Do you know how to conduct feasibility study on a business idea? What if I provide you with a feasibility study template and sample? If I show you a practical feasibility study outline, will you appreciate it? If your answer is yes, then read on.

In the previous article wrote, I stressed the importance of conducting feasibility study on your business idea before taking it to the marketplace. Today, I will be teaching you how to conduct feasibility study on your business idea. Since conducting feasibility study is such an important process that must be carried out on your business idea or proposal, I will advise you print out or bookmark this article for future reference.

“A man that is prepared has half won the battle.” – Sydney M. Bremer

                How to Conduct Feasibility Study on a Business idea or Opportunity

A Typical Feasibility Study Template and Outline

1.            Economic Analysis

I believe this is where your feasibility study should start from. What is the essence of carrying out market research or even going ahead to start a business when the economy does not favor entrepreneurship or private ventures? Analyzing the economy will help you align your planned business with the economic situation on ground. Economic feasibility should include analysis on government’s fiscal and monetary policies, import and export rate, inflation rate, tax rate, and currency exchange rate and so on.

2.            Market Analysis

The next thing you should be analyzing is the market for your proposed business idea. Carrying out a feasibility study on the market will enable you know if there is actually a need or market for your business idea. Market analysis will also help you to determine the size of the market, demographics and psychographics of the market, level of competition and the size of the market you can compete for.

3.            Technical Analysis

This part of a feasibility study deals with the technological requirements of the business. Technical analysis will enable you determine the method of production to be employed, equipments, spare parts and tools, site development, supporting facilities, the nature of the factory building, fencing and so on.

                How to Conduct Feasibility Study on a Business idea or Opportunity

A Typical Feasibility Study Template and Outline

4.            Location Analysis

 This is carried out with a view to determine the best location for the business in terms of nearness to high traffic roads, nearness to infrastructure, accessibility to customers, ease of transportation of raw materials and finished products, nearness to cheap labour, cost of land acquisition and so on.

5.            Manpower Analysis

This part of a feasibility study deals with the process of estimating the level of skill, professionalism and number of employees to be hired by the business. The salary scale, incentives and pay package are also estimated at this point.

6.            Financial Analysis

Financial analysis will be dealing with the estimation of the total capital involved, capital expenditures, working capital; profit and loss analysis, pricing of products, cash flow projections, projected sales revenue and the entire project viability. Everything concerning finance should be dealt with at this juncture. If you are trying to raise venture capital for your small business startup, then you have to do a clean job on the financial section of the feasibility report because this is where investors focus on. All they are interested in knowing is how much is the percentage return on investment and the payback period.

7.            Sensitivity and Risk Analysis

This is the last part of a feasibility study and probably the most important. After all other factors have been analyzed and proven viable, sensitivity and risk analysis can come in. Building a business without properly conducting a risk analysis is like flying a plane without regards to weather condition.

Before any business idea is taken to the marketplace, its risk to reward ratio should be analyzed, the sensitivity to competition should be determined and the liquidation rate of companies in the industry of your proposed business venture should be calculated. With results obtained from sensitivity and risk analysis, growth and survival strategies can be developed for your proposed business.

As a final note, if conducting feasibility study is too technical for you; then consider hiring a professional or a business consultant to do the dirty work for you. It’s going to save you time and energy. And just before I drop my pen, always bear in mind that carrying out feasibility study on your business idea will enable you write a business plan and help you forge a competitive advantage for your business and increase your chance of success.

Are you an entrepreneur or business owner? Do you wish to grow your business and increase your profits rapidly? Do you know what it takes to build a business successfully from scratch? Well, I will advice you read on as I share with you the ultimate guide on how to run a small business successfully.

As an entrepreneur, I bet that it’s your dream to build a big business empire or conglomerate. But I want you to bear in mind that every mega corporation that exist today was once a small business. If you cannot competently handle a small business, then how do you expect to grow into a big business? Incompetence with respect to small business management is the sole reason why most businesses fail in their first five years. This is the more reason why you need to learn how to run a small business successfully.

• 12 Strong Reasons Why Small Businesses Fail

   How to Run a Small Business Successfully – The Ultimate Guide

  Be Prepared?

“See thou a man diligent in his business? He shall stand before kings; he shall not stand before vain men.” – Proverbs 22: 29

“For whatsoever thy hands find to do, do it with all thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave.”  – Ecclesiastes 9: 10

One of the most important determining factors of running a successful business is you, the Entrepreneur. As an entrepreneur, you are the pilot or helmsman of the business; so succeeding or failing is your call. To successfully run a business and grow, you will need the following:

• 12 Traits of Successful Entrepreneurs

“When you innovate, you’ve got to be prepared for people telling you that you are nuts.” – Larry Ellison

• 50 Uncommon Business Advice from 50 Great Business Leaders

• An inspiring vision

“If you are doing something new, you’ve got to have a vision. You’ve got to have a perspective. You’ve got to have some north star you are aiming for and you just believe somehow you will get there, which kind of gets to the passion point.” – Steve Case

• A strong mission

• A worthwhile personal goals and business objectives

“Being first is more important to me. I have so much money. Whatever money is, it’s just a method of keeping score now. I mean, i certainly don’t need more money.” – Larry Ellison

“The best thing to invest in your business is your time. To schedule, plan and use time effectively, know your turf and know your objectives. Assess the obstacles and opportunities, then devise your strategies.” – The Mafia Manager

• The right mindset

“I’ve never felt like I was in the cookie business. I’ve always been in a good feeling business. My job is to sell joy, my job is to sell happiness and my job is to sell an experience.” – Debbi Field

• The Magic of Thinking Big and why you should Set Big Goals

• Business skills

“The ability to sell is the number one skill in business. If you cannot sell, don’t bother thinking about becoming a business owner.” – Rich Dad

• Five Entrepreneurial Skills You Need To Build a Successful Business

     How Solid is your Company’s Operational Plan?

Running a small business successfully starts with a sound business plan, a plan that guides your direction throughout the course of your business operation. As your business evolves and leaves the startup phase; your business plan too must evolve into a strategic operational plan. This is especially important since the competition surrounding small businesses is very fierce and aggressive. Having a business plan in place allows you to take the right first step, and the right next step thereafter. Business plans also allow owners to experiment on ideal strategies in paper before they start the real business operations. This is how to run a small business successfully.

    Keep your Cash Flow Strong

“The most important word in the world of money is cash flow. The second most important word is leverage.” – Rich Dad

To point out the obvious, it is the nature of small businesses to require profit-loss forecasts, break-even and cash-flow analysis to determine in how they are faring at different angles.  This boils down to cash flow; the life blood of business. Research shows that 80% of business failures is directly or indirectly linked to poor cash flow management. So you must keep a keen eye on your incoming and outgoing cash.

A successful small business operation always takes cue on how it is supposed to make profit. After all, the purpose of a business is to serve the customer, and generate profit. This means you have to carefully go over the business expenses, such as the raw materials used for the products, rent of the space used for the operations, employee compensation, and many more. You must successfully sell to your intended market so as to cover your business expenses and hopefully start generating profit (break-even analysis).

• How to Run a Successful Business on a Lean Budget and Grow Fast
• How to Grow your Small Business Internally on a Lean Budget

    Recruit Competent Employees and Re-train them

“If you pick the right people and give them the opportunity to spread their wings and put compensation as a carrier behind it, you almost don’t have to manage them.”  – Jack Welch

“There will be times when you will have to be abrasive, even brutal to members of your staff. Don’t worry that your people will say bad things about you because of this. They already have. But in general, try to be pleasant and accommodating. Try to please the greatest number who work for you that you can; antagonize the fewest. Blow smoke.” – The Mafia Manager

• How to Motivate Your Employees and Increase Productivity
• 12 Simple Ways to Improve Employees Productivity in the Work Place

Build a Strong Business Team

“People are definitely a company’s greatest asset. It doesn’t make any difference whether the company’s product is cars or cosmetics. A company is only as good as the people it keeps.” – Mary Kay Ash

“After loyalty come ability, skill and competence. Promote only able people (and the occasional humbler). You find able people by testing them.” – The Mafia Manager

• 10 Strategic Reasons why you Need a Business Management Team
• How to Build a Strong Business Management Team from Scratch

    Take Care of your Customers

“Courteous treatment will make a customer a walking advertisement.” – James Cash Penny

“There is only one boss; the customer. And he can fire everybody in the company, from the chairman down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.” – Sam Walton

• 10 Relationship Marketing Strategies for Building Customer Relationship
• Customer Retention Strategies: How to Keep your Customers Happy and Loyal

How to Run a Small Business Successfully – The Ultimate Guide

    Develop a Strong Overall Business Strategy

“The most meaningful way to differentiate your company from your competitors, the best way to put distance between you and the crowd is to do an outstanding job with information. How you gather, manage and use information will determine whether you win or lose.” – Bill gates

“To win one hundred battles in one hundred victories is not the ACME of skills. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the ACME of skill.” – Sun Tzu

“I came from an environment where if you see a snake, you kill it. At General motors, if you see a snake, the first thing you do is to hire a consultant on snakes.” – H. Ross Perot

• 7 Factors That Will Influence Your Product Pricing Strategy
• Example of Companies with Sustained Competitive Advantage
• 12 Sources of Sustainable Competitive Advantage in Business

    Concentrate

“The men who have succeeded are men who have chosen one line and stuck to it.” – Andrew Carnegie

“To succeed in business, to reach the top, an individual must know all that is possible to know about that business.” – J. Paul Getty

“And here is the prime condition of success, the great secret. Concentrate your energy, thoughts and capital exclusively upon the business in which you are engaged in. Having begun in one line, resolve to fight it out on that line; to lead in it. Adopt every improvement, have the best machinery and know the most about it.” – Andrew Carnegie

  Learn from your Mistakes in Business

“When stumped for a solution to a particularly difficult problem, look to the past for a solution.” – The Mafia Manager

“Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It’s best to admit them quickly and get on with improving your other innovations.” – Steve Jobs

• Five Things I will do if my Business Fails Today
• 15 Common Business Mistakes You Must Avoid
• How to Learn From Your Mistakes in Business
• 50 Failure Quotes from 50 Successful People
• Four Essential Lessons from Companies Going Out of Business
• How to Handle Business Failure and still Succeed
• Famous Business Failures of Successful Entrepreneurs

Protect the Downside with a Strong Risk Management Strategy

“Lying dead in the water and doing nothing is a comfortable alternative because it is without risk, but it is an absolutely fatal way to manage a business.” – Thomas Watson

Many small businesses these days still make that basic mistake of covering all of their startup costs by entering loans, expecting that with the profits coming their way soon they will be able to pay those loans. What they have yet to understand clearly is that new businesses would normally take many more months or years before they can ever record profit from their business operations, and so they will be heavily burdened by taking on those loans since they cannot expect anything yet from their fledgling businesses.

“Before making an important decision, get as much as you can of the best information available and review it carefully, analyze it and draw up worst case scenarios. Add up the plus or minus factors, discuss it with your team and do what your guts tell you to do.” – The Mafia Manager

If you try to save money for your startup capital before you start operating, you can help make sure that your new business will not be threatened or drowned through the loans you made. It would also help to anticipate anything that happens in your way, especially if your lender turns his back on you by modifying the terms, making them unfavorable just because your business operation just didn’t start out successfully as initially planned.

“You must take risks, both with your own money or with borrowed money. Risk taking is essential to business growth.” – J. Paul Getty

Protect yourself at all times. While small businesses are usually patterned after the sole proprietorship and partnership setups that are easy to form up, they are not without significant liabilities that risks business owners to incurring unanticipated heavy debt and bad judgments. Expect to see the creditors in every possible corner, constantly coming after your personal assets whenever you are unable to comply with their terms.

“Seek advice on risk from the wealthy who still take risks, not friends who dare nothing more than a football bet.” – J. Paul Getty

Insurance may help reduce liabilities in some ways, but it would be worth your while to consider a corporation setup, or rather a limited liability corporation setup. Such structure will protect you significantly from personal liability. Taking careful, measured steps always remain the best secret on how to run a small business successfully.

• Small Business Survival: How to Prevent Your Business From Failing
• Ten Steps to Effective Problem Solving in Business
• How Your Business Can Survive a Recession and Still Grow
• 5 Recession Effects on Your Business and How to Control them

Do you want to learn how to write a business plan for small business? Are you in the process of starting a business or raising capital but don’t know how to write a business plan that can attract investors? Then this article is for you.

I was motivated to write this article because I realized that telling you how to develop a small business plan is just not the same as showing you exactly what needs to be included in one. I hope you know that building a business without a business plan is like flying a plane without your radar.

“A business idea is just another idea. But an idea backed by a strong feasibility, a thorough business plan and a smart team is no longer an idea. It’s now a solid business opportunity worth pursuing.” – Ajaero Tony Martins

In this article, I will be providing you with a quick nine step small business plan outline that can serve as a guide to writing a simple business plan that attracts investors. If you are ready to learn, let’s get started.

               How to Write a Business Plan for Small Business that Attract Investors

1.            The executive summary

The executive summary is what introduces your business to the reader and probably is the most important section for lending institutions. If you can’t convince an investor in the first two or three pages that you have got a good business proposal for them to listen; then just forget about trying to raise capital because your business plan is never going to produce any tangible result. The executive summary is also important as a communication tool to employees as well as any potential customers who need to understand your goals and ideas.

2.            A small section on company start up

This section of your business plan is where you have to clearly explain the thought behind the company’s creation and how you or your business associate came up with the idea to start your business. In this section of your business plan, you are expected to explain in detail the business idea, research result, location analysis, organizational structure, corporate structure and so on. You are also expected to explain the business type, industry and Business phase.

3.            Your company goal

You will have to use this section to explain in a few paragraphs, what your short and long-term goals for the company are. How fast do you think it will grow? Who will be your primary customers? Also to be included in this section is your company’s vision and business Mission statement. This is very vital and must not be ignored.

 4.            Biographies of management

This section will be used introduce your business team and what their purposes are to the business. This section should include information such as the names and backgrounds of lead members of the management team and their responsibilities. Also to be included are their area of expertise, prior achievements, their strengths and weaknesses.

        How to Write a Business Plan for Small Business that Attract Investors

5.            The product/service you will offer

This is where you will include a key piece of information about the product or service your company is offering and how it differs from the competitor’s product in the market.

6.            Your market potential

This is the section of a business plan where you need to convince the investors that you are actually targeting either a large market or a growing niche market. You will need to do some research for this section. For instance; If you are planning to open a locally based business, you need to check out the demand for your offering within a certain radius, this should be based on what you determine is a reasonable distance from your business. If you are planning to open an online or Web based business that relies on both the Internet and local traffic for revenues, you’ll need to evaluate demand on a local or a national basis. You can also seek to obtain this type of information online as many different sites will perform this analysis for you.

 7.            Your marketing plan

This is the section where you will have to ask yourself how you plan to tell the world you have something they need. For example, questions like; will I advertise in print, television, on the Web or all of these? Will I use online marketing tools like search optimization, to get your company listed on search engines and advertised on other Web sites? You will also need to include how much you plan to spend on marketing. It is important to note that your marketing plan should contain marketing strategies and tactics to outwit your competitors.

8.            A 3 – 5 year financial projection

This section of a business plan should have a summary of your expected financial forecasts, including spreadsheets showing the method that you used to reach these projections. You will also have to show your balance sheets, income statements and cash-flow projections for the entire period of that year. This section is also where you tell your investors how much money you intend raising as start up capital. The assumptions that you make in this section will make or break your company’s success. If you are unsure about using this kind of financial modeling, get a professional accountant.

9.            An exit strategy

The world’s unemployment rate is increasing yearly and most people are going broke and filing for bankruptcy as a result. In Nigeria, massive downsizing have been sweeping the banking industry and other industry will follow suit. But despite this sad statistics, I want you to know that there are individuals that refused to be cowed by the surrounding circumstances. Rather than lamenting over their loss of job, they simply took the bull by the horn, started a business for themselves based on their skills and are making money today; while others do nothing but worry.

Are you unemployed and broke? Do you have any marketable skill? Are you prepared to turn the table around and start to make money for yourself? If yes, then this article is for you.

The US recession of 2008 did not just affect the United States but also had a huge effect on the global economy. Right after the economic downturn, a lot of companies went bankrupt and the companies that did not go broke had to resort to dismissing a lot of its employees just to cut down cost; the result of which increased the rate of unemployment worldwide. At the moment, the global economy is slowly regaining balance but finding permanent employment is still difficult to accomplish. Even newly graduated students from highly competitive schools are also struggling to be employed in the company of their choice. So how can this problem of unemployment be solved? Simple, by becoming self employed.

Before now, the term self-employed usually refers to highly successful businessmen and people are really intimidated to venture into self-employment because the common perception is that starting a business usually requires a lot of money in startup capital. Well, this is not the case anymore. Here are the top 10 best self employment startup business ideas and opportunities you can start with little or no money.

                Top 10 Best Self Employment Ideas and Opportunities to Make Money

• Tutorial services

Tutorial services especially online are very popular right now and the most common subject being taught is English language. ESL (English as a Second Language) based companies usually look for tutors who are well versed in teaching and speaking English, some even accepts undergraduate students. The most common customers usually are Japanese and Koreans.

• Freelance writing

For budding writers, this is the perfect job. Usually all you need is the talent and drive to write within a deadline and a stable internet connection. There are a lot of companies that specializes in this kind of services and the best thing about it is that you can earn from the comfort of your home.

• Online direct selling

This is just like doing a garage sale but on the internet. Anybody can practically sell anything online these days. You can sell the unused trinkets lying around your house or even go to auctions to acquire items for reselling. This is possible by registering in social media sites or by creating a blog to sell your merchandise. Some companies like eBay are also popular site you can visit for direct reselling.

• Online virtual assistant

There are many people who are on Facebook but don’t actually have the time to manage them, so what they usually do is they hire people to manage their Facebook, twitter or email account. How simple can it get, imagine earning money just by being on Facebook all day. The employers in this field however are not just individual people; some companies also outsource their assistants.

• Online sales and marketing

Back then in the days, there used to be only telemarketing as a marketing tactic. But today, there’s online marketing. Small businesses that don’t have enough money to go for the big call center companies usually hire individuals online to sell and market their products. Basically, the job is similar to that of a call center agent, the difference is that the companies usually hire a person direct and they can do the job at home in front of a laptop.

     Top 10 Best Self Employment Ideas and Opportunities to Make Money

• Event/ party planner

Some people don’t have the time or the skill to throw a decent party, so they hire other people to do it for them. The job requires a great organizational and social skills since you have to deal with a lot people for this kind of job. Assignments can also vary from birthdays to weddings and even funerals, so there are a lot of markets to choose from.

• Research

Researchers, especially genealogists, are surprisingly in demand right now. This may be due to the fact that people are getting sentimental these days or that some politicians are finding new class of voters from their ancestry but there is a growing demand for people who enjoy researching other people’s ancestry.

• Surveying products online

Mystery shoppers were already available in the past but with the introduction of the internet, some survey companies are also going online. Now earning money is as easy as answering some surveys and polls online.

• Landscaping

This work is for people who have a fondness for land and great creativity. Targeted customers are not just homeowners but also commercial districts such as malls or parks and even companies are hiring landscapers to make their workplace more green and beautiful.

• Food cart franchising

This one requires a little bit of money for capital but it is less expensive than franchising a restaurant. Food carts are popular right now because they offer cheap and delicious foods. Most of the customers are usually students and the working class.