Your Renaissance Soul and Your Business Plan

I hear you. You have a renaissance soul.

So many shiny things spark your interest. They mix and mingle into the the multi-faceted Thing that is your creative business.

So how does that work when you’re planning your business? How do you incorporate your renaissance soul into your business plan? Should you write one business plan to rule them all? Or a business plan for each venture?

It’s so tempting to write one business plan– after all, each of your Things is a part of who you are, a facet of your interests. But one business plan just won’t work.

For example, if you design wordpress blogs and sell knitted hats, neither activity is served well by a combined business plan. Your products and services are vastly different; your markets are different. By writing a plan for each, you get a clearer picture of the strength of each plan.

If you combine the blog design and knitted hats into one business plan, it might be easy to overlook weak areas and think the other venture will make up for the loss. If your knitted hats aren’t really making profit even though you’ve nailed your target hat market, and your blog design hasn’t really found its market even though your pricing is profitable, then neither venture is performing well. But on paper in a combined business plan, with something positive noted in each area, things might not look so bad.

Write a separate business plan for each venture.

For each area of your business plan:

1 Vision and Mission
2 Products and Services
3 Market Analysis
4 Marketing
5 Future Plans

Consider each of your ventures. Then after you’ve created a solid plan for each, look for synergy.

Maybe that mommy blog that you advertise your knitted hats on might be a good candidate for a blog design ad. Of course you’ll use separate ads, but maybe the mommy blog will offer you a discount for multiple ads.

Look for sticky bits.

Consider a photographer who sells fine art prints and photographs weddings. Some expensive camera gear could be shared between the ventures. But, depending on her location, the seasons for weekend art festivals (for fine art print sales) and weddings may overlap significantly. How will the photographer deal with competing interests for her time? Maybe she will decide to split her weekends between festivals and weddings. Maybe she will focus on one activity over the other. Maybe she will hire help. There’s not really a right answer here, the point is to use your written business plans to discover the path that works for you.

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