DistributionIf yours is a product or service that needs distribution thendiscuss how you will distribute it to the end-user. You may needto produce letters from distributors in your plan to prove that youcan deliver. In many markets there are a limited number of waysto reach your customer-can you ensure successful distribution?Can you deal with powerful distributors?You may sell directly through telephone sales, mail orderorthe internet. How will you promote and advertise your product oservice?

can you convince the reader that this will be effectiveYou may sell through agents, wholesalers or retailers Canyou convince the reader that you know how to do this effec-tively? Can you show that the costs of this approach are wellunderstood and controlled?Distribution via the internetelling through the internet raises a whole set of new issues, notjust for your business but for the plan you writeHow secure is your site: if your computer or yourprinter fails do you lose a day's business or a weeks?Do you have a firewall, anti-virus protection, goodbackup?Do you have your own website or piggyback on someoneelses?Is your site particularly clever/well designed-and whowrites/maintains it?Do you fulfl orders yourself or sub-contract?How do customers find your site?Are you on price comparison websites?Do you have marketing links and referrals with othersites?How many hits per week do you get and how does thattranslate into sales?

ust today I read a story about a small business selling extralarge shoes worldwide through the internet, primarily relyingon one major search engine for customers. Suddenly that searchengine changed its search algorithms, resulting in this companyplummeting down the ranking when people searched for largeshoes and its business also fell down an abyss. I wonderedwhy such a specialist business had not built a database of pastcustomers they could approach directly and why they hadapparently, not established any customer loyalty whetherthrough good service or through a 'money off next purchasescheme. If the owner had written a business plan, as he wroteninety per cent of our business comes through xxx searchengine., wouldn't that have raised a question in his mind abouthis dependency and vulnerability that would have urged him toaddress it?One of the big issues about internet selling is your relianceon one or two channels, while another is how fast moving such amarket can be My business sells books through the internet.certain times of year we get good deals from our suppliers andput on special promotions when we can undercut allcompetitors. In the first year we did this we found thecompetitors matched or undercut many of our prices within acouple of weeks: by the second year we were matched withinweek on all best-selling titles. We now have to check pricesconstantly in this market where price is critical. These issuesare reflected in how you should write your business plan. It ismore critical than ever that you address the vulnerabilities andthe what ifs. If prices in your market do not move much then sayso: if you have your own price comparison and adjustingsoftware then say so; if you, like me, sit in front of the computerevery day and adjust prices then say so.s your website intended to sell? A consultancy, for example,seldom wins new business through its website, yet most willhave one. The purpose is to reinforce other, direct sellingmethods. Prospective customers will generally be won by referralor personal contact and then the sale is reinforced by the websitewhich adds substance to a presentation So talk about the aims ofyour website in your planThere are also things that are the same as any conventionalbusiness that people somehow see differently when related to theworld wide web. I received a business plan for an internet-basedbusiness that described them as second to amazon. nowAmazons sales worldwide are 2, ooo times larger- is that asensible comparison? If it was a bricks and mortar business, say afamily-run supermarket, would they have compared themselvesto Tesco or Carrefour or Walmart -I suspect not. The world wideweb easily provokes delusions of grandeur.

TrendsWhat trends are observable in your market? What changes canoccur?My client produced a system to protect sunbathersfrom ultra violet radiation It worked on uVA radiationwhich has a shorter wavelength. Then newspaperreports started stressing the importance also of longer:wavelength UVB. The issue was not the technicaleffectiveness but producing an effective marketingresponse to maintain customer confence:(Corporate finance consultant)You absolutely must discuss the trends in your market. These aremeasures of things that may be increasing or decreasing or justchanging, and must includemarket size,pncescompetitiontechnology,as well as marketing issues such astrends to casual dining in the restaurant industry;a trend to casual dressing for mena trend towards long-haul holidays in the travelindustry.Investors like growing markets because they make it easier foryou to expand your sales. However, growing markets also tendto attract more competitors which leads to falling prices. Theseissues need to be addressed in your planSome changes can be anticipated. The reader of a businessplan is likely to want to know what might happen, howeverspeculative. Again, by raising issues you can disarm them beforethey develop into a negative aura to your project. A good exampleis bookshops: whether at social gatherings or in businessmeetings, people always ask whether internet bookselling ishaving a significant impact or whether children read as much asthey used to. There are easily identified trends towards salesthrough the internet and for children to read less. By includingthese issues in a plan, you have the opportunity to address thempointing out that the internet will not take ioo per cent of themarket, leaving a profitable niche for retailers; showing that theoverall book market may be static but is not decliningNone of this need take an enormous effort, nor need it resultin a 200-page document. A comment, a paragraph and each issueis addressed