Spring! And How Does Your Garden (Business)
Grow?
by Dee Power and Brian Hill
Published on this site: May 1st, 2006 - See
more articles from this month
The first step is to map out how large an area you want for
your garden (business plan) and what types of seeds (new products)
you want to plant (launch). You might try starting the plants
indoors (test marketing) before exposing them to the perils of he natural elements (retail market). Don't forget
to prepare the soil before you plant. You may need some soil
amendments (new marketing VP) to give the seeds products)
the best chance of sprouting (being profitable). Some gardener's (CEOs) maintain a compost heap (last year's marketing ideas
and mix that into the soil; others say that compost just gives
off gas and smells bad. Fertilizer (advertising) is a must.
But how much to add (spend)?
You surely don't want to saturate the earth (market) with
manure (your commercials). In fact, successful gardening is
a matter of carefully regulating (cost controls) all the raw
materials you add - nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, even
water.
Regulating (managing) the sun (the economy) is out of your
control, of course. Some tender sprouts (new products) require
more shade (patent protection) than others in order to survive
first few critical weeks.
Controlling pests (competitors) is a never ending problem.
Some of these fly into your garden (market) from out of state,
some simply crawl, after all they are vermin. Trouble is,
the more bountiful (profitable) your garden, the more they
swarm. To rid your garden of pests, you might try making it
bigger and stronger (grow by acquisition). The natural methods
of pest control (better service, higher quality products)
are usually preferable. A strong chemical herbicide (price
war) might work temporarily, but could do more harm than good
in the garden in the long run, and is bad for the overall environment.
As harvest time approaches (year-end), you can look over your
garden (company) with great satisfaction. Look at that yield
(ROI)! It's a bumper crop (record profits). All that toil
and swear was certainly worth it - right?
Now you can enjoy the fruits of your labors (profit distributions)
after you pay a few people back who helped you grow your garden.
Let's see, the garden supply store gets 20% of our vegetables,
for the tools and seeds you bought. The investors who let you use their land (money) get 45% of the
crop (investors eat more than normal people). And the government
gets 35% because...hmmmm...because they sat there at the edge
of the garden and watched you work, I guess.
Well, you get to keep the satisfaction.
Brian Hill and Dee Power can be reached through
http://www.capital-connection.com They
are the authors of "Business Plan Basics,"
"Inside Secrets To Venture Capital," Attracting
Capital From Angels," and the novel "Over Time:
Money, Love and Football, all the important things in life."
http://www.OverTimeTheNovel.com
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