Just where are you going with your business? You say you are lost but you still can’t tell me where you were going in the first place. How do you know you are lost?

If you are planning a business or have a business you have been operating but you have not put together a business plan, you seriously need to step back and think again. Starting or growing a business is a new journey and there aren’t many people around the world who can navigate into an unknown territory without a map. You should therefore not be surprise if you are lost. The starting point is for you to get clear about the purpose of your business. You want to be absolutely clear about this, as well as your target market. If you are not clear about purpose of your business you will find very soon that you are reactive in your approach to your business instead of being proactive about your business.

One of the invaluable assets many readers of my book ‘My Business Is My Business’ has found is its clarity in sign-posting entrepreneurs on what to cover in their business plan. You will find all the elements that must be covered in your business plan in this book carefully explained to you in language you understand. A recent reader by the name of Julia said this to me

“My Business Is My Business is fantastic and makes me understand that which was not clearly explained in a recent business plan template I purchased. I now know why each element of the plan must be tackled head-on". The good thing about this is that you can download the first three chapter of this book from www.businessservicessupport.com/business_startup.php - assuming you do not already own a copy.

Having a very clear vision is extremely important. Whenever I find a successful business I have found that there is a clear vision in place. Whenever I find a failing business I have found that there was no clear vision in place. Spend time clarifying your vision today. You will find the steps for doing so in the book. If you don’t clarify your vision, you will pay a big price down the road.

Remember that your products should provide solutions to a specific problem experienced by a target market. Also remember that your target market must be willing and able to pay for your services or a third party with interest in the target market must be willing and able to pay for your services. If no one is willing and able to pay for your services or products this is a good clue that your business preposition is not viable and you should be prepared to start all over again and quit pursuing a failing business idea.

To create ideas, you must generate the right environment and this means you must know what the right environment is. Ideas are created in a well relaxed and calm mental environment and will wither and die away in a stressful and noisy environment. Ideas tend to flow towards those with an open mind, as opposed to a close mind. With this said, our busy and stressful life, which many have come to associate with and accept as the norm is the number one killer of ideas. It is therefore important you understand that the fertilizer of ideas is none other than your mental quietude. To the degree to which you are relaxed and calm will be the degree to which you can generate new ideas. Read the first two chapters of “My Business is My Business” and you will find tools to help you generate your business ideas, as well as develop them. Remember, you can grab a copy of the first three chapters of this book free of charge from www.businessservicessupport.com/business_startup.php

Also listen to my CD titled 'Creative Mind' and go through the workbook and you will become an expert in creating ideas as you learn and practice the tools for developing your business ideas. Then finally, participate in my paid and free forum and you will soon get to learn even more from others you interact with.

Let me now share with you a case study of a recent consultancy work I did for a client in which I used the creative techniques that have helped me and my clients. I consulted a company recently that provided a directory services for Pet-sitters aimed at marketing the services to Pet-owners. The idea is great but a lot more can be done to this business model to monetize the basic model. Rather than just helping Pet-sitters starting their own pet-sitting business and being provided online presence as a medium for their clients (Pet-owners) to find them easily and hopefully purchase their services, the question was how we can generate income from the Pet-owners without affecting their access to the pet-sitters. More ideas had to be generated and developed. We used relaxation and combination techniques which are all explained in the Creative Mind Workbook and My Business Is My Business. This was the outcome of the techniques I used.

The primary goal of the Pet-sitting directory has to be retained whilst at the same time sell services and products to both the Pet-sitters and the Pet-owners. To achieve this goal, all Pet-sitters registered on the directory site have to pay a subscription fee and in return will be guaranteed online market exposure whereby Pet-owners searching for pet-sitters in their local areas will immediately access their details and contact them for more information about their services. In short, the directory is offering marketing services to the Pet-sitters, who of course want to grow their business using e-marketing tools.

Pet-owners will register for free in the directory to access information on pet-sitters in their local market and the important thing to note here is that the company will capture data of the Pet-owners who use the directory service to reach pet-sitters- very important in marketing. By doing this, the company is able to keep in touch with the pet-owners as well as pet-sitters and forge relationships with them over time.

In addition to directory services, the company will set up an online pet- shop accessible to those registered on its site, where all sort of pet toys, food, house, cage etc are sold at very competitive prices. This shop will be set up at zero capital cost using a system called affiliate marketing. This means, the company needed to find a Pet-shop with lots of products that the company can partner with and the Pet-shop can be a brand name that is known to the pet-owners and pet-sitters market. We identified three such Pet supermarkets in the UK. This means that the business now have the capacity to direct both Pet-owners and Pet-sitters to this shop after they are registered members and because the system has been setup in the way that every transaction is track-able, every purchase made by Pet-sitters and Pet-owners from the E-shop generates commission for the company whilst on the other-hand the company does not have to handle any of the sales transactions or shipping of items to the customers. You may wonder how this is possible. This is possible because of affiliate marketing which every business can incorporate to generate multiple sources of income.

To sum up, this business now sells to both markets and doubles it earning potential beyond the original business plan simply by incorporating the techniques of combination in its business model. Do you think you can do likewise?