Raising funds to finance a business or capital venture can leave an individual or business indebted to different creditors, especially as most business borrows funds to finance the business. Such borrowing becomes necessary because the business may need more funds to meet the seasonal needs and expansion of business.
Therefore, the creditors, investors and financial institutions become the main source of loans. It is even more remarkable when in other to take advantage of different offers the business obtain loans from many sources.
The obligations to meet up the loan repayment can however turn out burdensome particularly as there is duplication of the burden of repayments and the business may not be as liquid to meet up with the different loan repayment schedule. Liquidity in this case being the cash turnover of the business is used to repay the business creditors. A remedy for such a situation could be a debt consolidation loan to ease the burdens of debt repayments to different creditors.
The debt consolidation loan is simply a single loan taken to pay back other outstanding debts which the business or businessperson owes to different creditors. It is a useful tool in meeting financial obligations because the obligation of paying back loans to different creditors can become a burden interfering with the smooth running of the business or venture.
For instance, a loan obligation to four different creditors amounting to four million naira can be offset with a single loan of the same amount from a single creditor making the debtor liable to just one creditor. This as it were takes away the burden of meeting varying loan repayment schedules and the burden of varying interest rates that the different creditors charge on their credit.

The new creditor’s emphasis is on the security of the loan issued, in terms of collateral, which will be the determinant of the loan given in the first place. He said that what hinders the efficacy of the subject in Nigeria is the fear that when the borrower reveals the true situation that the reason for a loan is the repayment of other loan obligation, the loan request may not be honoured.
This according to him is a misconception because the main issue in giving any loan is the security of such loans which when provided is at the borrower’s risk, mentioning that the current security free loan is that provided by microfinance banks. Ose Bayo, an independent investment analyst also spoke with Business Day on the subject of using the debt consolidation option to save a business the burden of duplications in loan repayment obligations.
He said that corporate individuals hardly use this option in Nigeria because even though borrowed funds for investment is gotten from different sources, the probability is that the repayment schedules may be different in terms of the timing. This according to him enables the business to meet up the various obligations.
He however said it might constitute a burden to the business or borrower, as the funds of the business may be going into servicing one loan or the other capable of resulting in insolvency. Although, the debt consolidation loan can give respite to the issues of proliferated debt repayment obligations, experts say that there are certain factors, which the borrower should look into before taking such a loan.
The time the debt consolidation loan will run should be taken into consideration because a shorter-term loan increases the loan burden since the repayments will be frequent especially in the short term.
In addition, the amount of money borrowed and the interest charged on the loan is important because a higher interest charge on loan for consolidation purposes is burdensome as well.
Others however, maintain that a shorter-term debt consolidation loan is appropriate in order to pay off such loan quicker. Not only will you save money in interest charges but also there is the gain of becoming debt free sooner. According to them, going for the lowest possible payment, will mean staying in debt for a much longer period and that could have an adverse effect on your future.
The terms of the loan consolidation will however depend on the motive of the debtor, which may be to pay off the debts as soon as possible to be free of the repayment obligations or to spread the repayment period to conserve funds for other business transactions obligations.

Due to the ever quickening pace of modern business, users of business intelligence demand faster access to the data they use to make critical business decisions. By streamlining access to information, smaller business can enable employees to access fresher data that informs real-time decisions and become more responsive and nimble than larger organizations

Historically, the data warehouse was a back-office application used by very few people for “after-the-fact” analysis and planning that are the core of business intelligence. For example, a business analyst or senior level manager would run trending reports on sales revenue for previous years and evaluate sales peaks, valleys, and patterns correlating to a particular season or external economic factor. Based on the results, they would make recommendations on future sales and marketing strategies.

But that takes too long for today’s ever-quickening business climate. Now, users across organizations must be empowered to make hundreds of small decisions each day; data is accessed by more and more people as front line sales and call center representatives arm themselves with the most recent information so they can act. It’s not acceptable to tell a distressed customer that you will return their call tomorrow or ask them to provide the same information repeatedly as they move through a phone tree.

Smaller business can gain a real competitive advantage by unlocking analytical systems to enable employees access to fresher data that informs real-time decisions. Large enterprises see this opportunity as well and that’s led business and IT leaders to reassess their data warehouse strategies to streamline the way organizations leverage information with the goal of optimizing workflow, productivity, and decision-making capabilities. The BI mantra is no longer “sense and respond,” but rather “anticipate, predict, and prevent,” with data-based confidence.

CHASING A SINGLE VERSION OF THE TRUTH
BI is a high priority: to know your customer is to know your business. In reality, this may not only require a comprehensive view of the customer, but also a comprehensive view of suppliers, partners, and revenue by product or channel. Gaining a fully integrated and relevant view of a piece of your business poses an ongoing IT challenge. The changes that come with a growing business — mergers, acquisitions, new products, services, and markets — only compound the ordeal.

A single version of the truth that is accurate and up to date has become the Holy Grail of BI. Business decision makers and end users know achieving that single view based on current data helps avoid making erroneous decisions, saving a company valuable time and resources. Harnessing the power of BI data can help small and midsize organizations compete by allowing them to be more agile and responsive to customers and partners than large enterprises with greater budgets and resources. Having a clear understanding, a single truth, of how the business is performing right now is key to moving forward and staying competitive — redefining the customer experience and expectation.

Access to both historical and current data enables a business to spot trends as soon as they begin to occur and make decisions to “stay the course” or, more important, correct course. For example, an online retailer running a promotional campaign may have a market segment that is particularly responsive. With access to that information in real time, the retailer can quickly decide to extend the life of the special offer or introduce it to another market segment, driving a timely revenue up-tick — not unlike what many shop-at-home networks do today.

The online specialty retailer also may be able to win sales over a national or multinational chain because it can provide a tailored customer experience. Consumers, becoming more fickle by the day, respond to personalized service and may not only choose to buy from the retailer today, but also in the future. A single view of the customer would enable the company to recognize immediately what buying preferences it should repeat to create that positive experience in multiple sales channels (i.e., Internet, catalog, or retail).

In the brick-and-mortar world offline, better BI also drives revenue. Independent grocery stores, for example, must keep up with large national chain supermarkets to survive, particularly in a consolidating market. With millions of weekly transactions, feeding fresh point of sale data to a data warehouse in real time reduces delays and risk of transmission errors. The independent grocery also can make real-time decisions based on sales by store or by department for any given item. Relatively small changes based on this information, such as marking an item up or down, can significantly affect revenue and allow stores to retain customers in a competitive market.

The central data warehouse, operational data store, or dedicated reporting server should enable business intelligence software access to current, accurate data. While ideally all users would query the same central repository, in many cases this information still resides in multiple systems, creating redundant copies of the same data. It’s important to ensure that business information is consistent, regardless of when, where (which system), how, and by whom it is queried. Data integrity and the ability to reconcile information is a key part to a sound BI strategy and fundamental to maximizing the value of your investment.

Many growing businesses face IT diversity, which could be the result of system consolidation or acquisitions, creating new challenges for data management. To achieve data integration, an organization needs to define the rules of coexistence for the source and reporting assets — logically and physically.

For example, a finance team may keep customer information in one system, while sales has a separate repository with data about the same customer. The challenge with redundancy is that reporting from both systems can produce two very different answers. Enabling these systems to “talk to one another” is a challenge that most organizations face regardless of size.

Added to this challenge is the speed at which business moves and changes. A major success factor is to create an effective integration strategy across a diverse technology portfolio. Developing custom code to enable data to move from one environment to another is often a less expensive approach, but only initially. As that environment changes with new versions and functionality, the integration code needs to change with it, adding layers of complexity, and tying up expensive IT resources.

In a tight budget environment, many smaller businesses sensibly standardize on one product or approach to integration across different systems. There are numerous infrastructure technologies that can be easily deployed to show a fast ROI without consuming a large number of existing IT resources. The “Big Bang” theory of everyone standardizing on one infrastructure platform may not appear feasible, but if you rationalize on a targeted basis, you will be better positioned to define the right level of standardization for your enterprise.

Active BI can be a lofty term, full of promise and possibility, but at the same time daunting for businesses wrestling with budgets. This leads to the customary scratching of the head as to how to yield more value from systems already in place — including speed, flexibility, and integrity of the data flowing into and out of the analytical and reporting system. Whether your business has 10 employees or 1,000, the same three key tenets of “intelligent” BI can put you on the road to success.

1. Integrate data from diverse source systems into a single version of the truth and eliminate redundancy when you can.

2. Provide the warehouse with low-latency data so users can access the most current information and can make good decisions.

3. Provide the necessary level of availability and recoverability for your data warehouse and BI systems as the business comes to rely upon it.

THE INTELLIGENT CHOICE: BRINGING IT ALL TOGETHER
Given the diversity source systems, many organizations are hesitant to invest in standardization. However, some standardization is integral to pursuing more active, agile BI. The areas of conversion cost, change management, operating risk and current asset value all need to be taken into consideration as you assess your goals for standardization.

Standardizing on certain technologies within your BI stack can pay off — but with integration challenges in mind, neutrality is key. Choose technologies that support the widest range of databases, hardware platforms, and operating systems, so that you increase the lifespan and relevancy of your investment.

A concluding point; in raising the bar for BI, the data is crucial — because without the most up-to-date information, your business will always remain a few steps behind. Gone are the days when data warehouses were just used for after-the-fact historical reporting and long-term forecasting. Today, companies are working hard to make the data warehouse or analytical system more operational, and more accessible by multiple functions of the business, thus making the business itself more intelligent.

Viral Marketing is allowing people to giveaway and
use your free product or service in order to multiply
your marketing quickly over the internet. The idea
behind viral marketing is that you include your ad
with the freebie people giveaway or use. Below are
ten high impact viral marketing strategies:

1. Allow people to reprint your articles on their web
site, in their e-zine, newsletter, magazine or ebooks.
Include your resource box and the option for article
reprints at the bottom of each article.

2. Allow people to use any of your freebies as free
bonuses for products or services they sell. Include
your ad on all your freebies.

3. Allow people to use your online discussion board
for their own web site. Some people don’t have one.
Just include your banner ad at the top of the board.

4. Allow people to sign up for a free web site on
your server. Since you are giving away the space,
require them to include your banner ad at the top
of the site. See http://www.ahbmg.com

5. Allow people to add their link to your free web
site directory. Just require that they return a link
back to your web site, advertising your directory.

6. Allow people to provide your free online service
to their web site, visitors, or e-zine subscribers.
They could be free e-mail, e-mail consulting, search
engine submissions, etc.

7. Allow people to give away your free software.
Just include your business advertisement inside the
software program.

8. Allow people to give away your free web design
graphics, fonts, templates, etc. Just include your ad
on them or require people to link directly to your
web site.

9. Allow people to place an advertisement in your
free ebook if, in exchange, they give away the
ebook to their web visitors or e-zine subscribers.

10. Allow people to give away your free ebook to
their visitors. Then, their visitors will also give it
away. This will just continue to spread your ad all
over the internet. Learn more on:

http://www.ahbmg.com

So you’ve got this site that promotes some dating sponsors and you want to get some traffic to it? The only problem is that Google hates you and your site never gets above page 341; Yahoo loves you but sends you no traffic and MSN … well MSN provides the most relevant searches but no one has realized that just yet.

Well sit back and join me while I think out loud. That generally means that I don’t guarantee any of the thoughts I’m about to come up with. Some may work, some may be an absolute waste of time and money and some might sort of fit in the middle.

The only thing that I do guarantee is that I want to get you thinking about alternative sources of traffic. Why do I want to get you thinking about alternative sources of traffic? Because depending solely on search engines for your traffic is a recipe for disaster.

Even if Google loves you right now there is no guarantee that Google’s love is eternal. Google is a fickle lover who will drop you like a hot potato if it suddenly thinks your site no longer fits into its view of the world.

So what other sources of traffic are there?

Well of course you can always buy in some traffic from various traffic brokers. Now that raises the question of just how good the quality of the traffic you buy might be and it is something that you should consider.

If it was me buying in the traffic I would be looking to negotiate some sort of deal that would allow me to test the traffic before I made a serious purchase. If it wasn’t possible to run a small test for free then I would be purchasing the lowest amount that I could and watching it very carefully.

There’s always the possibility of buying some advertising on blogs and websites too. Adbrite would be a good place to start if you were interested in blogs and there will be similar places to handle advertising on websites other than blogs.

At one time I wouldn’t have hesitated in suggesting that you look at Google Adwords but just lately they have been doing stupid things with minimum bids and I would definitely pass on them right now.

Up until now I’ve been thinking about advertising on the Web but there are plenty of places to advertise your site offline as well. Think about the rear windscreen on your car, you’ll find that even just putting your URL there will bring hits to your site.

If you’re going to do that though be sure to get a professional signwriter to cut and apply some vinyl lettering. If you have the space then even think of something a bit more fancy than just your URL. But please don’t try and do this on the cheap and stick a hand-written notice in the window. It will look cheap and tacky and it will turn people off your site rather than encourage them to go along and have a look.

T-shirts are another place to advertise. Even something as simple as your URL can go on the back of a t-shirt. If you’re a female webmaster then have the URL on the front as well – it will certainly attract a lot of views and those views could easily turn into hits on your website.

Have you got some big social event about to happen in your town or city? Run some flyers off on your inkjet printer and walk through the crowd handing them out. Go around the car parks and put them on windscreens, drop them in letter boxes, put them up with the public notices anywhere that has a notice board.

If your advertising budget is a little bigger then think about some simple advertising on the back of buses, on cabs and anywhere else that you can afford to have it appear.

Spend some money on having a business card designed but instead of having your name and phone number on the card have a short headline about your site and include the URL. Then go round dropping the card wherever you can.

If you travel in taxis drop one or two on the back seat or even on the floor where passengers will see them. Whenever you get into an elevator drop one on the floor before you get out. When you pass a payphone leave a card on the phone.

When you stop at a café for a coffee, leave a card on the table or even on the seat and keep on doing that wherever you go. That little business card can become a very powerful promotional tool for your website.

There are lots of other ways that you can get your dating site in front of people who may ultimately join up with your sponsor. I’ve only given you a few ideas here but there are plenty more if only you stop and think about it.

These days you have to take every chance to market your site because no one else will and he who depends on Google for their traffic will one day find that they have none.

Improvement in productivity also lowers production costs resulting to lower prices, which in turn encourage increase in sales, increase in share of markets, and high profits for the business. Innovation on the other hand, does not just involve the product design or concept but encompasses broad areas of initiating the products or services like the manufacturing processes; materials used and business practices in distribution and sales. Innovation is a product of creativity and it boosts the relevance of the product or business in the market since market demand patterns prompts such creativities or innovation.
To illustrate the points here, there are instances where creativities in changing product design resulting in improvement that creates value; improve performance; lower cost; and better quality of the product that does not increase customer’s patronage. Such a case may be because of the markets ignorance, averseness to the culture of innovation within the market and other factors, which frustrates the anticipated positive outcomes of innovation.
The situation however, will be much different in a highly competitive market because such markets are always expectant and receptive to new products and businesses, this attitude in the market is a result of individual competitor’s activities and all players in the sector enjoy these gains.
Also, costs in penetrating into new markets are much less with the presence of competition in the market, because the presence of different active players in the market creates a lasting impression in the minds of current or prospective customers of the business and the product they offer. Such lasting impression invariably leads to better acceptance in the market and larger patronage.
Furthermore, the advantages of increasing competition are visible in current advocations for establishment of business hubs, industrial estates and deregulation of key sectors of the economy. This is because these elements help boost the effectiveness and efficiency of the businesses in the different sectors they operate, engender industrialisation and foster economic growth and development in the country as a whole.
Facts indicate greater successes when a community of businesses seeks a collective benefit than the sum of individual benefits each company would realize by only optimizing its individual performance. Hence, economic, social and environmental benefits thrive when competing businesses cooperate to maximize the impacts they have on their environment.

Using the tool of competition to create awareness of a business in an existing market or in penetrating into a new market is not always an alternative to most business people. This is because they view competition in the market as a threat to their business success. Considering the fact that the competitors businesses are competing with theirs for the limited resources of customers or consumers in the market and that business sustenance depends on how much market share a business can acquire, one may not castigate such opinions.
The ultimate aim of attaining a high feat, in terms of market share and patronage that result in higher profits, growth and sustenance of a business over time, makes the businessperson to continually look for ways to gain and maintain market advantage. This indicate that the desire to be ahead in the market accounts for actions directed at changing mode of operation, changing the line of business, relocating the business or re- branding products to meet current innovation and taste.
In an extreme case, actions to remedy low market share might involve folding up the business when losses are incurred and other solutions proved unsuccessful. As a solution, some business consultants recommend keeping tab on operations of competitors in business, monitoring the edge, they have over your own business in terms of what they are doing that you are not doing giving him the market advantage.
However, although competition is literally a rivalry between two or more person for same interests and the general perception of competition creates a sense of negativity thereby eliciting reactions such as enmity, detestation and animosity, it can be constructive in growing businesses. In addition, the rivalry in business involving similar interest in customers or market share can be a helpful tool in businesses development and the economy as a whole.
In essence, business experts say that competition can empower business professionals with the needed support for the achievement of their business goals, implying that the attraction of other competitors into the market can cause the business to thrive better than it ordinarily would in isolation. In other words, your competitors activities is indirectly increasing the chances of your business successes, which is to say that increased competition can be a positive tool in the market where the business is currently operating or in penetrating into a new market. As such, the attitude to competition in business should engender cooperation rather than animosity. This assertion stems from the fact that competition creates awareness for the business, gives incentives for improvement in productivity and increases the capacity for innovation.

Make God your source and sustainer
It is perfectly God’s desire that you should be rich and successful. He wants you to get rich because he can express himself better through you if you have plenty of things to use in giving him praise and glory. A bible passage says, “through prosperity shall he get his kingdom be spread abroad”. God can live more in you if you have unlimited command of the means of life. You must understand that the thought he thinks towards you are thought of riches and wealth and not of poverty. What he wants is that you make the most of yourself, for yourself and for others, and you can only help others more by making the most of yourself than in any other way. That which makes you want more money is the same as that which makes the plant grows. It is the life of God seeking fuller expression of your unlimited possibilities.
I perceive strongly that the clues of God’s original covenant of wealth for anyone who desire to be rich are to covet God and not a covetous spirit. Job 22:21 says, “Submit to God and be at peace with him. In this way prosperity will come to you”. You do not have to covet the prosperity of property of others, or to look at with wishful or lustful eyes. No man has anything of which you cannot have yourself. “Thou shall neither covet your neighbours’ wife, nor his goods. The blessing of the lord will bring you wealth, with no trouble attached. People are envious, covetous, and selfish have no real chance of becoming wealthy no matter how much they desire it. Note: Animosity will reduce you to an animal. Avoid it.
There is an old saying that a youth with a single aim of life arrives early at the harvest. Youthful life is more often not an asset. It is an unfortunate thing that so many of our youths this days should start out in life with just one aim and ambition, and that is to make money. This becomes the leading purpose in their lives and thwarts their way of looking things. Everything else is seen in dwarfed proportions. They do not consider making life of building character. They are bent only on making money. This greed for making money has become the misfortune and corruption that has almost collapsed the moral foundation of our society and is the all-absorbing topic everywhere. There is no more distressing sight in world than that of one who is completely in the clutches of a heartless, grasping, greed-spurred on by the ambition which has taken possession of him – the devouring ambition to get ahead of others in moneymaking, to outshine them socially actually destroys happiness. Man makes the money and money never makes the man. We must continually think therefore, of what the influence would be pointing all our faculties, focusing all our energies upon the money making goal when everything in us looks money ward and our gaze is held persistently upon the Naira and what it will bring. A feast is made for laughter and wine makes life merry, but money is the answer for everything – Prov. 10:19.

The majority of the worlds’ poor are said to live in rural areas and are disproportionately dependent on their natural resources and not on their human capital and capacity for survival. Poverty is closely associated with illiteracy. Survey shows that 80% of rural poor people have no formal education. Education and vocational skill training are critical success factor for human and economic development on a long term. The vicious circle of poverty tends to feed on the power of ignorance.

Poverty is a plague. There is no pleasure in poverty, no usefulness whatsoever in going through life subjecting yourself to lack and limitation. If your desire is to be rich, you must believe in the desire and right to be rich before you will ever become one. It is not a sin to aspire to be rich if your motives are very sincere.
Man’s right to life means his right to have the free and unrestricted use of all the things which may be necessary for his complete development. It is perfectly all right for anyone to want to be rich; for a man’s highest and happiest moment is found in the bestowal of gifts on those he loves. The man who has nothing to give cannot fill his proper place as husband, father and citizen. A man must be able to, as a man, provide for himself and his family. No man ought to be satisfied with little, if he is capable of using and enjoying more.
I once heard somebody say, that “the man who owns all he wants for living of all the life he is capable for his rich. And no man who has plenty of money can have all he wants”. The fact is that it is not possible to live a really complete and satisfactory life unless one has the means. No man can rise to his greatest possible height in human development unless he has plenty of money to use. Our society is so organized that you must have money in order to acquire something for your comfort. Money make the world go round, it is the currency of life.

Wrong believe about money.
One of the most common deeply embedded and harmful beliefs is that money is bad or demonic. Supporting this with the popular passage that, “money is the root of all evil”. While actually the entire passage reveals – “the love of money is the root of all evil”. Obviously the uncontrolled love of money can promote greed and self-centeredness, but the danger actually lies in becoming a slave of money. Money is an excellent servant but can also assume the position of a very powerful master or monster if the desire for acquiring it is not properly guided by godly values and principles.
Money is badly maligned in many areas of our society and some of those reasons are quite justified. But money should be seen as it is an economic tool for getting things done. The more money you have, the more things you can get done. At this stage, you must realize that money is merely a means to an end and not end of itself. Money is a means of livelihood.
There is a very wrong assumption that money as an essential commodity is ‘mint’ for the rich few and that is why money is a relatively scarce resource. The rich and the poor, God made them all and what he can make happen for one he can make happen for another irrespective of who you are or where you come from, irrespective of religion, gender, tribe, race etc. God is not a respecter of persons or place but a respecter of covenants particularly His covenant of wealth.

The socio-economic class between the rich and the poor will continue to divide as long as the so-called poor people refuse to see the boundless opportunity around them, but would rather prefer to see themselves as poor and wretched, while the “rich-ards” virtually are getting richer everyday. Whatever may have been said against the gospel of prosperity, the fact still remains that, “people who don’t see it to prosper will no matter what, end up proper paupers”. Your prospects can actually determine your prosperity (Prov. 10:28)
You have no right to be poor. Poverty is not your birthright. Rather, it is a violation of your fundamental human right to the basic necessities and luxuries of a normal human life. Wake up to reality.

What is poverty?
Poverty can be referred to as a state of being poor and inferior. The pioneers in the study of poverty defined poverty as a situation where the income of an individual is insufficient to obtain to obtain a minimum necessity for the maintenance of merely physical efficiency. Poverty implies that the standard of living is considerably lower than the acceptable norm. However, this lower level of living standard may be different for different countries or the same for the same countries at different times.
Poverty is hunger and not knowing where your next meal is coming from, poverty is not having a roof over your head and having nowhere to go. Poverty is being sick not being able to see a doctor. It is death of a child from a preventable illness because you are unable to pay for medications or clean water. Poverty is not being able to go to school to read and write, poverty is being unemployed and having little or no chance of getting a decent job, even if there are any because you have no basic vocational training or skill set. Poverty is powerlessness, lack of representation and freedom with no hope of change or a future. Poverty is making you live one day at a time.
Poverty is more recognized than defined hence, it is difficult to give an acceptable definition universally. It is a multi-dimensional, socio-economic and cultural situation that transcends economic description. It is a concept that has defied universally accepted and objective definition or assessment because it is only an expression of life situation but also equally a state of mind and perception of self in a complex web of social relations.

Competition
Name and describe all the direct and indirect competitors of your product. The competitors are not just the people producing the same kind of product but anyone with product or service that may make your customers decide not to buy what you offer. Then identify the competitive advantages your product has over these other products.
Market analysis
Identify the customers you are targeting. This is necessary because it will enable you to know the price that you can offer the product. If you are targeting people in the high income bracket and you offer something too cheap, you will not get your target. On the other hand, if it is people in the lower income bracket, then the cost must not be too high. You also must have checked with the consultant the estimated market size. What is the rough estimate of people that use such product? What has been the trend in the industry? You know tastes of people change from time to time, so be sure it is a product that is not seasonal. If so, you should plan creative things that would .
Marketing plan
How are you going to ensure that the products get to the target? The marketing plan will include publicity, advertisement, promotion etc that would be done to get consumers aware of the product. For instance, if you have a product for market women and artisans, advertising on the internet or newspapers is not a good way to get your message across. It will also state clearly the sales or distribution channels. What are the bottlenecks or challenges and how would they be overcome?
Financial Plan
You have done the financial plan with the consultant, so include the financial projections, break-even point, estimates of the earnings including assumptions and probabilities and capital requirements of the business. You may not be a mathematician, but ensure you have a good idea of how they arrived at these figures.
Stages
Most of what you have been doing is projections into the future. So return to the present and highlight how you are going to start. Then break your future projections into time specific plans.
If you start this year, what are the things you have to start with?
What stage do you expect the business to be by next year, two years, three, years, four, five etc. Which employees are needed to start with on full-time? Which ones should be employed on part time and the business would still be able to run well.
Current assets
Write all the things you have currently to start with…money, building, vehicles, people etc.
Operating plan
Identify the day-to-day operations for the success of the business. If you are going to be rendering this service or producing this quantity of goods, what are the activities that would be performed?
Based on the people you are starting with, who should do what? This will enable you to know the jobs that must be performed. So in employing people, you will be able to tell them precisely what their job specifications are. At this stage, you should be cutting costs as much as possible, so you would not employ someone full time and then find out the work to be done is not something that should take the entire day.
Many small business owners get angry when employees are idle or do not have any work to do for the company a greater part of the day. The employee may find it disheartening if you try to get them to do tasks that were not originally specified in the job description or unrelated to what they were employed to do.
Commit it to God
It is just a plan. So many unforeseen things may happen along the line. You do not know the future, so commit your plans into God’s hands.
Tony nods. “The idea is becoming clearer.”