be found at Washington
Prospector http://www.washingtonprospector.com/ , select the search
by criteria from the top of the left menu and then select Kitsap
County on the right side of the screen. Basically, it consolidates
data from many resources into one location.

And if you're looking for some internet data, check out Pew Research
at http://www.pewinternet.org/ Pew Research has been conducting
internet surverys for several years on Internet Activities, Internet
Demographics, etc.

Both sites have plenty of data to give you a great start.

Happy planning!
Heidi Barnett
-owner-
www.AroundKitsap.com