Your estimated sales figure is probably the most difficult number that you will have to come up with in planning your new business. There are many variables and assumptions that come into play when estimating sales. Your location, marketing, competition, and business knowledge will have significant influences on your sales volume.

Many people think of "planning" as an annual process. Thousands of companies publish an annual plan each year, outlining their expectations about operating results for the coming 12 months. Realistically, though, you're probably planning all the time. Most business owners are always thinking about ways to make their business better. In discussing a "planning interval," what we're really suggesting is periodically setting aside a certain amount of time to create or update a written business plan. Part of this planning commitment includes deciding just how often and at what time of the year to set aside that time.

Early on in the negotiation process, you'll need to determine where the buyer is going to get the money to purchase your business.

After you've committed to periodically scheduling planning periods, how do you determine when is the right time to engage in the planning process? Most small business owners won't have the luxury of a "strategic planning committee" or some other dedicated group to handle planning on an ongoing basis. In all likelihood, you are the only person in a position to create a business plan. Since the demands of the planning process fall on you, don't schedule your planning period so that it conflicts with other demands placed on you by your business. If the Thanksgiving to Christmas period is your busiest time of year, don't schedule your planning process during it.

Tax planning is a process of looking at various tax options in order to determine when, whether, and how to conduct business and personal transactions so that taxes are eliminated or reduced. As an individual taxpayer, and as a business owner, you will often have the option of completing a taxable transaction by more than one method. The courts strongly back your right to choose the course of action that will result in the lowest legal tax liability. In other words, tax avoidance is entirely proper.

If you are to get the most benefit out of the planning process that leads to a written business plan, you have to be the most critical reader of the plan.

Your marketing and sales plan explains how you plan to reach your targeted customers and how you will effectively market your product or service to those customers. For example, the marketing plan specifies the types of advertising that you will use and the timing of those advertisements. In essence, the marketing plan takes the marketing strategy that you developed to a tactical level. It sets forth the specific steps you will take to sell your product or service and provides a timetable for those actions to occur.

Once you've successfully sold, traded, scrapped, or donated your vehicle, you're not done yet! As with most business transactions, the IRS wants to get a report and a piece of the profits if you made any.

Every business, small or large, will be more successful with a business plan. And the key component of a business plan is the marketing plan. A good marketing plan summarizes the who, what, where, when, and how much questions of company marketing and sales activities for the planning year:

Once you have selected and developed a unique product or business idea, correctly positioned and targeted it to buyers, and developed your packaging and pricing, the selection of distribution channels and sales representation is key to successful marketing.