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From idea to business plan
Every successful self-employed person starts with
a strong initial idea. If you are convinced about your concept, then it’s time to think about your business plan and financial plan.
These are plans in which you describe what you are planning to do and what resources you need in order to do it.
- Describe your products and services and outline their most important features.
- What are your personal assets, knowledge and experience?
- What makes your business unique? Why should customers buy from you rather than the competitor?
- What is your target group? What are their needs and requirements?
- You should also think about your objectives and underlying motives.
- Always take into account trends and evolutions in the sector.
- Who will achieve your objectives and what personnel will you recruit? Do you need personnel or are you able to do it on your own?
- Set out your strategy.
- Who is the competition? And who are your potential collaborators?
- Have you already got suppliers and possible partners in mind?
- What investment and financing do you need? What are your fixed costs? Profit and turnover? (= financial plan)
- What are the growth forecasts in the short, medium and long term?
- Do a SWOT analysis on your product(s), service(s), employees and organisation. (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats)
- Examine the legislation and regulations. Social, economic, technological and ecological factors are also important.
- Choose an original business name. And check at the Kruispuntbank van Ondernemingen (KBO) that it is not already in use. KBO offers a list of all Belgian businesses.
- Protect your business name as a trademark and consult the website of the Federale Overheidsdienst Economie and the Beneluxvereniging voor Merken en Modellenrecht.
- Check too that the Internet address you want to use is still available a DNS, the institute that registers Belgian domain names.
human capital matters
