For Existing Businesses:

All of us can improve—those who have been in business for a year and those who have been in business for decades. 

The LSBDC Network can assist you and your business, no matter at what point you find yourself.  Here are some of the topics that you’ll find useful—

Considering Your Strengths & Weaknesses
Plans—Every Business Needs Them
Further Financial Analysis
Marketing Your Business
Managing Your Employees

Considering Your Strengths & Weaknesses

The starting point for developing existing businesses lies inside the entrepreneur rather than in the marketplace, laboratory, business plan, etc. You are the critical component-- your strengths and weaknesses should dictate the areas in which to seek ideas and the likely scale and scope of improvements in your business. At the end of the day, support for your business by financiers, suppliers, customers, etc. will also be a vote of confidence in your abilities to make it even more successful than it already is.

LSBDC will help build on your strengths and surmount or work around your weaknesses. For example, there is little point in searching for capital-intensive or knowledge-based ideas if you have slim or no prospects of raising the necessary capital or if your educational background is unsuitable.

What angle are you coming from? Are you...

• An inventor who has a product/service idea?
• An innovator who has developed a new product/service?
• An entrepreneur who wishes to create new opportunities within your business?
• A manager who wishes to develop the business?

 LSBDC can help you analyze your strengths and weaknesses in order to develop your existing business.

Plans--Every Business Needs Them

As an owner or manager of a small or medium-sized business, can you afford not to plan? Do you leave the annual plan for the large businesses and let your business depend on reacting to events as they happen? Or do you want to plan for priorities and manage your growth proactively?  That's a leading question, of course.  The answer is obvious.

You could call it strategic plan, an annual plan, an operational plan: the name doesn't matter as much as the plan’s content and management. While these kinds of plans are common in larger enterprises, they are surprisingly rare in smaller businesses.

Benefits of Planning:

• Guide Your Growth--Your business will grow or not depending on a lot of factors, including overall economic trends, location, specific market needs, hard work, and other elements. Businesses that plan do it to guide and influence their growth so that they move proactively towards defined objectives rather than just reacting to business events.

•  Manage Priorities--Strategy is focus. Setting priorities allows you to allocate resources where they will do the most good, work towards your strengths and away from your weaknesses, and develop the company by doing the most important things first, according to your long-term objectives.

• Assign Responsibilities--A plan gives you a framework within which to develop organizational responsibilities for specific managers and employees.

Existing companies may need one or more of the following types of plans:

• Strategic plan
• Business plan update and expansion
• Business-to-business target market assistance
• Competition assessment
• Human resources
• Credit and collections
• Computer systems
• Advertising and sales promotion
• Government contracting
• Purchasing
• Inventory control

 

Further Financial Analysis

  If your break-even forecast shows you'll make more revenue than you need to break even, you can consider yourself fortunate. But you still need to figure out how much profit your business will generate, and whether you'll have enough cash available to pay your bills when they are due. In short, a break-even forecast is a great screening tool, but you need a more complete analysis before you start investing real money in your venture.

To round out your business's financial picture, you’ll need the following additional financial projections as part of your business plan.

• A profit-and-loss forecast. This is a month-by-month projection of your business's net profit from operations.

• A cash flow projection. This shows you how much actual cash you'll need to have, month by month, to meet your expenses.

• A start-up cost estimate. This is the total of all the expenses you'll incur before your business opens.

Many of the same kinds of financial projections work for entrepreneurs with existing businesses as for those looking at starting up new businesses.

Marketing Your Business

The best product or service in the world will not guarantee success for your business. Potential customers must purchase your product or service in order for you to survive and grow.

Developing and implementing a marketing strategy is a necessary process for a successful business. This process begins as you start your business, and it must remain an ongoing process throughout the life of your business.

Marketing Basics: Three Marketing Strategies

There are only three marketing strategies needed to grow a business:

• Increase the number of customers
• Increase the average transaction amount
• Increase the frequency of repurchase

Every new marketing idea should be measured by its ability to maximize these three strategies.  LSBDC will help you measure the effectiveness of each new marketing idea.

Managing Employees

Existing businesses, like start-ups, can greatly benefit from additional management training for the owners/managers. LSBDC offers the following training programs, among others:

Employment and Training Assistance Programs: Designed to help you navigate through all the government programs and services available to businesses seeking assistance as they hire employees.

Employment Regulations: Designed to help you navigate through the federal and provincial government regulations on employment.

Human Resources Management: Designed to help you manage people and build business skills.

Human Resources and Skills Development: Designed for employers to deal with employment insurance programs, record of employment forms, and premium rates.

Development of Training Programs: Designed to help owner-managers of small manufacturing firms set up a systematic program for training their employees.

Taxation Info-Guide: Designed to help you navigate through the federal and provincial government programs, services, and regulations related to taxation that may apply to individuals starting or operating a business.

Preventing Injuries and Illness in the Workplace: Designed to help you learn how to prevent injuries and illness in the workplace, how safety pays, and how the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board can help.