Do you have a small business and operas every day, without planning beyond your everyday cash flow? Do you know how far you want or you can reach your business? Do you have basic knowledge of management or drive your business so intuitive?

If your answer is yes, perhaps you should begin to devise a business plan. In Mexico, over 60% of new businesses fail before their two years of operation, according to figures from the SME Center of the Secretariat of Economy. This is largely because many entrepreneurs embark on the venture without having previously established a business plan is the equivalent of a captain who embarks on a journey without having to hand a map and navigational instruments.

“Many people first rent the space in which to install and then worry about the business plan,” said Jorge Enrique Velarde, director of the Center for Business Innovation for Corporate Services, the Technological Monterrey, Campus Santa Fe “Without mission and vision, not go anywhere, “says academic.

Businesses located in function of the distance from home owner, small businesses run by many ‘chiefs’, lack of competition and financial calculations “a rule of thumb” are part of the common mistakes of micro, small and medium enterprises (Ms Mes) in Mexico. These and many other errors can be avoided if the entrepreneur uses a consultancy to design a business plan. With the support of Jorge Enrique Velarde, professor and consultant to the Technological Monterrey, here are five useful steps to outline your business plan:

1. Define and justify the business well. The first step is to define the mission, vision and objectives of your business. The mission establishes the central purpose and rationale of a business: what business you want to do and why? What accomplishments you intend to accomplish in your environment and what benefits you will provide and obtain. The vision defines the goal or the path which runs a business in the long term. It also serves to set the course and as an incentive to guide strategic decisions: Will you be the leader in your segment or sector? Want to be the most innovative? The objectives are defined in terms of mission and vision: where you get settled in five years? What level of sales want to be?

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This question will seem very particular as anyone knows from the beginning of its activities the reason, rationale, strengths and weaknesses of their business in their products or services, personnel and financial structure. I will clarify the reason for this strange question.

Recently I was talking to a professional insurance agent, I was struck by his knowledge, travel and at some point, I hinted its many customers and I did ask about how they managed that database so important and represented in their actual activity itself, its real business. His answer left me really impressed, drew from his inevitable agenda a list of six pages in Excel in which he said handled their customers, surprised I said that I looked like a huge risk that he ran with that rudimentary handling the most valuable information on your business.

Businesses today are databases, exactly that. Products or services in my opinion should serve as a means to strengthen it, to analyze constantly trying to get micro-profiles of clients who are buyers of certain types of products or services to guide the sale of those clients who have the same micro-profile cannot have acquired. In addition, analysis of the customer base will allow you to find the average profile of its customers by age, sex, socioeconomic status, profession or activity, family environment, average time spent with your company, the average volume of purchases through periods of time, frequency of purchases.

If you dig a little deeper into it you will find that the available information can be supplemented with other data, ways of using your product or service, frequency of contact between the client and the person or company, the reasons thereof, underlying causes, attitudes adopted in its relations with you and many other variables that will be most useful in the design of their business strategies.

In addition, the customer base will enable constant dialogue with them, extract ideas about their needs, information about new competitor actions, suggestions for new products or services you should include in its portfolio, differentiated services that will impact and allow it to deliver memorable customer experiences and amazing to get through them loyalty and fidelity.

Before starting a new venture on the Net, you must know about the history of the same, familiar from its various faces, which include demographic data, e-business and understand the new economy.

Unlike traditional business, where buyers and sellers together in a physical place to exchange information, products, services and make payments in electronic commerce transactions take place via telecommunications networks in a virtual marketplace.

Traders are finding advantages to do business electronically. Can increase sales and bring the local operations of a global one, can improve internal efficiency and productivity of their operations, can significantly improve customer service and open new channels of communication with both their suppliers and their customers. Just as there are advantages, there are also disadvantages.