Over the Christmas period I spent time with my very enterprising sister who now operates a number of very successful retail businesses. She was saying they are looking at buying a coffee franchise for one of the rural centres they live near. Now that is something that is definitely a boom area in Australia at the moment…. I heard somewhere that Australians spend more on coffee machines, then they do on TVs, fridges and stereos. I find that amazing, however in my office we continue to use our little espresso on top of the stove. Anyway back to my sister. So we got talking about the new business, and I asked her some key questions. Reflecting on the conversation I wanted to summarise it for you.
Basically planning is essential, not only to show the registering body, also to for you to have a succinct plan for how you are going to achieve your objectives with the business.
At a minimum, consider the following areas:
- Put down on paper why you believe you will be successful with an RTO.
- Do a SWOT (we had an interesting conversation around this one!)
- Create a financial plan with an income statement including monthly projections for at least two years (monthly for one year, quarterly for a second year, and an annual third year is typical). This process allows you to identify your sales and profitability goals for the business well before you spend any money.
- Write down all the resources required, or download my FREE report – which guides, so you can objectively identify the investment required in facilities, employees, training materials and marketing that will allow you to achieve your goals.
- Identify your customers so then you can relate this to your business and marketing plan.
- Identify your resources that you actually have and how using them will impact on your life for the first few months as you get started.
Then it is about looking at your RTO Compliance. Here is to your RTO Success.
Merinda