In many ways it is easier to make a case for developing business plans than to convince a budding entrepreneur that a marketing plan would be a good idea, if only because it is much harder to find people with ideas than when people are looking for financing. At the same time you want to reach out to these people before they sink a lot of their savings into a venture that is not on solid ground. A large part of the effort will be to educate prospects by explaining your services on-line via the internet, and then to find them on social media so you can direct them to your website.

Do not make the mistake of thinking that by hanging out an “electronic shingle” people will find you on the internet – that seldom happens when you need business, but it can happen when people want to offer referrals by means of a link. One of the better ideas is a live demonstration based on canned business ventures that people can understand, such as opening a restaurant that is a perennial favourite. Check around for venues that look for a speaker to introduce a business topic, and you may be able to run a live simulation to highlight how you go about providing a marketing plan preparation service.

It is important that you are a relatively smooth speaker to show what the Excel™ model does: our secret is a simulation engine that cycles through a number of combinations to illustrate the good and bad alternatives. That, we think, should generate some attention and hopefully create a buzz on what you have to offer to anyone who thinks about opening a business.

Make sure you create a solid brochure and prepare a presentation binder that steps a prospect through the process of creating a marketing plan. The foundation of this is, actually, our marketing planning course, and we have a set of PowerPoint slides that you can customize to reflect how you plan to operate your business. This information would also be featured on your web site. We always recommend subjecting new ideas to a marketing plan first to establish the high-level viability of the idea:

• Revenue Potential – we generally use customized Excel™ logic for the calculation of revenue under various assumptions. We typically do the analysis in gross sales based on a selected mix of products and price levels that will trigger a certain demand. We may see different levels of demand at different times during the day, and so on.
• Capacity – it is important to understand the production potential for a business venture. If you want to simulate a restaurant then you do take into account the number of meals you can serve, the seating, as well as the demand cap that this implies. Often you need to take the availability of parking into account.
• Operating Expenses – the cost of operation may not be linear based on volume of production or sales, and the model may have to adjust to minimum levels and actual demand levels as well as spare capacity to make sure we continue to satisfy customers.
• Cash Flow – we need to evaluate how the business can be profitable under different assumptions in order to find the sweet spot.

We use an engine to drive Excel™ through different combinations of data that represent different assumptions and calculations of the net outcome of those assumptions. While core calculations are still defined in Excel™ the engine collects key results and prioritizes the cases based on client sort criteria. Marketing plans may be detailed to the hours of the day across multiple days, and we may need to consider seasonality that must then be explained in the narrative report. We must also define boundary values to control simulated cases that should be discarded as not feasible.

The power of the simulation is that we can quickly run through hundreds of combinations and then have the simulation engine prioritize the best of all outcomes. Although the nature of doing combinations is a somewhat random effort the speed with which we can calculate many cases enables us to take all possibilities into account. The simulation incorporates tests that can disqualify out-of-bounds results like serving more plates than we have seating capacity in a restaurant, for example.

We can also explore a feasible range of alternative input values that yield positive results to see how that plays in a risk scenario. Sticking with the restaurant example we can evaluate the profitability of breakfast, lunch, or dinner service while a patron arrival pattern represents the level of sales around the core hours. All this means very little to a budding entrepreneur unless we are able to explain, and show, the results of our analysis. We need to incorporate the necessary assumptions highlighted in our SWOT analysis, and we may thus produce many variations in successive worksheets that have assumptions of various types that can potentially sink a venture, so we need to temper certain assumptions with a probability factor.

Since people have actually started restaurants without thinking through the seasonality factor of the venue, which has led to disastrous results, we cannot assume that a client has fully reflected all the assumptions up front. Lucky for us, Excel™ makes it easy to copy worksheets in order to generate new sets of assumptions, until the client decides there is enough material to make a decision.

The key to success is to generate quality results that people benefit from. Note that walking away from a bad opportunity is also a success because the client benefits from not sinking money into a bad (or marginal) idea. It is not difficult to establish a modeling process, and to document the steps you take to perform related services like a SWOT analysis that explores the competitive climate for a new product or service venture. You can deliver a marketing plan in about 6 weeks (not counting revisions a client asks for).

• Concept – make sure you completely understand the unique aspects of a new opportunity. Identify where you must customize the model to reflect the specific calculations that must be performed.
• SWOT analysis – understand the competitive environment that this concept will be up against, to identify what actions competitors may take to compete head-on with the client.
• Parameters – understand what aspects of the marketing plan will be the elements that we want to vary in order to determine the impact on the business idea.
• Model creation – customize the model to incorporate all the changes needed to reflect the specific business opportunity, SWOT findings, and operational parameters.
• Simulation – execute the analysis by running through all cases to find the feasible operating region. Correct and repeat the simulation until the required information has been generated.
• Reporting – consolidate the information into a final marketing plan with recommendations for how a client can achieve the best results.

This is the end-product that you deliver to the client. Note that sometimes the final version of the plan may lead to new ideas or improvements over the original idea of the entrepreneur, so that subsequent plans are made.

Learning Formats       SEBC_DMP

This course is currently available in a classroom setting (public or company private) with approximately 30 contact hours. The intent is to perform an actual marketing plan exercise to confirm the student understands it.

PDF – Certificate Of Completion

Each course offers a certificate of completion that identifies the course, the student, and a brief description of the course. To receive a certificate the student must have attended at least 80% of the course sessions. This personalized certificate is forwarded to the student by Email.

PDF – Course Notebook

Each course includes a notebook in PDF format that provides the minimum knowledge the student must master in order to obtain the certificate. In the notebook you will find references to other study materials. Students receive the notebook by Email when their registration is confirmed.

PDF – Program Overview

An overview of this study program can be downloaded from the website by right-clicking on the program link on the enquiry page.

PDF – Current Training Schedule

A list of upcoming training sessions can be downloaded from the website by right-clicking on the schedule link on the enquiry page.

Registration – Service Providers

To register for any training course please look on the enquiry link page of your service provider (from where you accessed this website). On the page you will find a registration request form where you can order the course that you are interested in. The availability dates will be provided to you, along with payment instructions if you decide to go ahead.