This business planner contains three main elements:

1. Step-by-step guide

• It’s difficult to know where to start. Should you work on your business name and logo or tackle your business structure? Does it make sense to start with the equipment and supplies you need or focus on your website? What about funding? Location? Pricing? Marketing?
• This planner takes away those uncertainties. Each step will guide you through every aspect of starting your own business in the right order.
• We uncover key elements of how your business will run and help prevent you from making critical mistakes that can doom your start-up.
• The steps build upon each other, so it’s important not to skip a step, or complete them in random order.

2. Worksheets

• The worksheets that accompany each step will help you build your business. You can find the worksheets in the interactive and downloadable PDF.
• They get you to think through every aspect of your business and put together a practical plan that tells you exactly what you’re going to do and how you’re going to do it.

3. Actions

• Each worksheet (found in the downloadable PDF) has a series of questions to help you evaluate and coordinate all the elements that go towards building a successful business.
• No business has ever taken off just from an idea. It is action that transforms the idea into a business.
• Each step in building your business requires you to take consistent and concerted action to bring your business to life.
• The worksheets are action oriented and get you to take the right actions, in the right order, and at the right time and move your business forward.
   

Where you do your planning has a significant impact on the success of your planning. In-depth planning takes a lot of time, effort, creativity, and resourcefulness. Noise, interruptions and being uncomfortable impair your ability to plan efficiently. You need a well-organised space that is optimised for focus, comfort, and results. Here’s how to create a dedicated planning space:

1. The basic requirements

• Desk
• Chair
• Laptop/PC
• Light source 

2. Stock it with the supplies you will need

• Pens
• Notebooks
• Sticky notes
• Highlighters
• Folders
• Whiteboard, etc.

3. Make it a space that inspires you

• Photos
• Inspirational quotes
• Motivating posters, etc.

4. Create a vision board

• A vision board is a collection of images that takes all your ideas, far-off dreams and goals out of your imagination and puts them where you can see them.
• Every time you look at your vision board, it should motivate, inspire and energise you. But above all, it should keep you focused on what you want to achieve.
• Be sure to place it where you will see it often throughout the day.