Running a small business

Introduction

Do not neglect the minor projects available from the fly out menu associated with this project.

• Advanced trees and shrubs to landscape contracting firms;
• An online garden design service where you post a double sided sheet to prospective clients, get them to sketch a base plan at a scale of 1:100 and answer some questions about the type of garden and features that they want on it on the reverse side of the sheet and post it back to you;
• A specialist design service to coastal communities;
• Providing a maintenance service for 'baby boomers' or those who are time poor
• Providing a specialist service to inbound tourists who have a particular interest in visiting Australian gardens.

Visit the link below and study a business plan (it is for an interior design services - a service quite similar to that offered by a landscape designer) to gain some idea of the requirements and structure of a business plan.

Please click here to visit the site which will open in a new window. Close the window when you have finished examining the model plan and return here. Note that we are not asking you to buy the software advertised on that site.

An aside: After you have read this sample plan, please contribute to our forum on business plans. Click here to visit the forum.

Now to the business plan proper

1.0 Objectives and mission statement

"The primary objectives of our firm are to:

• Exceed customers' expectations for service and product.
• Increase the number of clients served by 15% per year through superior performance.
• Develop a sustainable start-up business that is profitable."

Note: if you have not designed your logo, now is the time to do it. Start GardenCAD and design the logo. Keep the .Vec file as the master, zoom extents and maximize the view, copy the screen to the Windows clipboard, start IrfanView and paste the clipboard image into it. Make a JPG or GIF version of your logo and put into the header of your Word document. [movie required]

Garden designer logo - screen grab from GardenCAD

Hint: Do not include text in your logo. Include text such as your address and contact details in using Word.

Sample letter with logo in header

References:

Visit http://www.diploma.gardencad.net/node/100 for a list of services garden designers may offer. You will include and amplify these in your capability statement. Bonus points awarded for adding to the list!

Revisit the module on designing a logo:

For information on fee structures

• Some guidance on business letter writing has been provided in the Basic Computer Skills course (which you have all done)
• Access to online Word course  (http://www.gardencad.net/Word1/contents.htm) [we need to include a section on how to put images into documents]
• Access to online course on PowerPoint (http://www.gardencad.net/Powerpoint1/contents.htm)
• We have set up a forum covering this topic. We encourage you to join in. Please click here to join the forum. Again, the forum will open in its own window. Close the window when you have finished to return here.
• http://landscaping.suite101.com/article.cfm/common_landscape_design_prob...
• Visit ..for an online course on setting up a web site. [in preparation]

2.0 Company summary

The second part of the business plan is to create a company summary. As far as a company summary, the sample plan says

"Courtney Hamlin and Katherine Park will start Hamlin and Parks Design to offer a wide range of interior design services to clients in southwest Claremont. The company has a high level of expertise in interior design and will provide superior personal services to all clients. Courtney and Katherine take pride in knowing that 50% of their business comes from repeat clients and their referrals.

Company Ownership

Start-up Summary

 

Financial analyses such as these are best done using an Excel spreadsheet, so make sure that you have completed our online course before tackling this part of your project.

3.0 Services offered

The next major section of the business plan is the services you intend to offer. This should be straightforward as you have already looked at the type of services that a landscape consultancy offers. Here we want you to describe in depth, your products or services (technical specifications, drawings, photos, sales brochures, and other bulky items belong in Appendices).

Think about such things as what factors will give you competitive advantages or disadvantages? Examples include level of quality or unique or proprietary features. What are the pricing, fee, or leasing structures of your products or services?

Here is an example of what one consultancy offers.

We have repeated the services landscape designers commonly offer taken from our earlier module. We would like to think that you can offer some of your own - photography, web design or perhaps printing services.

• Preparation of detailed landscape design plans including plant schedules.
• Cost estimates for agreed works
• Designs for hard landscaping elements such as walls, paving, decks, garden sculpture & artwork
• Designs or procurement for special elements such as water features, furniture and lighting
• Incorporation and advice on sustainable landscape principles
• Obtaining pricing, nominating contractors and obtaining tender prices for construction
• Supervision of all works and installations
• Supply of plant materials and routine maintenance of designed gardens

You will want to educate your clients about sustainability. Click here for some information on that topic.

4.0 Marketing & Analysis

 

Market research - Why?

No matter how good your product and your service, the venture cannot succeed without effective marketing. And this begins with careful, systematic research. It is very dangerous to assume that you already know about your intended market. You need to do market research to make sure you’re on track. Use the business planning process as your opportunity to uncover data and to question your marketing efforts. Your time will be well spent.

 

You need to clearly understand the market. What is the market looking for? How will tyou research this? What strategies will you use to see if their business model will find a market? How will you identify their key competitors and what strategies will you use to compete successfully.

There are two kinds of market research: primary and secondary.

Secondary research means using published information such as industry profiles, trade journals, newspapers, magazines, census data, and demographic profiles. This type of information is available in public libraries, industry associations, chambers of commerce, from vendors who sell to your industry, and from government agencies.

Start with your local library. Most librarians are pleased to guide you through their business data collection. You will be amazed at what is there. There are more online sources than you could possibly use. Your chamber of commerce has good information on the local area. Trade associations and trade publications often have excellent industry-specific data.

Primary research means gathering your own data. For example, you could do your own traffic count at a proposed location, use the yellow pages to identify competitors, and do surveys or focus-group interviews to learn about consumer preferences. Professional market research can be very costly, but there are many books that show small business owners how to do effective research themselves.

In your marketing plan, be as specific as possible; give statistics, numbers, and sources. The marketing plan will be the basis, later on, of the all-important sales projection.

To sum up, your business plan should definitely contain a section devoted to how you will market your business. You will need to decide who your target audience is, how you are going to reach them and what is the size of your market. You will need to study your competitors and tray and determine how they market their services.

Prepare a detailed marketing plan

This will have lots of aspects to it, and a time frame. Marketing is something that needs to be done on a regular basis, not when business has slowed. Try and 'think outside the square', obvious tool such as Yellow pages may not be the best option. Think about the possibility of using guerilla marketing tactics. It is common for new Real Estate companies setting up shop alongside existing ones. 

Print marketing

You might consider employing a graphic designer and produce a suite of printed materials and distribute these as widely as possible. for example, the local Post Office will, for a small fee, put a flyer in all post boxes at a mail centre.

Web marketing

You should consider creating a web presence. Here is a reference to some web marketing advice from us:

 

and a link to a web site which we believe markets a designers services very well.

 

 

Why not visit the above site and map out the structure of the web site by visiting each link withi it?

References:

Some links of interest:

• http://www.abs.gov.au/ [Australian Bureau of Statistics]
• http://www.fabjob.com/landscape.asp

5.0 Strategy & implementation

How will the business operate? What is the best approach (sole traders, a company?) Will you operate out of a single building or working apart, singly or in partnership. If you are going to work together how will this work. How will work be divided and how will the costs of the operation are handled. Dollar numbers are not required here but rather what things need to be considered. Would it be good to get some business legal advice? Appoint an accountant - large firm or small practicioner?

Legal responsibilities?

6.0 Management Summary

How will the company utilize its human resources.

7.0 Financial summary

For reference, this session covers information appropriate for pages 15-20 of the business.gov.au Business Plan Template

Financial Plan

A good financial plan maps out the inner financial workings of your new business and supports the viability of your proposal. It should present a reasonable estimate of your financial future and helps establish a process to think through the finer financial aspects of your orgaisation. We recommend that you work closely with an accountant or financial expert when working through this section. Areas such as taxation and financial liabiity can be very complex and are best managed by a professional.

Start-up Costs

These are the initial outlay you need before your company starts trading. These may include Registration Fees, Iniitial Infrastructure Costs, Legal and Accounting fees, Stationery etc. It may also include major capital costs uch as motor vehicles and computers. Money spent on developing the business plan itself or on initial advertising should be included here.

Balance Sheet Forecasts

Balance Sheets detail a snapshot of your business at ket times. For your business plan, it is at start-up ans deatils any assets and liabilities you have at the start. These may include cash or pre-paid accounts as well as fixed assets such as property, vehicles or furniture. Liabilities may include loans, outstanding tax or client accounts.

12 Month Profit and Loss

The Profit and Loss section is where you project your profit against your expenses for at least the fisrt 12 months. Often a 3-4 year projection is included as well. These projections should be based on your best estimates and be as accurate as possible.

Expected cash Flow

This section explains how cash will flow in and out of your business. It should project the outgoing and incoming month by month movement of money. the Expected Cash flow Statement or Cash Flow Projection is different from a cash flow in that the altter explains waht actually ocurred as opposed to waht you expect to happen.

Break-even-analysis

Break even analsis breaks down your services to a single unit cost and measures that against your costs so you can calculate how many units you will need to sell over a period before your busniess will break even (on that particular widget). This form on analysis is not reallly applicable to a firm selling services such as garden design. 

8.0 The business plan

We have asked you to develop a business plan. The plan can be for your business or even for a business that you have thought might be viable. For example, even though you may believe that there is an opportunity for a full service landscape business in your town, you know that setting one up is going to take capital that you do not have access to or are unlikely to win. You might try developing a business plan for (say) a coastal garden design business because you have observed that what is being done along the coast is not being done well). A business focussing on the needs of coastal homeowners is not likely to need the capital that a full service company offers and is more likely to temp an investor.

You have alreday looked at a business plan for an interior design agency and hopefully unearthed some others in related services fields that yours can be modelled on. Here is a reminder what goes into the plan:

Now is the time to put it together.

A final presentation - use MS PowerPoint. Don't forget to take the online course first. Here is the link.