The SBA 7(A) program helps small entrepreneurs start or expand their businesses with loans through bank and non-bank lending institutions. Previously the loans only allowed a maximum of $250,000 in intangibles (including goodwill) to be financed. However, under the revised rules, it is now possible to finance any amount of goodwill (even up to this program’s lending limit of $2,000,000), as long as at least 25 percent equity exists in borrower down payment and/or seller stand-by financing.

There is more good news, in that the SBA has temporarily increased its guarantee from 75 percent to 90 percent of the total loan amount, and currently waives the guarantee fee (2.6 percent of the loan amount) charged to borrowers.
For buyers and sellers of a business that want to use an SBA 7(A) loan, it is important to keep in mind that each bank will likely have their own criteria and means it is necessary to contact your bank to determine its specific approach. Some good talking points to help you though include:

1. Cash flow. Remember, SBA loans are cash flow loans, that is, the business must be generating a positive cash flow. Each bank will assess the company’s loan repayment ability using the Debt Service Coverage Ratio (cash available for debt service divided by cash required for debt service). Banks will usually deny a loan if revenues have declined in recent years, although they may make an exception if the company can demonstrate a current stabilization or growth trend.
2. Buyer downpayment. In general terms, a lender will want to see the buyer provide about 20 percent down payment to buy the business. A buyer could then finance the remaining 80% with a combination of the seller carrying a note of say 15% and bank finance of 65%. The buyer downpayment could come from sources such as family gifts, a tax-free rollover of a 401(k) or IRA, or home equity line of credit (as long as the buyer has an additional, unrelated income stream large enough to feasibly pay off the debt). A bank may also accept a seller’s note on full standby, which means the seller agrees to forgo any payments until the senior bank debt gets paid in full.
3. Buyer management expertise. The lender will expect a potential buyer to have extensive and relevant ownership or management experience. In 2007 the SBA did some research to see why businesses were failing with an SBA loan and they found one of the main reasons was a lack of management experience in the industry the business was operating. The lender may waive this in the case of an established franchise, as long as the company is not in the hotel/motel, restaurant, or construction industry.
4. Collateral. The requirement for collateral varies with a bank as does any specific minimum coverage. However, where it is available helps the buyer’s loan application position. Most lenders also favor deals where real estate is available.
5. Buyer credit and legal history. A FICO score of at least 650 is typically required and often higher, that is, 680. A buyer also needs to have a relatively clear legal history.
6. Loan amounts. Although the SBA currently limits loan amounts to $2,000,000 for non-real estate transactions (and up to $5,000,000 for 100 percent real estate deals), it is possible to combine SBA financing with other payment options to accommodate proposals with larger financing requirements. For instance, you can use current asset-based lending or seller financing for this purpose.

 The temporary provisions may only extend through the end of 2010, but Congress is expected to raise the overall guarantee limit to $5,000,000 (with up to a 90 percent guarantee.) In addition, the SBA 504 program limits for 100 percent real estate transactions may increase to $14,000,000.

As the entrepreneur looking to sell and transition out of being a business owner, it’s not a quick process. It can even drag on if the buyer wants the seller to continue in an active role in the business in some capacity. At the end of the day, however, it all needs to make sense to the entrepreneur and the best way to do that is to build a transition plan.
What should be included in the transition plan? A transition plan can overlap with an Exit Plan. An exit plan is essentially a process to exit business ownership. A transition plan is a strategy to manage the protection and eventual transfer of assets or stock in a proactive, tax efficient manner. Essentially an entrepreneur can have 5 types of assets. These are Personal Property, Real Estate, Business Interests, Insurance Plans and Employee Benefits.

Personal property includes savings, stocks, bonds and personal effects. Real estate includes both residential and commercial property. Business interests include the business legal entity such as a corporation, partnership or LLC. Insurance plans include life, health and annuities. Employee benefits include pension, 401(k), IRA and stock options.
Creating a Transition Plan touches all aspects of an entrepreneur from the obvious personal financial need and therefore personal security to matters such as tax and perhaps not always recognized, the emotional needs of the entrepreneur. At all times the emotional needs of the entrepreneur are always exposed. Things like divorce, health issues, family issues, personal safety and disability are always looming. The pressure of the business from customers, suppliers, landlords, employees, government agencies, lenders and a myriad of others constantly keeps an entrepreneur thinking, planning and reacting.

When transitioning the ownership of a business there are many options. An outright sale to a buyer is one of the most obvious but there are 4 other possible options. These are selling the business to the employees through an ESOP program, sell through a Charitable Trust, transfer to a family member and sell to a partner. In certain circumstances, the owner could take the business public and sell his interest via an Initial Public Offering or IPO but most businesses would not meet the criteria including handling the associated costs.

A quality Transition Plan is all about success. Its ultimate goal is to ensure that the business and the owner moves from one state to the next. The best analogy I like is that it’s like juggling two snowflakes. Every snowflake is unique because of temperature, the absence or inclusion of a piece of dirt, the number of water molecules, spins of electrons, hydrogen and oxygen etc. So too is a business and its owner. To preserve and maintain the business and protect its uniqueness it must be treated carefully and properly. The same applies to the owner. The owner can live without the business and the business can live without the owner as long as proper care and attention are given to each so when the next owner comes along with their uniqueness, like another snowflake, it has to make sure it can mesh with the business and both be successful.

If the entrepreneur loses the hunger to learn, be the vision and leader of the business, it’s time for a change. Because a business is so dynamic, it requires leadership. If this doesn’t happen it will shrivel and die. Capital, time and energy must keep moving otherwise it will fade away.

If the entrepreneur leading the business recognizes it’s good business to plan for a change of ownership and therefore handle the matter in a proactive way, the chances of success are so much greater and so are the chances of getting the highest price possible. There is a very simple reason for this. The buyer of a business looks at and includes many things in their decision making process. However, there are basically two ingredients, the cash flow the business generates and its potential to generate more cash flow in the future. If either one is missing, the buyer will require a discount on the purchase price of the business. If both are missing, it will be a business extremely difficult to sell.

As the entrepreneur works through their decision to sell the business, a critical component that will help them do this successfully is to start putting into place things the entrepreneur will move to after they sell the business. It can be intriguing to watch older entrepreneurs work through the process of selling a business, handling all the negotiations and questions from the buyer and just prior to signing the documents to transfer ownership to the buyer, decide not to sell. The reason they decide not to sell is because the appeal of cruising the world or playing golf 5 days a week or looking after the grandchildren all of a sudden doesn’t have the same appeal as going to work each day. So a good exit plan for an entrepreneur as its first priority needs to have a clear strategy detailing to what the entrepreneur is going to move.

The next ingredient is to make sure a good team is in place to advise and protect the transition of the business. The team can include accountants, business attorney’s, financial planners, lenders and a business broker to market and handle all buyer inquiries about the business. The most important ingredient to the entrepreneur is trust. If the entrepreneur does not have a trusting relationship with any of the people on their team, they need to be replaced.

Each entrepreneur will have a different risk tolerance to different aspects of the transaction. The current market conditions require a seller to be part of the finance of the transaction. Third party lenders can bridge the gap between the buyer down payment and the seller note, but the seller has to be willing to be in a second position on the loan.

Each exit plan will differ for each entrepreneur. My golden rule is that when selling your business, put your feet in the shoes of the other party and see things from their perspective. This is true not only for the buyer who has no history of the enterprise, has to put down a sum of money they may never see again, has to take the emotional risk of not only being good enough to own and operate the business as well as the current owner, but learn as much as possible as quickly as possible or suffer the embarrassment of it all crashing down on them.

Part 13 and the final article in this series looks at the Transition Plan and how it completes the role and responsibility of the entrepreneur.

A good form of insurance but one only the business owner can handle is creating a Disaster Recovery Plan. It doesn’t sound very attractive and it doesn’t sound like a good use of time but let’s consider the following.
If your business was hit by a severe storm, hurricane, truck or car that was out of control, flood, tornado, lightning or hail, earthquake, disease or pests, unusually high temperatures that caused damage to the building your business is in or some other unpredictable occurrence, how would this affect your business? What about a building fire, hazardous materials incident, sabotage, a loss of key staff or power disruption? Perhaps ask the same question in a different way. If something occurred to damage the business and you were out of action for a week or so, could your business survive?
The point of all this is to put a Disaster Recovery Plan together.

With each disaster there are three phases; Response, Mitigation and Recovery. With a defined Disaster Recovery Plan, each of the three phases means there is less downtime in each phase and could mean the difference in saving or losing the business.

Here are some important ingredients to include in your Disaster Recovery Plan.

1. Make sure everyone is on board with the plan and understands their role.
2. Create and train a critical management team who can plan, check and execute.
3. Document any hazardous or business critical items so a mitigation strategy is developed and agreed upon so response time is kept to a minimum and its laser focused on the critical areas.
4. Create, document and test any mitigation strategies so the business can return to normal operation as soon as possible.
5. Test, evaluate and maintain; and do this every 3 months.
6. Make sure you don’t forget step five.

This article is not an advertisement for insurance but there are many insurance products available. These include Property insurance, Flood insurance, Business Liability insurance, Workers Compensation insurance, Business Interruption insurance, Umbrella insurance, Errors and Omissions insurance, Disability insurance and Employers Liability coverage.

All disasters, by definition, only allow a certain number of things to be done in a window of time. The first thing to therefore establish is priorities and these should be people first, business criticalities for the future of the business and then things. First and foremost, people include the owner’s immediate family, the employees and customers. If home or business neighbors need help then that too should be included. Help should include knowing where and when to send people out of the danger area (don’t send them to another danger area) including an agreed place and time to all meet, having a list of readily available contacts including an agreed means of communications and tools, having the appropriate medical equipment including medications if necessary and a list of contacts to emergency centers so they can be contacted for updates. It sounds basic, but the need to avert panic and poor decisions needs to be top of the mind.

Finally, copies of all critical records require a systemic and deliberate process. If paper records are copied and archived in a different location why not make an extra copy or two and archive them elsewhere. Computer data and a deliberate back up strategy should now be part and parcel of any small business that uses computers. Online back-up services are available for little to no cost and work very well.

Disasters cannot be avoided. History repeatedly shows us that we choose to ignore disasters at our own peril. Good management includes preparing for a disaster and strategies are readily and easily available. Include making a Disaster Recovery Plan as part of your business assets. If you have one in place; congratulations! If you don’t have one, create a deadline and make sure it gets done. Consider putting a team together and have them handle all the pieces and bring a final report back to you.

At some point, all business owners will exit their business. It’s just a question of whether it’s in a wooden box and is therefore an unplanned event or on a cruise ship as a planned event.

Part 12 of this article series looks at the importance of an Exit Plan and how to put it together.

The first area to look at is the financial statements of the business. The first and most readily used is the Profit and Loss Statement as it shows the income and expenses of the business with hopefully the income greater than the expenses. Just as important, however, is the Balance Sheet as this document shows the wealth of the business. With an up to date profit and loss statement and balance sheet, a trained business appraiser can then calculate what the owner of the business could expect to get if they decided to sell it on the market.

In addition to the financial statements, the next performance area to measure and manage can be simple business metrics that include the number of incoming calls to the business (and this can be broken down into times of day if call volume is an important metric,) the number of hits to the website, volume of email, volume of faxes and volume of orders placed on-line (if important.) Depending on the business, the total number of orders placed and/or the number of orders placed by each sales person. In simple terms, sales can generally be easily measured. It’s important that the sales team is clear on sales targets and agree how they are to be measured. Sales people are motivated by getting results. Make sure the results are measured accurately, consistently and fairly or sales people will become de-motivated; which is obviously the complete opposite from what you want to do. It’s important to start by building Key Performance Metrics for your business. Don’t be afraid to change and add other metrics as they are normally easy to isolate and therefore count.

Make sure all metrics are counted monthly and as many data points shared with everyone in the business as possible. Celebrate successes and ask the team for suggestions when the performance isn’t acceptable.

The next aspect to a Performance Plan for the business and something not always done is an annual performance review. There are different approaches to this topic; some are personal preference. For example, some businesses tend to link the annual performance review to also a salary review. My preferred strategy is not to link them. My reason for this is that I don’t think they are linked. Compensating someone on performance is important. However, the good performance of one person does not always mean the business can afford to pay as collectively the business may not be performing well enough. The argument goes that incentives should include as many workers as possible so if they are successful so too will the business, but you can have a top performing employee that is bring in the best sales for the business but his demeanor or attitude to co-workers may not be acceptable.

Therefore, how do you financially reward a top performer during a meeting and then point out behavior or communication problems. Rewarding people for sales is great however, you will lose any goodwill from acknowledging and rewarding great sales and then bringing up negative issues.

If the performance of each employee is measured with an Annual Performance Review an extension of that is to include feedback from the co-workers at the same level as the employee. This is called a Peer performance review. It can be controversial as someone may choose to denigrate the performance of a co-worker they don’t like. So there are risks. However, it can provide constructive results if managed correctly.

A best practice for a Performance Review is asking an employee that reports to a manager their opinion on the performance of the manager and how the manager could do things better. This is called a Management Review. Once again this approach can have a downside but it can enable a business to grow and be internally stronger if open and honest communication is part of the business culture.

The final item to consider is your performance as the business owner. Not every owner has the time or desire to put such a process in place, but if you want your business to grow and have a healthy business environment I think it’s one of the best means to enhance the success of the business. Depending on the size of the business, the Owner Performance Review can be done by hiring an outside consultant. An alternative suggestion is to do it by anonymous survey but this approach reduces the effectiveness as it restricts the answers that can be given and doesn’t allow an exchange to clarify things.

There is a business axiom that says “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” The Performance of a business can mean the difference between success and failure. Most businesses do not fail overnight. They decline gradually, with often the decline picking up steam towards the end. A good Performance Plan will provide warnings that if measured and managed will allow corrective action to be taken in time.

Part 11 of this article series, explains the importance of a Disaster Recovery Plan. Most businesses don’t have the time to put this together. That can be a mistake and this article explains why.

How does this affect our business? There is no question that data including audio and video are exploding online and helping sell more goods and services. Hand held devices such as iPhone’s and Blackberry’s are growing in popularity, devices that track the GPS to give us driving directions are here to stay. We therefore, if we own and operate a business, need to ensure we use technology how it was designed and this is as a tool to help us be more productive.

To make technology work for us in our business we need a plan. There is no point adding a new device to the existing technology in the business if it won’t work. You can buy the latest piece of Windows compatible software and try to install and run it on a MAC but if the MAC doesn’t operate the Windows software you are done. Similarly, if your computers are running Windows 2000 server software and the hardware breaks and needs replacing, you have to make sure the replacement hardware will work in the old server and the software.

So what goes into a Technology Plan? A good starting point is a breakdown by make and model number of each of the pieces of hardware in the business. You need this data for tax purposes anyway and it is necessary. This information should include any devices that are specifically used and taken out of the office by any employee. If that employee leaves, you obviously want the item returned for their replacement in good working order and condition, all the data on it. Your technology plan should also include how often the data is to be backed up, where copies of purchase receipts and warranties are to be stored in case the machine breaks down and needs to be replaced or is stolen and a replacement machine needs to be bought and replaced urgently.

A technology plan also needs to clearly outline for all employees how they can and cannot use the business technology. If the use of Social Network Marketing sites like FaceBook, LinkedIn or Twitter are not allowed, then that needs to be communicated. It could be this ban applies to some positions but allowed for others. For example, it may not be a good use of time for the accounting, technology and operational employees to use these media but it may be encouraged or indeed part of the sales and marketing plan to use these technologies. Technology is not simple and straight forward. It does require discussion, the creation of policies but also review of these policies.

Another important component to technology which is sometimes overlooked is the need for training. Businesses in the technology are constantly competing to maintain and increase market share. One of their most important strategies is to deploy new and better hardware and software than their competitor. This constant change of products means employees that use these new and upgraded products, to remain efficient, need to be trained and kept up to date.

To make sure the technology plan is kept relevant and up to date, consider having one primary and one secondary person responsible. Both people need to live and breathe technology. Their responsibility is to keep the technology plan current, but also escalate problems and just as importantly, relevant new ideas that will help the business. As the owner of the business, if you delegate managing the technology to another employee, make sure you understand the difficulties they face staying on top of it all. Technology is supposed to serve us and the business. Because of its constant changes and oftentimes being deployed before it is truly ready for the market it can be a bear.

Measuring the performance of the business is the role of the Performance Plan. Part 10 of this article series looks at the need to score and then tweak so the business knows its success meeting annual financial goals.

Chances are you have a list of projects and tasks you want and need to do. It probably doesn’t include answering phones, sending and receiving emails, reading articles and newsletters, attending conferences, staying on top of compliance items that affect your industry but numerous day to day activities that lead most entrepreneurs at the end of the day to say “Where did the day go?” And that’s the point of a Productivity Plan.

A Productivity Plan is an attempt to put some system into each month, week and day. Whether you are the President of the United States or the unemployed person looking for a job, we all have exactly the same amount of time in a day. While we may not always be able to control who we spend our day with, we can control how we spend it. For example, do you know how much time each day you spend on email? Do you respond to each email as it arrives? If so, you are not being productive. An email is a non urgent means of communication. If it was urgent you would be using the cell phone or other telephone line. The goal of a Productivity Plan is to plan and manage your day, firstly, so you enjoy it and secondly, so you get the important tasks done while the less important tasks wait. Closing down your email so you answer each email in a window of time and then again in the afternoon allows you to be more productive…which is what a Productivity Plan is all about.

You generally work to a month as it coincides with a financial period that most businesses follow where the book-keeper or financial analysts close out the month in preparation for the next month.

What other areas can I address to remain as productive as possible? The starting point is to make a plan each week. You may prefer to set aside a little time to do this late Friday afternoon and therefore plan for all of the next week or you may prefer to do this first thing Monday morning.

Deciding what tasks you need to do in your business will vary greatly from another persons. Not only because you are in different businesses but also because you could be in different industries, and different positions but also at different stages of a life cycle of the business.

If you want some help with what productivity tasks to accept, look at your normal work habits and decide how they can be improved, the tasks that must get done that slows down others, and even consider what you avoid doing or spend too much time procrastinating over. This is where you can improve your productivity.
The best option is to either write your plan in a word processing document or a spreadsheet. Making a written record and spending the time to define what needs to be done is the first step towards success. Another important task is to make sure you allocate a priority – A for urgent, B for needs completing within a reasonable time and finally C for non urgent. The labels I have used are simplistic but they really need to be tweaked for your own situation.
Finally, a Productivity Plan is not about measuring results. A Productivity Plan is about defining AND agreeing what needs to be done with what urgency. Measuring the results of your Productivity Plan is important, but that’s covered by a Performance Plan; which will discuss at another time.

Part 9 of this article series looks at a Technology Plan and how this fits in with the success of a business. Technology is now a key component to most businesses; having it as a tool and asset rather than a drag on the business is critical.

A key way this would help a business transition from a seller to a buyer would be if the seller used a Management Plan. What you may ask is a Management Plan? From my perspective, a Management Plan is where all the critical areas of a business are summarized so if the owner of the business wins the lottery and never wants to work another day in their life in the business and not come to work tomorrow, the business will survive and grow.

What are some things to include in the Management Plan? At a minimum the Management Plan needs to include a summary of key business information. This includes the following:

1. A current and monthly updated summary of all the employees in the business. The rule should be that if any employee needs to be contacted, their information should be available in less than one minute. This information needs to include emergency contacts of each employee, if they are willing to provide it and your State government agency allows you to collect it.

2. A current and monthly updated summary of all suppliers. All suppliers may be too much but at least the suppliers that supply any critical materials or provide more than 5% of the company materials.

3. A current and monthly updated summary of all business support services such as the CPA, attorney(s), financial planner(s), landlord, lenders, government agencies in case any are needed urgently.

4. A critical document that would help any buyer is seeing the business Training Manual. Again this document should be kept up to date and break down each of the current positions of the business. If the business doesn’t currently have this document, start creating it. It’s very easy to do. Have the current person encumbered with that job write down what they do. This is then presented to another member of the business with the instruction to execute what’s provided. If they can do it then the jobs done. If they can’t, it goes back to the person who wrote it for re-writing. If some employees don’t want to write the document as they are concerned they will be let go because anyone now knows how to do their job, hire a student from a local college to come and write things up or hire a technical writer.

5. In addition to the Training manual, put together an Operations manual. Michael Gerber is the master of written procedures. He’s written numerous books including The E Myth and The E Myth Revisited. Very simply, Michael Gerber believes that being a true entrepreneur is being able to take an idea and break it down and writing to the point where each person in the enterprise clearly knows what they need to do to collectively make the enterprise successful.

This is the purpose of the Operations manual; to clearly state the business process to achieve an outcome. Would you like an example? Let’s go with the example of a fast food restaurant that sells hamburgers. Let’s choose the person that makes the fries. The Operations manual would break down each step of that process. It starts with where to get the fries, what to do when the quantity of fries in the storage area gets to a critical point and what to do to order more; what temperature they should be stored. The next steps would detail what temperature the oil needs to be to cook the fries, for how long and in what container. Now detail what to do with the fries when they are ready, how much salt to add and in what container to place the cooked fries. Where the containers are stored and what to do when you reach a minimum threshold. You can do this in more detail but the beauty is that once this is done, it only needs to be checked say monthly and now on a consistent basis you can cook and deliver the best fries in the world.

It may seem like a lot of work putting these things together. These suggestions are the tip of the iceberg. What else can you document to make your business easier to operate? Using technology can make doing this so much easier. And remember to make sure you have a backup so all your hard work is not lost.

The most important reason to do this is that by creating this Management plan, your business will be of more interest to the right business buyer. In real estate, there is a rule called the principle of comparison. In simple terms it says that when a buyer is looking to buy a house, they will buy the best option not only on price, but also comparing it to other houses for sale in that area. If the buyer wants a 3 bedroom, 2 car garage, 2 bath house in a specific school district and they have 3 to choose from, they will not necessarily make their final decision on price but it could be features, for example, because one has a swimming pool… or not. The bottom line is that a strong and clearly laid out Management Plan adds value to a business being sold.

Part 8 of this article series looks at the value in creating a Productivity Plan and its importance to defining what and how things need to be done so the business is successful.

So what is a Communication Plan?

A Communication Plan is an attempt to standard the message that goes out from the business to its customers. It complements and dovetails with a Business Plan and Sales and Marketing Plan. In some instances there can be an overlap. It includes all written, spoke and electronic communications.

Some of the ingredients of a good Communication Plan include the brand of the business. The brand, with no more than a graphic or a word defines the company. Think of Google and its colors. I expect you would have trouble remembering what letter of the alphabet belongs to each color but there is no mistaking what the word Google means. Similarly, the word Coke. As soon as you read the word Coke the color red comes to mind. So one of the first things to consider in your Communication Plan is the brand and how you want it perceived by the market.

Many business owners choose to hire a brand or image consultant work through this part of the business. They would look at things such as the business name, colors, logos, graphics and other items so that there is a consistent look and feel. Large corporations spend a lot of money getting this right as it quickly represents the company. Consider BP, Subway, Macy’s, United Airlines, FedEx, HP, AT&T and Edward Jones to name a few.

A good way to build a Communication plan is around objectives. For example, it could include excellent customer service, customer retention or loyalty, how to touch each customer be it through a monthly newsletter, email or telephone call. It obviously includes bringing the employees of the business together so they understand any objectives and understand their role of that communication.

Another suggestion includes identifying what tools you will use to communicate to your customers. For example, it can be your website and blog as well as newspaper advertising, magazine ads, posters and even things such as report covers. There is no shortage of ideas.

It’s also important to establish a timetable especially where goals and objectives are attached. The current work environment is overwhelming and requires prioritization; especially if others are involved.

Finally, the communication plan should include measurable results. These results can be established on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. They need to be reviewed on a monthly basis and then communicated back to the team so they know what they are doing is effective, or it isn’t effective, what needs to be changed to achieve the desired results. A final annual report then needs to be provided so it’s archived but available to review each year.

Part 7 of this article series looks at how the Business Plan, Sales and Marketing Plan and Communication Plan are tied together with a Management Plan.

The sales and marketing plan can be as complex and as detailed as you wish to make it. It can include a list of tactics you could deploy, it can list and detail only specific tactics you plan to use or a combination of both. It’s important, though, that you understand how each idea is to be used but you have some idea of the expected results each tactic should bring to the business. There is an old adage in business management: If you cannot measure it you cannot manage it. There is also a famous quote that says “I’m convinced that 50% of my marketing is effective, I just can’t tell which 50%.”

There is also another saying that says “I can’t afford to advertise.” If you cannot afford to advertise then you probably cannot afford to be in business.

Some of the key items you want to see in your sales and marketing plan includes a profile of your typical current customer, what percentage of business they bring, where they come from and how they found you. If you are planning on growing the business by either more of the same type of customer or a different customer demographic, this needs to be defined, measured and made sure it makes good business sense to target. Sales and marketing should always be seen as an investment and just like all other aspects of your business, needs to bring a return that you measure or you need to go and try something else or adjust your sales and marketing plan.

If you are looking for different sales and marketing tactics there is simply no shortage of them. Here are a few suggestions. Each one needs proper consideration and research to make sure it’s the right strategy for your business. These tactics include obvious things like your business cards, office letterhead and stationery, email signature, coupons or flyers as well as things like your website, blog, monthly electronic newsletter, networking, taking someone out to lunch once a week, social networking media such as FaceBook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Other strategies could include TV advertising, seminars to educate customers about your service, trade shows, hiring a Public Relations expert, joining local associations such as the Chambers of Commerce or other local business or trade association groups.

Just like your business plan, the sales and marketing plan needs to be a living and breathing document. It needs to include projections and just as importantly, the results from any activities undertaken so you can tweak and constantly improve what you doing. And don’t forget your sales and marketing plan should include how each person in the business answers the phone right through to the book-keeper.

There is no reason your book-keeper and clerical staff cannot answer the phone and offer a monthly special to see if they can bring in new business. It’s a little unconventional but sales and marketing is about getting results, not whether something is conventional or unconventional.

Part 6 of this article series looks at how the Business Plan and Sales and Marketing Plan are tied together with a Communication Plan.