Hello Modish Biztips Readers!
We were invited by Jena (thank you Jena!) to share our first hand experience setting up our retail brick and mortar store. Before we get too far, I should really explain who we are and what we’re doing.
My name is Lili Nedved and my partner’s name is Henry Sinha. For about 4 months, we have been planning to open a fabric shop here in Vancouver, Canada. Henry and I hope to take the best from our jobs in the past and work together as a business partnership – we already make a cute couple.
You may have seen me around online before. I have a handbag company, iglubu, which has helped me learn a lot about online marketing, e-commerce and of course fabric. Henry brings technical and customer service skills to our business from his experience in engineering support.
Right now, we are actively looking for the perfect retail storefront (which we’ll talk about more in the future). Henry and I both have retail experience, but neither of have owned a shop before! Through this column we hope to provide a first hand, in depth look at what its like to open and run a shop. We have a few ideas for posts already, but we’d love to hear from you. In the comments below if you have any questions or topics you’d like to see covered, let us know!
Laying the First Brick:
To start off on a solid foundation, the most important thing we’ve done for our business is write a business plan. I know, I know, writing a business plan is about as exciting as it gets and it’s no problem convincing you to write one! Oh wait, you even hate the idea of writing a business plan? We felt the same way. In fact, shhh… don’t tell anyone, but I never wrote one for my handbag business. Now, after writing one for our shop I really wish I had.
There are a few good reasons for any business to write a business plan:
Any business that needs financing from a bank will be required to prepare a business plan.
The bank will use this important document to judge you, your business and the risk of your not paying back the loan. After reading that statement, its easy to think that you really don’t need a business plan if you won’t need a loan. This may be true and you might not ever need financing, but there are a few reasons to prepare a plan regardless.
With a business plan, you’ll know where you’re going and how you’re going to get there.
I would argue that if you are to make any investment in your business, either time or money, that you should have a good idea where that time or money is going, and what you intend to get back from your investment. In addition, your investment should fit within your determined business goals. For a brick and mortar store, our time and financial investment could be thousands of dollars over the course of one year. For someone that sells their own jewelry line in an Etsy shop, it might be $100 a month. Either way, in this economy no business can afford to spend without a clear plan.
A business plan also gives you confidence in your business.
This is more personal. After sitting down and writing the business plan with Henry, I knew we would be able to do it. Committing to writing a business plan is no small matter. Taking a day, week or even a month to put all your thoughts to paper in an organized manner instantly makes you serious. It forces you to work out the small problems that you might not have thought of yet. It also made me realize that we had an amazing, unique idea and outlook.
Through writing our business plan, I realized that each business is unique. Even though your business might be in something quite common, like making handbags, each business has something special that sets it apart. Finding what is unique in your business gives you passion for what you do. That can be very powerful when you are competing in a retail environment or on Etsy. It’s the passion that keeps you going.
It's also important to remember that once you complete your business plan, it will change many times:
As entrepreneurs, we are always coming up with new ways to market and new products to sell. A business plan will help you stay on top of these changes and see how this relates to other aspects of your business. Plus, if you develop your business plan now and keep it updated, in a few years, you just might need it to take a big leap and secure financing for future growth.
To help get you started we decided to challenge you to write or update your business plan over the next 6 weeks!
During that time, we’ll have 6 posts that will cover everything from business concept to financials and answer your questions along the way. Our first post will be next Thursday and will cover the market research needed to prepare your business plan.
Lili Nedved and Henry Sinha are opening a brick and mortar retail store in Vancouver, Canada. With lots experience staying up late and working on Lili’s handbag business, iglubu, Henry was recently promoted from an Electrical Engineer to Director of Fabric Organization. Lili hopes her Finance degree will give her the edge in the competition for Employee of the Month.
