If you want your small business ideas to grow into a successful profitable business you will need to have a business plan. It is your route to success, without it you are planning to fail

Your business plan needs to be a live document that is in constant development and is continually checked and updated, You must know if you are meeting your goals and if you do not continually check your business plan it can not work for you. Your business plan will allow you to make the needed changes to adjust to your small business growth or lack of growth.

The basic outline of a business plan is to detail the systems you will use and the task that are needed to accomplish your goals. By reviewing your business plan on a monthly basis at first you will be able to check your progress or lack of it. Once your business is up and running inn the direction you desire you may want to revise the time you review your plan. If your small business is progressing the way you planned and growth is steady checking your plan quarterly might be a good choice.

At first financial goals should be small. Although small they should be accomplished in the time frame you set. The initial small goals are as vital to your overall plan as the larger goals you have set for later dates. If your plan is working correctly in the early stages you will be able to determine if the complete business plan is achievable. Make sure that each goal is achieved as planned.

As in most aspects of life the best of plans can fail. You must ask yourself two questions. 1. Did you complete each goal in the time period you set. Were you able to achieve some of your goals but not all of them.

2. Were you able to use the systems you put in place and did they work as planned. Some of them will have met the goals you set while others did not.

Look carefully at your answers and analyze them. You will have systems that worked correctly and performed as expected. Keep those and continue working with them. The will also be systems that did not meet the goals you had set and the plans you had made. Look at these systems and find why they did not work.

You need to know why they did not work, if the system was flawed, were there steps in the system you may have missed. In answering those questions you can adjust future plans to accommodate errors that may have been made or discard the system completed and replace it with a new one.

A good solid business plan will continually improve and adjust. Adjusting and manipulating your plan for future growth will not only improve the effectiveness of your plan it will insure continued growth of your business.

Along with helping to build your small business ideas a business plan can give you confidence. A business plan is like a silent partner that helps keep your business on track.