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Perhaps you're enjoying lunch with a like-minded friend and suddenly you experience a flash of inspiration, an out-of-the-blue experience that crystallizes a vision you've been nourishing deep inside your subconscious for some time. An idea so profound for a product destined for greatness that you instantly know that it's going to be a world-wide success and you're going into business and bring it to market. But just how do you go about capturing the moment and create a great business plan over lunch?

Don't delay another minute. Grab something to write on, and get to work on your plan immediately. Here are some tips that you need to capture before the waiter brings the tab. You'll flesh these ideas out later, but for now capture the moment of your inspiration. You know the business basics already, so begin engaging in free style or associative thinking and by jot down your ideas as they pop into your imagination.

Here are a few tips for a great beginning.

First of all, be sure to note what your business concept is. In other words, ask yourself why are you doing this anyway? This is an important point as it will serve as the anchor point for your business decisions in the future. Don't lose sight of your business concept over the years ahead; it will always be a reminder of your inspiration, your vision and your dreams when you need them most.

You're absolutely convinced at this point that the business concept is entirely feasible, so you move on to the next step in developing your business plan: the nuts and bolts about business operations.

The second consideration is about how you will manage your business. You will want to think about where and how to begin, who will manage staff and line employees, what form of planning and controlling will you engage in, how will you organize your business, and who will be responsible for interviewing and hiring employees.

The third consideration is focused on marketing, promoting, and advertising. You must be able to identify a target market. This will require conducting market research, choosing marketing and advertising media, stretching your advertising budget in order to get a sound return on your investment. An important part of this process is to analyze your potential customers buying habits and spending patterns. You will also have to develop a pricing strategy for your products.

The next item to consider is money. Money is important in any business venture, and financial management should be given serious thought. This includes being certain that you can cover your start up expenses, and short-term operating expenses, Cash flow can be crucial for the survival of your business during the start up period and knowing where your break even point lies is extremely important.

Finally, you will have to decide on your accounting method, distribution of your profits and your business investment, or owner's equity. Unless you are independently wealthy, it is very likely that you will need some form of financial investment from outside sources, so you should consider both your long and short-term lending needs.

All of these ideas are important and should be considered up front, if only in the most general terms. You will have time to consider these in more detail later, for now just relax and allow your ideas to flow into your consciousness naturally. There will be plenty of time for the stress of boardroom style planning later. For now, leave the hard questions that you'll have to research and answer for later on when you begin writing your formal business plan and taking on the business world head on.

Learn more about this author, Francis Jock.
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