The common tone going into 2012 is cautious optimism. Economies remain very fragile and so lavish spending on your marketing would be a high risk activity. Instead, focus in 2012 on your high payoff activities and leverage the abundance of low cost, no cost marketing tools available to you. From a budget standpoint, try to secure a monthly amount that won’t increase debt (i.e. avoid ramping up credit lines or credit cards) and instead look at what you can realistically spend to acquire a new client. If this is less than what you have spent in the past, then you should really be reaching out to a strategist, like me, to help you figure out how to get a bigger bang for your buck.

Video – video marketing is becoming more and more mainstream. Use them for testimonials, to explain a concept on your site, for product tutorials, or even to share great content on your area of expertise. The good news is you don’t need to necessarily invest in high cost camera work or production. Instead you can use a good webcam or video on your phone and edit with low cost software yourself.  You can house your videos for free on your own You Tube channel (also the second largest search engine after Google) and embed from there onto your site or blog.

Engagement - with the economy still being vicarious, solidifying relationships with your network, prospects and clients is key. It’s not enough to just have a Twitter account without posting, following and engaging others. Plan ways to get people to truly connect with you – ask questions, respond to comments, hold contests, and automate some of your communications to ensure you don’t drop the ball.

Leverage Mobile Technology – it’s interesting to look at your Google Analytics for your site and see how much traffic is coming these days from mobile devices. Converting your site to operate correctly on smartphones should be your next major web development. Consider creating useful apps and make sure you take advantage of QR codes to share information, not to mention for better tracking of your marketing initiatives.

Moving the Free Line – if giving something for free has become the norm in your industry, consider upping your game. Look at your products and services. Are there some low cost opportunities that you can now give away, something your competitor’s would actually charge for? Consider giving this away for free and offering an even better quality paid product or service. Crazy, I know, but effective!

Whatever you do, make sure, as usual, you focus on your sweet spot and you differentiate yourself from the competition. Strategy before tactics is like an ounce of prevention for a pound of cure!

Business planning is about determining your business future.

Where do you want your business to go?
Where should it be in three years?
What are the steps to get there?

Wouldn’t it be great if you had someone who could help you through the hard parts of business planning? Maybe give you a guiding hand in the how and why of it all?

This week we’re going to be posting Tim’s popular business planning video series.

Tim has spent years studying and honing his process of writing successful plans. And he’s passing that knowledge on to you.

We’re starting with the first two videos.

(If you can’t see the videos above, you can view them on our how to write a business plan video page)

It was a pleasure to meet Sean on a sunny May morning in Austin while I was there for an event. Gooden Sweet turns out to be a great example of how a business can be built around meaning and purpose, and making the world better in a small but specific way.

It starts as a tribute to a fallen brother who loved doing what the business is now doing. From there it’s a story of doing something very well. In Sean’s case, its about doing cookies as well as anybody can, with a lot of care and a sense of the art of it. And it’s also a story of growing slowly but solidly, without outside investment; and a story of business planning as management, a tool for optimizing a business.

–Tim Berry

Part One:Sean Gooden (watch it on YouTube)

Part Two: A year in, how are you doing?

Part Three: Tell us about the start-up process.

Part Four: How has the planning process helped your business?

Part Five: What do you want to tell people about Gooden Sweet?

Part Six: Where do you see Gooden Sweet in 3 to 5 years?

Many thanks to Sean for his time and for sharing his story with us!

Company: Gooden Sweet Gourmet Treats
Founded: 2010
Website: http://www.goodensweet.com
Description: Gooden Sweet Gourmet Treats -Exquisite cookies baked daily using all-natural ingredients, real butter and premium chocolate, then delivered fresh to you! Whether you order wholesale, retail or want a dessert just for yourself or someone special, Gooden Sweet Gourmet Treats stands up to its promise.  We guarantee a sensational taste experience that will keep you coming back for more!

Image via CrunchBase

I remember two years ago listening to a Web expert predict that eventually websites would be all video instead of print. While it hasn’t quite reached that extreme, it’s hard to ignore the impact videos and YouTube are having as a marketing tool. As a small business owner, you may want to take a close look at this amazing tool.

Thanks to companies like Bizbox TV and Pixability, creating videos is not necessarily cost prohibitive. If you are more of a do-it-yourselfer, you can even arm yourself these days with your phone or Flip video, along with some editing software, and be on your merry way.

So how can you use video?

1. A Two-minute commercial of what you or your company does
2. Testimonials (much more impactful than just words)
3. Blog posts (sometimes referred to as Vlog) can be great to mix things up, or if you don’t like to write
4. Promotion (demo a product or your speaking style)
5. Credibility builder (“how-to”, webinars or statistical videos)
6. Lead generator (think “sales letter or sales presentation” but in video)
7. Ad or info on other websites (think advertising or strategic alliances)

Where can you use the video?

The two big ones of course are on your website (or blog) and YouTube. YouTube right now is the second largest search engine after Google. What does that mean? That means millions of people are searching for specific information on YouTube. You should also know that people pay more attention to a YouTube video than they do their TV set. Finally, you should know that it can do amazing things to your Search Engine Optimization (being found on the Internet).

But definitely look for other options. Incorporate a video into presentations, as an introduction to your company at a live event or as an “ad” on your website or other websites.

A few key tips:

1. Keep it real – the more authentic the video, the more believable.
2. Keep it short – unless you are providing how-to info or product demonstrations, try to keep to two minutes or less.
3. Make it entertaining – seems obvious, but boring videos will lose your audience.

While video may seem daunting, it doesn’t have to be. Look for great resources and, for a start, why don’t you try today to “point and shoot.” You never know what the result might be!

I stumbled on this short video from ABC with Susan Solovic talking about the business plan for starting a new business. It’s a few months old now, but it’s also a really good summary of why and how you want to have a business plan for a startup, and what that plan should include.

If for any reason you don’t see the video here, you can click this link for the original on the ABC site.

I’ve been working with the team at Palo Alto Software on a series of videos to help you with business planning. This video answers the question “What Type of Business Plan Do I Need?”

Transcript

So the question is: what kind of a business plan, what do I really need?

It comes up a lot and it’s hard to answer specifically but I kind of like asking you back, well, what are you going to use?

Reflecting on the case-by-case nature of business plans and business planning, people unfortunately think of the business plan as some hard to do, ponderous formal document with a recipe, that you have to start with the Executive Summary and go through and it has
to have this and this and that, and I say no.

Wait a minute. It’s business.

Form follows function means that your business plan should contain, should include, what you need to run your business better.

So then you look at what the needs are. Some people are in a growth or startup mode where they need a business plan as a way to communicate with potential investors, or bankers, or partners, or employees. “Here’s what we want to do with this company.” And then you create kind of a general summary.

And you might actually print it out as a document that somebody can read, or it becomes kind of the script of doing a pitch presentation or what have you. But, the distinction is important. The vast majority of us running a business, what we need for a plan is to keep track of the key elements of our strategy, and think through the steps that we’ll have to take to reach our goal, and assign metrics and tasks of dates and deadlines for our team members, and project sales and costs and expenses and assets and liabilities and capital so that we can then manage cash flow, which is critical of course. And as we manage that cash flow, well, we’ll be using our planned versus actual results, comparing plan to actual so that, if sales are lower than expected, well then we have to adjust expenses and costs, or our cash will be in trouble. And if sales are higher, then we want to adjust so that we have the benefit of more resources to go into our priority areas. And we want to be able to predict cash flow based on the nature of our business, our flows, like sales on credit and receivables and inventory and payables, and things like that.

So what kind of a plan you need? You need the plan that will help you run the
business better. That’s what business planning is for.

And that document that you fear? Might or might not be required output for your plan. It might be that your plan stays on the computer and the output is the management meetings, the plan versus actual, the management that flows from your plan. So that’s my kind of framework for deciding what you need. It depends on how it’s going to be used. And some of us need to have that document that’s not the plan, it’s just a snapshot of what the plan was at one point, and some of us never really need to spin out a document, but we may need to spit out an elevator speech or a management meeting, or an operational tracking of plan vs actual or whatever.

That’s how you determine what kind of a plan you need.

I’ve been working with the team at Palo Alto Software on a series of videos to help you with business planning. This video answers the question “Why is a business plan important?”

Transcript

So let me take a minute and talk to you about why I want you to do business planning. Because you’re going to use it to run your business better.

So I’m saying that the business plan you need is not necessarily the full, complete formal document that you probably fear and loathe; it sounds hard to do, but for the vast majority of us what you can really use (now note I say use, not need) is a plan that sets forth your strategy in a simple, bullet point–what are we doing, what are we not doing–as a reminder when you get back into the routine and the fires need to be put out, or the daily taking your phone calls and returning calls and whatever. A reminder of strategy, priorities, what are we trying to do here?

You can’t please everybody, so you focus. That’s one element that will give you benefit from your business plan. Another element then is to set your objectives. What’s success for you? And put them into steps and then set through on those steps, how do I accomplish what I want to accomplish? And you lay it out so you have ways to measure progress and track towards key goals, whether it’s dollars of sales or dollars or costs or expenses, or it’s calls or trips or hours or engagements or page views or conversions, you want to set forth for yourself your measurements, and then assign tasks to people, and set it up so that you can communicate what’s supposed to happen, and then as time goes on every month you look at, okay, here’s our numbers that we were expecting to meet, here’s our actual numbers, why is that different? And it will always be different. Nobody’s ever written a business plan that accurately predicted the future.

But what you get is the process then of management and steering your company. And what you get then is a monthly review so that your plan is being revised, stays alive, stays flexible, that old thing that’s in a drawer, static, that wasn’t able to change, forget that. You’re changing it and managing, and it gives you management. That’s why you’re planning.

‘Cause you can manage. It’s never about, oh, I need to do this because we have to stick to the plan, no, it’s about, as you change things, because you have a plan, it’s easier to see quickly when one thing is different from plan, what other things have to change because you have those relationships.That’s why you’re doing business planning. And notice, it’s probably on your computer and you’re going to use it to manage yourself and if there are others involved. And if you need to show a document to somebody, well then you’ll spin out the document. That’s output.

Your plan is what’s going to happen, and why.

What did you think about this video? Leave a comment below and let me know if there’s a question you’d like me to answer next.

I’ve been working with the team at Palo Alto Software on a series of videos to help you with business planning. This video is about what a business plan is and isn’t.

Transcript

So what’s a business plan? How do you do one, how do you get one done for you? Let’s talk about what it isn’t.

It isn’t some damn document that you acquired over the Web to get over some hurdle that you had to have a business plan. It’s not like you have to have a term paper and now you’ve got one and you turn it in and whew! At least I had a term paper I hope gets a C.

A business plan is what’s going to happen in your business. That’s what it’s about.

And, you might be able to find something like coaching to help, somebody who has experience to help guide you through what’s supposed to happen, but the idea of having somebody write a plan for you or worse, you’re gonna buy it, or you’re gonna get some sample plan and change the names and now I have a business plan? That’s, that’s crazy! That’s baloney.

Your plan is always unique to you. It’s not a document, it’s what you want to have happen, and it’s not predicting the future, and you don’t follow it just because you follow it. You use it to manage the change that happens all the time in business so that, when one thing like sales is more than expected in one product and less in another, because you have a plan that ties that to your strategy and your specific milestones and your tasks, your cost of goods for each product and your expenses, you can adjust to the change between what you thought would happen and what actually happened, quickly, because you’ve got a plan which is alive, flexible and helps you manage the ongoing change of your business.

It’s almost like steering. You hold the steering wheel but even in the straightest highway you’ve ever been on you’re still constantly making corrections. That’s the planning process, that’s how planning is management.

What do you think about my advice on what a business plan is and isn’t? By the way, would you like more business tip videos like this?

I’ve been working with the team at Palo Alto Software on a series of videos to help you with business planning. This video is about hiring a business plan writer (or not) to help with business planning.

What do you think about my advice on hiring a consultant to help with business planning. By the way, would you like more business tip videos like this?

Video Transcription

So how can I help you find that business plan writer to write your business plan? I can’t.

I’m going to be honest. The most you want is a coach who’s been through it, who knows how to help you and maybe you want somebody to become part of the team whose done the process of raising money if that’s what you’re after. Experience helps. Knowledge helps, but the plan that somebody does for you rarely works.

Your plan will change. Frequently. You have to own it. You have to know what’s in it. You have to be able to get there, communicate it, and yes, plans are never accurate for the future. They help you change things but if you don’t manage it yourself, you’re not going to be able to manage the changing and it won’t help you steer your business, so yes, I’m biased in this. I happen to believe in Business Plan Pro which I wrote, its conceptual author, there’s a whole team of programmers now but yes, I believe in Business Plan Pro. It helps to do the mechanics, it helps to do the financials, it gives you the certainty that… well that the math and the finance will be right if your assumptions are right, and it helps you focus on managing the business by a good planning process rather than just getting some document that somehow it’s going to be done.

If your company stays alive, your business plan will never be done. It will help you manage that company and know that company but it will be a process that you use to steer the company towards the future that you want. Want to know why you want to do it? To control your destiny. That’s why you do it.

Tim Berry discusses one of the most often asked questions: “How do I know if my business plan is right? Isn’t it just a bunch of guesses?”