As a business owner no-one knows your business better than you do. Even when struggling, you actually know the steps you need to take with your business, but systemizing those steps into “do-able” chunks can be a lot more difficult. There are also many “small” questions that come up as you build our business, and having someone to turn to can be a great help. Even just having an objective person listen to your ideas can be a life saver. In these situations, one-to-one coaching can really help.

 How do you decide if coaching can benefit you? Here are a few questions to ask yourself:

#1 - Could I use an impartial person to run my ideas by?

Your friends and family may be great to turn to for help, but remember they are slightly biased. They may not be much help if they don’t specifically understand the inner dealings of your business or your market.

Having an impartial, knowledgeable person review your ideas and plans can be...

Crafting a marketing plan will help you understand how to get the word out about your offerings. Not only that - as you develop the marketing plan, you’ll also come up with new products and services to provide for your audience. It doesn’t matter if your business is big or small; a marketing plan will help you achieve the results you desire. Your marketing plan can be one page or longer.

Here is a checklist of what you need to do.

* Create a Mission Statement – It can be as simple as describing what you do, for whom, why you do it, and how you do it. It’s just one to three sentences. The best way to create a good mission statement is to look at other mission statements and try to fill in the blanks with your own thoughts for your audience.

* Describe Your Target Audience – You should be able to describe your target audience easily. If you do the research and get to know your audience, you should be able to pick out and describe one...

Many small business owners lack a strategic plan for their business, usually for one of two reasons: either they think that strategic planning is what big companies do therefore, it’s not for them or they don’t understand the advantages of having a strategic plan in place.

However, without an overall strategy, a business lacks the direction it needs to be successful. Businesses may set financial goals, client acquisition goals, or any number of goals, but unless these goals are placed within the framework of a larger strategy, they lose their impact. It can be very easy to go off on tangents whilst pursuing individual goals and by the time the end of the year rolls around, you are miles off course from where you hoped you’d be.

Strategic planning for a small business doesn’t need to be difficult or time consuming, but your plan does need to identify what you want to accomplish and how you intend to achieve those goals.

If you want to start developing...

When you’re starting a business, seeing the “big” picture is important. Many entrepreneurs have stated that had they looked at the small details in their business they may not have started the business in the first place. This is because many of us get bogged down by all the small details and often it can put us off starting something new.

If you’re starting a new venture, here are a few tips to help you stay focused on the “big” picture:

#1 – Don’t Worry. It’s easy to worry about the fine details of starting a business. But it’s important not to get stuck on these. Keep in mind that whatever you don’t know how to do, you can learn or get help with. In business, there are services and experts for just about anything you can imagine. You can always turn to them for help when the time comes. But as the old saying goes – “I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.”

#2 –...