Business Plans: An Essential Tool for Success

The first and perhaps the most obvious step for you to examine is to determine what skill or service offering you are going to be marketing.  Do you specialize in a particular technology, language, etc.?  If so, what is that skill and why do companies need you to provide it?  In short, what makes you so special?  Identify those strengths and you will continue to build around them, as they are the very foundation of your business.

Targeting your customer base and identifying your competition are another two vital assessments you must cover.  I have met more than my share of entrepreneurs who decided to strike out on their own because they had an offer for a contract from one company.  They had not considered what steps they would need to take after that contract had been completed and, in some cases, had resorted to taking another full time position immediately after that contract was completed.  While this scenario is not an altogether negative one, it is obviously more beneficial to think of the whole picture before going into business.  Which leads us right into your next step: developing a business plan.

Business plans are often regarded by aspiring entrepreneurs as either something they don’t need because they are only “employing” themselves or they have …