Everyone has prepared a business plan. Well, should that read, everyone should have prepared a business plan? My thinking is that these tend only to be prepared when they are needed, rather than as a useful business tool for all senior management. My top five ingredients are:

1. Understand what a business plan is;

2. Understand what you intend to use it for;

3. Identify and implement the critical steps to achieving a successful business plan;

4. Understand what needs to be included in the plan;

5. Be aware of gaps or weaknesses in your plan.

What is a business plan?

A business plan sets out the method for running a specific activity over a specific future period.

Why are business plans needed?

Business plans are needed essentially for the four following reasons:

1. A formal, explicit document of the planning process;

2. A request for finances;

3. A framework for approval;

4. A tool for operational business management.

What are the critical steps needed to achieve a successful business plan?

This may come as a surprise to my fellow business consultants, but producing a successful business plan is not as difficult as people often think, so long as they follow a logical sequence. Here is my considered view as to the critical steps.

1. Understand what you are planning and why;

2. Define the activities of your organisation;

3. Outline the current position of the business;

4. Review and discuss the external market conditions, undertake and understand a competitive analysis, and define your market positioning;

5. Define your core objectives;

6. Prepare and articulate the strategy to attain and meet the objectives;

7. Identify and review risks and opportunities;

8. Prepare a strategy to deal with risks and exploit opportunities;

9. Refine the strategies into operational plans;

10. Prepare financial forecasts including revenues, costs, cash-flow, capital expenditure and assumptions adopted;

11. Finalise the plan;

12. Get it approved;

13. Use it;

14. Review it regularly and update as appropriate.

What should be included in the business plan?

Without being too prescriptive, there are certain necessary elements which need to be included. Such elements are:

· Preliminaries – such as contents, contacts and definitions;

· An executive summary;

· A description of the business;

· A review of the market, the competition and market positioning;

· The vision, mission and objectives;

· The corporate strategy;

· The plan for developing the products and services;

· Financial projections;

· An outline of the risks and opportunities;

· A conclusion.

Understand gaps and weaknesses within the plan.

Any casual viewer of the BBC programme, Dragons Den will be aware of how easy it is for weaknesses or gaps to be identified. Depending upon the purpose of the plan, this may, or may not, prove to be critical. It is often easier to recognise such weaknesses and gaps, and be prepared to deal with them, either by noting them in the plan itself, or having appropriate answers available should the need arise.

Who should prepare the plan?

As a business consultant, this may sound like heresy, but I believe that any plan should be produced by the senior management of the organisation. That is not to say that the consultant does not have a role to play in its preparation. He does. Senior management should prepare the plan as they will then be able to present and discuss it, demonstrating to their audience that they fully understand their business and market. I believe that the consultant’s role is to help facilitate the preparation of the plan, the consultant can help undertake the necessary research, and can cast a critical and impartial eye over the plan.

In Jonathan Salem Baskin’s book, Branding Only Works On Cattle, he takes firm aim at the practice of the marketing practice of branding. He defines branding as building consumer awareness with the goal of influencing their future behavior. Simply put, he believes that branding is useless.Traditional marketing is focused on behavior: identifying prospective customers, their needs, and communicating how your business solves their problems. Behavior is measurable. Either someone takes action or they don’t. Split testing on messages can give statistically valuable information to improve your marketing campaign. You can optimize your marketing based on the response you do (or don’t) get.Traditional branding is intangible. How can you measure the influence of someone’s future behavior? When it comes time to make a purchase decision, people don’t decide in a vacuum. They ask their community for input, do research, and then purchase. Impulse purchases aren’t made based on brand either; impulse happens on the spur-of-the-moment, and is based on the offering targeting the immediate need at the right price.In the past, branding was possible because customers had few choices (besides their immediate community) – television (with just a few channels) and magazines. Larger corporations could spend money to control the messages of these limited media. The Internet has allowed people to easily search for information. Search, the author contends, is the enemy of brand. Search allows people to find information anywhere (not just in company-controlled locations). The end result is that companies are simply trying to scream louder to get their message heard about the din.The author also believes that social online “communities” are a poor way to brand/market your company. Most of these communities aren’t really communities – people can be anonymous, there’s no shared responsibility, no trust, and no informal conversations.Instead he suggests paying attention to the basic strategies of guerrilla marketing, which are focused on changing near-term behavior:
Support existing behaviors, don’t create them [piggyback on habit]
Show, don’t tell [by example]
Prompt behaviors, not ideas [cause action]
Talk to many, every time you talk [involvement by dialog]

Restaurants need to encompass considerable marketing avenues for the sake of success. Without publicity and marketing, there are chances that the restaurant may not survive in the market. But with thorough planning and enactment, the restaurant’s promotion can grab the customer’s attention just like that.

The restaurant business is quite tough. It is difficult for the owners to flourish in this thrift and with very low profits. Restaurant owners are enthusiastic about food because not much profit is left after paying all the mandatory expenses like produce, wages, upkeep, and maintenance. Better so than eternally, restaurants publicity and marketing are necessary.

Some restaurant owners thoroughly expand their profit margin by contracting their business prototype and resemblance to others, assembling a franchise, spreading their reputation, and cultivating a future passive income. While others choose to concentrate on their flagship eatery, trusting that quality over quality is vital for drumming up future business.

Smart advertising encourages the restaurant owner to create a good reputation in the market and reach customers who might not even have heard about the restaurants near them. It also promotes the restaurants with discounts, offers, special occasions, and new items to the menu.

For marketing purposes, the best way is social media. Whether people are seeking someplace to dine in safely or looking for the best takeaway service, they turn on the social media app. The more the traffic drives to your specific website or page, the more you will succeed in this business.

What the advertising brings to the restaurants

It helps to target customers, as if the customers like the taste of the food at a specific restaurant, they will start recommending that place to their colleagues and friends. Advertising helps target particular types of customers and proves to be more effective.
Advertising certainly helps to stay competitive in the business. The competitors will be advertising their specific establishment to the customers. They will assume that the establishment has lacked publicity, is less thriving, and offers less than the other competitors.
Publicity and advertisement are thoroughly an investment. If the restaurant owner is investing wisely, they will surely profit from that. But the amount to be spent on publicity depends upon the area and type of restaurant. Usually, casual and family-specific restaurants do not spend more on advertising, while fine-dining restaurants spend more because they must create a lavish image.
Publicizing can certainly help to develop crucial aspects of the restaurant’s reputation. Advertising fetches the customers by creating the business’s reputation in the community.
Hiring a marketing agency can reduce almost all of the burden regarding advertisement. A good social media marketing agency can maintain whatsoever the name’s niche and aesthetics through social media. Great brand recognition can lead to more followers, leading to more traffic to the site and a boost in orders.