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Business analysis techniques are essential tools and methodologies employed by organizations to assess and enhance their processes, strategies, and outcomes. These techniques serve as the foundation for informed decision-making, enabling businesses to identify areas for improvement, anticipate potential challenges, and capitalize on opportunities.
Business analysis techniques encompass a variety of methods and frameworks designed to examine and improve different aspects of an organization. These techniques help businesses understand their operations, improve processes, and achieve their objectives. Business analysis techniques can be used individually or in combination, depending on the specific needs and context of the business analysis project. From SWOT Analysis to PESTLE Analysis, these techniques provide structured approaches to problem-solving and strategic planning . By visualizing data and processes, business analysis techniques aid in aligning organizational goals with actionable insights.
Implementing effective business analysis techniques is crucial for several reasons:
Enhanced Decision-Making: By providing a comprehensive understanding of the internal and external factors affecting a business, these techniques facilitate better strategic decisions.
Risk Management: Business analysis frameworks like Porter’s Five Forces help identify potential threats and competitive pressures, allowing businesses to proactively mitigate risks.
Improved Efficiency: Techniques such as Business Process Modelling (BPM) enable organizations to map and optimize their processes, enhancing operational efficiency and resource utilization.
Strategic Alignment: Methods like MOST Analysis ensure that an organization’s mission, objectives, strategies, and tactics are aligned, promoting cohesive and strategic growth.
Innovation and Flexibility: Agile and Scrum frameworks support iterative development, fostering innovation and adaptability in dynamic business environments.
With the integration of visual collaboration tools like Creately , organizations can streamline the application of these business analysis processes and methods. Creately’s platform supports visual modeling, collaborative planning, and data-integrated diagrams, enhancing the overall effectiveness of business analysis.
1. swot analysis.
SWOT Analysis is a cornerstone in the array of business analysis techniques and is extensively appreciated for its simplicity and effectiveness. SWOT analysis is a widely used business analysis technique that helps organizations identify and understand their Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.
Opportunities
It’s instrumental in strategic planning, helping to identify areas for improvement and opportunities for growth. In 2024, integrating the SWOT Analysis tool from Creately can further enhance its effectiveness by visually mapping out each component, enabling better comprehension and collaboration among team members.
PESTLE Analysis is another fundamental business analysis method that focuses on external macro-environmental factors affecting organizations. It evaluates Political, Economic, Sociocultural, Technological, Legal, and Environmental aspects to help businesses identify potential opportunities and threats from the broader landscape.
Technological
Environmental
This analysis is crucial for understanding the external environment’s impact on business strategies. Creately can facilitate PESTLE Analysis by providing user-friendly templates and visual aids, making it easier to organize and present complex data comprehensively.
Porter’s Five Forces is a powerful framework for assessing industry attractiveness and profitability. This is a business analysis technique developed by Michael E. Porter to understand the competitive forces that shape an industry and influence an organization’s strategy. It examines five key forces: threat of new entrants, bargaining power of buyers and suppliers, threat of substitutes, and competitive rivalry.
1. Competitive Rivalry
2. Threat of New Entrants
3. Bargaining Power of Suppliers
4. Bargaining Power of Buyers
5. Threat of Substitutes
By evaluating these forces, businesses can understand the competitive dynamics of their industry and formulate strategic responses. Utilizing Creately’s Porter’s Five Forces Tool can aid in mapping these forces, enabling teams to visualize and discuss strategic options effectively.
Business Process Modelling (BPM) is essential for representing and analyzing business processes through visual representations. This technique helps identify inefficiencies, bottlenecks, and areas for improvement in workflows.
Process Modeling
Process Design
Process Implementation
Process Monitoring
Definition : Tracking and analyzing the performance of business processes. Examples : Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), dashboards, and real-time analytics.
Process Optimization
Definition : Continuously improving business processes based on performance data and feedback. Examples : Identifying bottlenecks, implementing process changes, and adopting best practices.
BPM is not only vital for operational optimization but also for aligning processes with business strategies. Creately’s support for data-integrated diagrams and visualization BPM tool makes it an excellent platform for BPM, allowing teams to create clear, interactive models that enhance understanding and collaboration. Read more on Creately’s guide on how to improve Business Process Modelling.
The Agile methodology and the Scrum framework have become popular for their emphasis on flexibility, collaboration, and iterative development. Agile focuses on responding rapidly to changes and delivering value incrementally, while Scrum organizes work into sprints, promoting continuous improvement and team collaboration.
A broad project management philosophy emphasizing flexibility, collaboration, and customer satisfaction. | A specific framework within Agile used primarily for managing software development projects. | |
Iterative and incremental development. | Iterative development using fixed-length sprints. | |
General guidelines and principles. | Specific roles, events, and artifacts. | |
Based on the Agile Manifesto with 12 guiding principles. | Defined by a set of roles (Product Owner, Scrum Master, Development Team), events (Sprint, Daily Scrum, Sprint Planning, Sprint Review, Sprint Retrospective), and artifacts (Product Backlog, Sprint Backlog, Increment). | |
Highly flexible, can be adapted to various types of projects. | More structured, best suited for projects where requirements may change rapidly. | |
No defined roles; teams are usually self-organizing. | Defined roles: Product Owner, Scrum Master, Development Team. | |
Emphasizes working software over comprehensive documentation, but allows flexibility based on project needs. | Minimal documentation; focuses on creating working increments of the product. | |
No mandatory meetings, but regular reviews and adaptations are encouraged. | Specific meetings: Sprint Planning, Daily Scrum, Sprint Review, Sprint Retrospective. | |
Continuous planning throughout the project lifecycle. | Planning occurs at the beginning of each sprint. | |
Projects are continuous with no fixed end date. | Sprints are time-boxed, typically lasting 2-4 weeks. | |
Continuous delivery of product increments. | Delivery of a potentially shippable product increment at the end of each sprint. | |
Various metrics can be used depending on the project. | Specific metrics such as velocity, burndown charts, and sprint progress. | |
Projects requiring flexibility and frequent changes. | Projects needing a structured framework to manage frequent changes and iterative development. |
Integrating Agile and Scrum practices with visual tools like Creately, especially through the use of visual Kanban board software, makes workflow management more intuitive. Creately’s collaborative planning tools enable teams to visualize tasks, track progress, and make adjustments swiftly, ensuring that projects stay on track and objectives are met efficiently.
Root Cause Analysis (RCA) is a method used to identify the underlying causes of problems or incidents to prevent their recurrence. RCA aims to uncover the fundamental issues that lead to problems rather than just addressing the symptoms. By identifying root causes, organizations can implement corrective actions that prevent future occurrences. Root Cause Analysis is a critical tool for problem-solving and continuous improvement in any organization. By systematically identifying and addressing the underlying causes of problems, organizations can enhance their processes, prevent future issues, and achieve better overall performance. Creately’s Root Cause Analysis tool provides user-friendly templates and visual aids, making it easier to organize and present complex data comprehensively.
Stakeholder Analysis is a crucial technique in business analysis and project management. It involves identifying and assessing the impact, influence, and interest of various stakeholders on a project or business initiative. Effective stakeholder mapping analysis ensures that the needs and concerns of all relevant parties are considered, leading to more successful outcomes.
By systematically identifying and understanding stakeholders' interests and influence, organizations can develop effective engagement strategies, manage expectations, and ensure that all relevant parties are considered in decision-making processes. This leads to better project outcomes and stronger relationships with stakeholders. Integrating the Stakeholder Analysis Tool from Creately can further enhance its effectiveness by visually mapping out each component, enabling better comprehension and collaboration among team members.
Customer Journey Mapping is a powerful business analysis method that helps organizations visualize and understand the customer’s experience from their perspective.
This technique is essential for identifying touchpoints, pain points, and opportunities for enhancing customer satisfaction and loyalty. Customer Journey Mapping aims to create a visual representation of the customer’s experience across various stages and touchpoints with a product, service, or brand. It helps businesses understand and improve the customer experience by identifying areas where the process can be streamlined or enhanced.
1. design thinking.
Design Thinking is a powerful methodology centered around empathy, ideation, and prototyping. By focusing on understanding the user’s experience, businesses can design solutions that truly meet user needs. This technique involves five stages: empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test. Design Thinking fosters innovation by encouraging iterative feedback and collaboration among diverse teams. It’s particularly useful for addressing complex problems and developing user-centric products.
MOST Analysis stands for Mission, Objectives, Strategies, and Tactics. This framework helps organizations maintain strategic alignment by breaking down their mission into specific, actionable steps. The process begins by defining the mission, followed by identifying objectives to achieve that mission. Subsequently, organizations develop strategies and tactics to implement these strategies effectively. MOST Analysis is integral for ensuring that every business action aligns with the overarching goals and vision.
MoSCoW Prioritization is a technique used to prioritize requirements based on their importance. It categorizes requirements into four groups: Must have, Should have, Could have, and Won’t have. This method ensures that essential requirements (Must haves) are addressed first, enabling effective resource allocation and project management. MoSCoW Prioritization is especially useful in Agile development environments, where it supports iterative and incremental delivery.
CATWOE stands for Clients, Actors, Transformation, Worldview, Owners, and Environment. This technique is used to analyze how proposed changes will impact different stakeholders. By considering the perspectives of clients and actors, understanding the transformation process, and evaluating the worldview and environmental constraints, businesses can develop well-rounded strategies. CATWOE helps in identifying potential conflicts and areas that need more attention, making it a valuable tool for comprehensive problem-solving.
Brainstorming is a group activity designed to generate a wide range of ideas and solutions. This creative process encourages open discussion and leverages diverse perspectives, leading to innovative solutions. Brainstorming techniques are highly effective for root cause analysis and identifying multiple approaches to a problem. Integrating tools like Creately’s Brainstorming Chart maker can enhance the brainstorming process by providing visual aids and collaborative spaces where teams can map ideas, create diagrams, and track their thought process in real-time.
Integrating business analysis techniques with advanced visual tools can greatly improve your brainstorming, planning, and execution processes. Creately stands out as a platform that facilitates such integration effectively, providing a seamless experience for business analysts, project managers, and corporate strategists. Here, we explore how Creately supports different business analysis frameworks and improves collaboration.
Creately offers a range of powerful features tailored for business analysis:
Diagrams and Template Libraries: Creately offers 8000+ professional templates/diagrams and 200,000+ examples spanning across industries to get a head start.
Infinite Canvas: Creately’s Infinite Canvas makes it easy to work on projects and serves as a central hub. Creately allows users to drag drop shapes or datasets, embed external content which makes it a great tool.
Real-time collaboration: Features like synchronous editing, real-time mouse tracking, real-time collaboration, include add and invite users, sharing documents and comments and in-app video conferencing make remote collaboration smooth and effective, emulating an in-person teamwork environment.
Data-integrated diagrams: Creately allows users to create diagrams that integrate live data , attaching notes and documents to diagrams ensuring real-time updates and a single source of truth.
Collaborative planning tools: With tools like Kanban boards, Gantt charts, and user story maps, teams can plan and execute projects collaboratively.
AI-powered tools: Enhance efficiency and accuracy with smart suggestions and automated diagramming capabilities. Explore Creately VIZ for more insight on AI capabilities.
Business Process Modelling is crucial for visualizing complex workflows and identifying inefficiencies. With Creately, you can easily create detailed BPM diagrams that support better decision-making and process optimization. Visual collaboration tools like the infinite canvas enable teams to map out processes in detail and iterate on them collaboratively. For example:
Agile and Scrum methodologies are essential for maintaining flexibility and iterative development in projects. Creately’s Kanban board software offer an integrated solution for managing Agile workflows:
By leveraging Creately’s robust platform, business analysis techniques like BPM and Agile can be effectively integrated to enhance collaboration, planning, and execution. This fusion of business analysis methods with visual collaboration tools not only improves efficiency but also drives better project outcomes.
Case study: implementing swot analysis for strategic planning.
One real-world example where SWOT analysis was pivotal involves a mid-sized e-commerce company looking to expand its market reach. By using SWOT analysis, the company meticulously identified its internal strengths and weaknesses and external opportunities and threats. This method provided a comprehensive view of the market landscape, allowing them to formulate a robust strategy that aligned with their strengths and addressed vulnerabilities.
Highlights of the Case Study:
Another illustrative example is an IT services firm that utilized MOST analysis to realign its strategic priorities amid rapid technological changes. By focusing on their Mission, Objectives, Strategies, and Tactics, they could ensure that all business activities remained cohesive and purpose-driven. This approach was essential in maintaining alignment between their overarching goals and the specific actions undertaken to achieve them.
Key Outcomes:
These case studies underscore the significance of employing structured business analysis techniques to drive strategic decisions. A crucial lesson learned is the importance of continuous assessment and adaptation. Utilizing tools like Creately can enhance these techniques, offering visual collaboration features that streamline planning, documentation, and execution across teams.
By integrating business analysis methods with Creately’s visual platform, businesses can:
In conclusion, whether employing SWOT, MOST, or any other business analysis technique, leveraging visual collaboration tools enhances overall effectiveness, leading to better alignment and successful outcomes.
In the dynamic landscape of modern business, employing robust business analysis techniques is essential for strategic decision-making, risk management, and process optimization. Techniques like SWOT, PESTLE, Porter’s Five Forces, BPM, Agile, and Scrum offer structured frameworks to assess and improve various organizational aspects. Emerging methodologies like Design Thinking, MOST Analysis, MoSCoW Prioritization, CATWOE, and Brainstorming further enrich the analytical toolkit, fostering innovation and adaptability.
The integration of these techniques with advanced visual tools like Creately significantly enhances their application. Creately’s features—such as data-integrated diagrams, collaborative planning tools, real-time collaboration, and AI-powered assistance—streamline the analysis process, making it more efficient and effective. By leveraging Creately, organizations can visualize complex processes, ensure strategic alignment, and respond swiftly to market changes, ultimately driving better project outcomes and sustainable growth.
Join over thousands of organizations that use Creately to brainstorm, plan, analyze, and execute their projects successfully.
Heroshe is a content specialist and a writer at Creately, online diagramming and collaboration tool. He is responsible for creating engaging, informative, and high-quality content that helps users understand and utilize the platform's features effectively. He mainly focuses on making complex concepts easy to grasp, and is passionate about art & music.
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IR-2024-196, July 25, 2024
WASHINGTON — As part of ongoing transformation efforts, the Internal Revenue Service announced today continued progress on a variety of taxpayer service and technology projects using Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) funding that expand online tools and digital services.
The IRS highlighted improvements, including six new features to help taxpayers using the Individual Online Account, a new Spanish version of the Business Tax Account tool and the availability of amended business forms that can be filed electronically. In addition, the IRS announced hitting the milestone of 1 million submissions through the Document Upload Tool and more special Community Assistance Visits to help taxpayers in underserved parts of the country.
“Funding from the Inflation Reduction Act is helping spur innovation and improvement across the IRS to transform our operations in our work to help taxpayers and the nation,” said IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel. “This progress can be seen in our continued expansion of our online accounts to provide more features, increased use of new digital tools and additional special activities to help taxpayers in-person. By providing digital forms, making payments easier and continuing work to reduce paper-based processes that have long hampered the IRS and frustrated taxpayers, our progress is accelerating to make long-overdue improvements.”
Werfel highlighted these efforts as part of a quarterly update on the IRS Strategic Operating Plan, the transformational effort using IRA funding. As these initiatives continue to improve taxpayer service and expand online tools, the agency is also working to modernize its core technology infrastructure and compliance efforts focused on neglected problem areas involving high-income taxpayers, partnerships and corporations.
Taxpayers deserve the same functionality in their online accounts that they experience with their bank or other financial institutions. As detailed in the Strategic Operating Plan, the IRS is working to transform its operations to enable a future in which all taxpayers can meet their responsibilities, including interactions with the IRS, in a digital manner if they prefer. As part of this vision, taxpayers will be able to securely file all documents and respond to all notices online as well as securely access and download their data and account history. The IRS has hit or is progressing toward several milestones toward these goals, including:
The IRS continues to focus on helping taxpayers get it right the first time, helping them to interact with the agency in the ways that work best for them on the phone, in-person and online. The IRS is expanding in-person service, particularly those in underserved and rural communities.
During the filing season, IRS Taxpayer Assistance Centers had a 37% increase in face-to-face contacts, with the IRS working with nearly 1.3 million taxpayers for this calendar year through July 13. The IRS also received 2.7 million volunteer prepared returns to date compared to 2.5 million last year, an increase of 9.1%.
This summer, the IRS is continuing its special series of Community Assistance Visits to give taxpayers living in areas far from the agency’s in-person offices an opportunity to meet face-to-face with IRS customer service representatives. These visits, which began last year with IRA funding, provide help for taxpayers who live about a two-hour drive away from an IRS office.
The IRS has already hosted events in Roma, Texas; Humboldt, Iowa; Hazlehurst, Georgia; and Orocovis , Puerto Rico. This week, the agency is offering face-to-face help at a temporary Taxpayer Assistance Center in Gallup, New Mexico. Upcoming Community Assistance Visits include:
More information on these events will be available on IRS.gov closer to the event date.
In addition to improvements to customer-facing technology, the IRS is modernizing decades-old systems and equipment:
Beyond the improvements made in direct support of taxpayers, foundational technology has continued the incremental improvements needed to increase operational effectiveness and efficiency for IRS employees, which ultimately helps taxpayers:
The IRS is also continuing work to ensure large corporate, large partnership and high-income individual filers pay the taxes they owe. Prior to the Inflation Reduction Act, more than a decade of budget cuts prevented the IRS from keeping pace with the increasingly complicated set of tools that the wealthiest taxpayers use to hide their income and evade paying their share. The IRS is now taking a variety of steps to close this gap.
The IRS has ramped up efforts to pursue high-income, high-wealth individuals who have either not filed their taxes or failed to pay recognized tax debt, with dozens of revenue officers focused on these high-end collection cases. These efforts are concentrated among taxpayers with more than $1 million in income and more than $250,000 in recognized tax debt. Earlier this month, the IRS announced that it has collected more than $1 billion from high-wealth taxpayers as part of an effort to ensure these individuals pay what they owe. The $1 billion collected represents collections as of April 2024, with work continuing in this area.
In addition to these areas mentioned above, the IRS has a number of initiatives where changes related to the Inflation Reduction Act will accelerate later this year and into the 2025 filing season. Here are some examples:
More information on these and other improvements related to the 2025 tax season will be available later this fall.
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Sales leaders often want to know how to improve their revenue or hit their sales numbers. To reach new heights, you need to start by building a solid foundation. That’s your business development plan. If you’re wondering where to begin, you’re in the right place to learn. We’ll explore how business development works and how to create a winning plan.
What is business development, what’s the difference between sales and business development, how does business development work, why is business development important, how to create a business development plan in 7 steps, what’s the best technology for business development planning, sales planning can be delightful. no, really..
Our Sales Planning solution keeps sellers on track with easy-to-build and easy-to-optimize sales plans.
Business development (BD) is the process of long-term planning to increase your company’s value through relationships, markets, and customers. It involves researching your target audience, finding new opportunities, and using your channels to reach them. Your sales representatives can only close the leads they’re talking to. Finding and starting those conversations is what business development is all about.
The sales team receives leads, works them through their sales pipeline , and sells your company’s products and services. Sales representatives work their territories and their lists to close deals and convert leads to customers. It’s a transactional and tactical process.
On the other hand, the business development team digs through the entire marketplace to find new growth opportunities. Business development representatives prospect, reach out to leads, qualify them, and move them through the funnel. It’s a strategic process that requires patience.
When both teams are working together, businesses thrive.
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Business development takes many forms. Researching the market to find growth opportunities. Creating a new lead-qualifying process. Managing a project across departments with marketing and sales. Analyzing data to validate a theory. And of course, sales prospecting to find good leads.
So where do brand-new growth opportunities come from? Here are some places to start:
Whether you’re thinking about transitioning into a role as a business development representative (BDR), or you simply need to add BD skills as you start wearing more hats in your current role, you’ll need some important skills. It’s easy enough to get started. Develop a curiosity about the customers you serve, the problems you solve, and the market you’re in. Here are some core skills:
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Nothing stays still in the world of sales.
According to the State of Sales report , 82% of sellers say they’ve had to quickly adapt to new ways of selling in the face of global challenges, including supply chain issues, inflation, and health precautions. On top of that, 57% of buyers said they prefer engaging with companies through digital channels. And 81% of sales reps said buyers are increasingly doing their own research before reaching out.
You need to adapt your plan as markets shift, and that’s where business development comes in.
Business development is the core activity that helps an organization find new areas of growth and strategize on making those areas work. It’s important for finding new leads, converting them, and keeping them as reliable customers.
What is business development planning? If I was joining a brand-new team and building a plan from scratch, here’s how I’d approach it.
Start by reverse-engineering how to hit your target. Let’s say my quota is closing a million dollars a year, so that’s $250,000 per quarter. Ask these questions:
To create the goal at the start of that list, use S.M.A.R.T. goals (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely).
So if I want that $250,000 in a quarter, that’s specific . We can measure all the stats in our sales math to figure out if we’re on track. To judge if the goal is attainable , we’d need to calculate the lead and volume increase. A jump of a few percent points is likely; a 50% increase isn’t. Any goal that’s geared towards growing the business is relevant to the business development representative’s job. And it’s timely because it’s set for this quarter.
As a subset of the goal setting, we need to choose the KPIs that we’ll measure along the way. Try these common KPIs for business development:
The next thing I want to know is how we’re messaging (and to whom). These are the core components of a solid business development plan:
Once we know these, we can figure out how to position our product or service to our target audience.
Even a niche product can draw in a pretty broad list of leads. However, it’s not effective for our sales reps to just work a list of 100 accounts from top to bottom. If only a small percentage of your target market is in buying mode right now, you need a targeting strategy .
You need to pick low-effort targets first who have buying intent. If you’re collecting leads in a fully featured CRM, the system can track actions they take, including opening marketing emails you send to them, visiting key parts of your site, and even interacting with your social posts. AI can elevate these leads as “high intent,” or it can be done manually by reviewing actions taken by your leads list.
Once you know your product-market fit, who you’re talking to, and how you’re approaching them, you can boil your messaging down to a sales pitch . It should explain your business’s mission and how it fits with the needs of your target persona in an attention-grabbing way.
From there, you’ll need to adapt that message to all kinds of sales enablement strategies. You should be asking questions like:
All this work will cost money. While it’s expected to have a return on investment (ROI), it’s not as immediate as sales activity. The budget needs to account for necessary personnel, tools, and forecasted returns. You’ll need to work with your finance team to ensure you have funds allocated to bring your plan to life.
Finally, you need to decide how you’re going to prospect and nurture your leads, which depends on the budget you just set. Here are some methods to consider:
Once you’ve chosen your mix of outreach methods, you need to decide on the cadence and order of channels. For example, you might use social posts to get the initial leads to your site. From there, you could pepper them with retargeting ads to make sure they sign up for your email list. Then you reach out with a “welcome series” of emails that introduce and entice them to your offer. The offer and messaging could change the longer they go without taking any action.
Form a plan to measure the relative success of each individual outreach strategy to decide where to invest more the next time around. Methods that lag behind should be investigated for weak points where leads are lost so they can be tweaked and tested in the market again.
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The modern business development team needs a good tech stack.
A customer relationship management (CRM) platform helps track the pipeline you’re building. Standardize the cadence of your outreach and build repeatable sequences that your entire team follows to help enforce your strategy.
Lead scoring helps you know when to move prospects to different parts of the pipeline, and some programs even monitor and collect customer signals to help automatically notify business development representatives when it’s time to reach out again.
No matter what platforms and tools you choose, it’s important to start with a process before throwing data intelligence and automation at your problems. Technology can only scale a process. If that process is broken or bad, it’s just going to make your problems bigger.
Before you can hit your numbers, you need a plan to get there. Set S.M.A.R.T. goals, build your customer persona, and choose the right channels to reach your prospects. When you do this, you can build a roadmap for the future and grow your revenue.
Learn how Sales Planning helps you optimize for customer coverage, and gives you the flexibility to handle change.
Erin Hueffner is a writer from Madison, Wisconsin. Her career spans two decades in tech, journalism, and content marketing. At Salesforce, Erin’s work focuses on sales fundamentals and best practice content for Salesblazers. Erin has a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of ... Read More Wisconsin-Madison.
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How to budget: tips, tools, and techniques.
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A budget is, at its simplest, a plan for how you'll spend your earnings. It ensures you have the funds to cover your essentials — like housing, groceries, utilities, and your monthly debt payments — while also working toward other financial and savings goals .
In short: Budgets allow you to get the most out of your paycheck. Without one, there's a chance you could run out of money before your next pay date.
Budgeting is critical if you want to stay on top of bills, pay off debts , or save for the future, and there are several ways to go about it.
"Building a budget doesn't have to be overly complicated or time-consuming," says Brittany Castro, former in-house CFP for Mint. "It's actually the first step in putting yourself in control of your finances because it means you know where your money goes each month."
Budgeting as a beginner can be daunting. Use these steps when making a personal finance budget for the first time:
To start budgeting, you first need a good pulse on your monthly income — more specifically, how much you take home each after taxes. If you're unsure what your net income (your income after taxes) looks like off the top of your head, you can typically use pay stubs or bank statements to get these numbers.
Once you have your income estimated, you'll also need to estimate your monthly expenses — things like your rent or mortgage, utility costs, groceries, insurance, and gas. If you have debts (like credit cards or personal loans ), add these in as well. Then compare the two numbers.
"If your expected expenses are greater than your expected income, you will need to earn additional income, cut out some purchases, go into debt, or do a combination of these three," says Todd Christensen, an accredited financial counselor and education manager at Money Fit.
If your income outweighs your expenses, though, that means you have extra cash to put in savings, add to an emergency fund , or put toward other financial goals.
The next step is to create your budget — a specific plan for how you'll use your earnings each month and eventually achieve your financial goals.
There are several strategies for doing this, each with its own pros and cons. Here are a few of the options you might consider:
According to Christensen, the 50/30/20 rule has become increasingly popular in the last 20 years. "It suggests you live on 50% of your income — housing, transportation, cell phone, utilities — enjoy 30% with dining out, recreation, or travel, and save and invest 20%."
The benefit here is that it's a simple, easy-to-learn approach, and it doesn't force you to account for every single purchase or expenditure. On the downside, it doesn't take into account your circumstances and may not work in every scenario. (If you live in a high-cost housing market, for example, adhering to that 50% rule may be unrealistic.)
The 70/20/10 rule is similar to the 50/30/20 rule in that it has a loose budgeting structure. The categories for this budgeting strategy are: 70% goes to wants and needs, 20% goes toward savings and investments, and 10% goes toward debt payments or donations.
With a zero-balance budget, you're trying to get your income minus your expenses to equal zero. That means you use all your income each month — first, toward your essentials, and then, toward your wants and financial goals. Under this strategy, if you were to find yourself with an unspent $300 at the end of the month, you'd put that money in savings, make an extra loan payment, or make some other use of it.
The advantage of a zero-balance budget is that it accounts for every dollar, ensuring you make the absolute most of your earnings. The main drawback is that it's time-consuming. Tracking each expenditure and every dollar you earn can be tiresome. It's also difficult to use on unpredictable incomes (you never know how much you can allot for each expense).
The pay yourself first strategy starts with your financial goals and works backward. So, say you know you want to put $500 toward your mortgage and $500 into savings each month. You'd start by subtracting that $1,000 from your monthly take-home pay (for example, $4,000 - $1,000), and then use that number ($3,000) for your monthly bills and expenses.
This strategy's big perk is that it prioritizes your goals and allows flexibility in spending. On the downside, it may create stress if you leave yourself with too little to cover your monthly costs.
The envelope system is a monthly budgeting method created by financial author Dave Ramsey. It requires putting cash into individual envelopes for each expense or category of expenses (e.g., housing, utilities, food, and entertainment). You then pull cash out of the envelopes as costs arise during the month.
If you run out of money in an envelope, it's a sign you overspent or need to allot more to that category. If you have lots left over, you can adjust the budget for the next month and put those funds elsewhere.
The benefit of this method is that it's visual and tangible, making it easy to understand your budget and how you can improve it. Unfortunately, it's also time-consuming, and cash isn't always accepted — especially in today's digital economy.
While you go about creating a budget, it's important to fully analyze your expenses. You should ask yourself: Are those expenses necessary? If so, are there ways to reduce them or make them more affordable? This might mean renegotiating your pricing, switching service providers, or looking for coupons or special deals.
Here are some budgeting tips to cut down what you spend:
Cutting back even slightly could free up more cash for paying down debts, achieving your financial goals, or just reducing overall financial stress.
No matter which budgeting method you choose, it's important to make saving a part of your plan. Typically, the best option is an automated deposit into your savings account, as this reduces hassle and keeps your goals on track. To maximize your savings, you might consider a high-yield savings account , which earns money at a higher rate than other options.
Once you've automated your savings, you can also think about investing any income you might have left over. If this is something you're interested in, consider talking to a certified financial planner before diving in. They can help you choose the best investments for your goals.
Budgets are ever-evolving tools, and you'll need to track your progress, adjust, and recalibrate often — especially in the beginning. You'll also need to adjust your spending habits as you go.
"The key is to identify your spending trends and ensure they match up with your spending priorities," Christensen says. "If you're spending $50 a week on soft drinks, but you would rather prioritize the purchase of a new gaming console, then it's time to change your soft-drink purchasing behavior."
Though you can certainly manually check in on your budget, Christensen recommends using a budgeting app that connects to your bank account, as these can streamline the process. For example, Rocket Money is an app that helps you create a budget, negotiate your bills, and reduce your spending — and it has a free plan.
Some budgeting apps offer credit monitoring services , as well. Consider tracking your credit score and credit card use when you're tracking your budget to better understand all of your financial needs.
You can also create an expense tracking spreadsheet in Excel, ask for receipts for every purchase, and total them up at the end of each week or month.
If you're struggling financially, budgeting is particularly important. As Lisa Fischer, chief growth and lending officer at Mission Lane , explains, "Keeping a close eye on spending is crucial for all consumers, but especially those who may be living paycheck to paycheck."
Not only can budgeting help you monitor your spending habits and stay on track with bills and expenses, but it can also ensure you prioritize saving, which should improve your financial outlook down the line.
In addition to budgeting, you can consider applying for rental or housing payment assistance, food pantries, and health care sharing plans to reduce your costs. Financial, debt, or credit counseling might be helpful as well. If this is something you're interested in, the nonprofit National Foundation for Credit Counseling is a good place to start.
If you want to make the most of your income while also achieving your long-term financial goals, having a budget is crucial. As Castro explains, "You need a solid budget and financial plan in order to set yourself up for long-term financial wellness, avoid running into problems such as racking up credit card debt, and build your net worth over time."
There are many ways to go about budgeting, and you may need to try a few before you find the right fit. You can also speak to a financial advisor for help choosing the best budgeting route for your household.
The best way to start a budget is to figure out how much you're making and compare it to what you're spending. Then you can figure out what budgeting method you want to use.
Cash stuffing is a budgeting technique that involves assigning monthly spending and saving categories to different envelopes. Then you put the amount of money you want to spend on those categories into the envelopes.
The 50/30/20 rule is a budgeting technique in which you assign 50% of your income to living expenses (such as rent and utilities), 30% of your income to non-necessary expenses (such as concerts or travel), and 20% to savings and investments.
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Updated: Apr 17, 2024, 11:59am
Brainstorm an executive summary, create a company description, brainstorm your business goals, describe your services or products, conduct market research, create financial plans, bottom line, frequently asked questions.
Every business starts with a vision, which is distilled and communicated through a business plan. In addition to your high-level hopes and dreams, a strong business plan outlines short-term and long-term goals, budget and whatever else you might need to get started. In this guide, we’ll walk you through how to write a business plan that you can stick to and help guide your operations as you get started.
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An executive summary is an extremely important first step in your business. You have to be able to put the basic facts of your business in an elevator pitch-style sentence to grab investors’ attention and keep their interest. This should communicate your business’s name, what the products or services you’re selling are and what marketplace you’re entering.
When drafting the executive summary, you should have a few different options. Enlist a few thought partners to review your executive summary possibilities to determine which one is best.
After you have the executive summary in place, you can work on the company description, which contains more specific information. In the description, you’ll need to include your business’s registered name , your business address and any key employees involved in the business.
The business description should also include the structure of your business, such as sole proprietorship , limited liability company (LLC) , partnership or corporation. This is the time to specify how much of an ownership stake everyone has in the company. Finally, include a section that outlines the history of the company and how it has evolved over time.
Wherever you are on the business journey, you return to your goals and assess where you are in meeting your in-progress targets and setting new goals to work toward.
Goals can cover a variety of sections of your business. Financial and profit goals are a given for when you’re establishing your business, but there are other goals to take into account as well with regard to brand awareness and growth. For example, you might want to hit a certain number of followers across social channels or raise your engagement rates.
Another goal could be to attract new investors or find grants if you’re a nonprofit business. If you’re looking to grow, you’ll want to set revenue targets to make that happen as well.
Goals unrelated to traceable numbers are important as well. These can include seeing your business’s advertisement reach the general public or receiving a terrific client review. These goals are important for the direction you take your business and the direction you want it to go in the future.
The business plan should have a section that explains the services or products that you’re offering. This is the part where you can also describe how they fit in the current market or are providing something necessary or entirely new. If you have any patents or trademarks, this is where you can include those too.
If you have any visual aids, they should be included here as well. This would also be a good place to include pricing strategy and explain your materials.
This is the part of the business plan where you can explain your expertise and different approach in greater depth. Show how what you’re offering is vital to the market and fills an important gap.
You can also situate your business in your industry and compare it to other ones and how you have a competitive advantage in the marketplace.
Other than financial goals, you want to have a budget and set your planned weekly, monthly and annual spending. There are several different costs to consider, such as operational costs.
Rent for your business is the first big cost to factor into your budget. If your business is remote, the cost that replaces rent will be the software that maintains your virtual operations.
Marketing and sales costs should be next on your list. Devoting money to making sure people know about your business is as important as making sure it functions.
Although you can’t anticipate disasters, there are likely to be unanticipated costs that come up at some point in your business’s existence. It’s important to factor these possible costs into your financial plans so you’re not caught totally unaware.
Business plans are important for businesses of all sizes so that you can define where your business is and where you want it to go. Growing your business requires a vision, and giving yourself a roadmap in the form of a business plan will set you up for success.
When you’re working on a business plan, make sure you have as much information as possible so that you can simplify it to the most relevant information. A simple business plan still needs all of the parts included in this article, but you can be very clear and direct.
The most common mistakes in a business plan are common writing issues like grammar errors or misspellings. It’s important to be clear in your sentence structure and proofread your business plan before sending it to any investors or partners.
When writing out a business plan, you want to make sure that you cover everything related to your concept for the business, an analysis of the industry―including potential customers and an overview of the market for your goods or services―how you plan to execute your vision for the business, how you plan to grow the business if it becomes successful and all financial data around the business, including current cash on hand, potential investors and budget plans for the next few years.
Julia is a writer in New York and started covering tech and business during the pandemic. She also covers books and the publishing industry.
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5 Best Business Plan Software and Tools in 2023 for Your Small Business. Entrepreneurs who write formal business plans are 16% more likely to achieve success than entrepreneurs who don't. 1 This software can help. Data as of 3/13/23. Offers and availability may vary by location and are subject to change.
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Your final task is to list forecasted business startup and ongoing costs and profit projections in your simple business plan template. Thanks to free business tools such as Square and free ...
The Best Business Plan Software of 2024. Wrike: Best overall. Smartsheet: Best for goal management. LivePlan: Best for financial forecasting. Aha!: Best for roadmapping. Bizplan: Best for ...
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Why is business development important? Nothing stays still in the world of sales. According to the State of Sales report, 82% of sellers say they've had to quickly adapt to new ways of selling in the face of global challenges, including supply chain issues, inflation, and health precautions.On top of that, 57% of buyers said they prefer engaging with companies through digital channels.
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Tools and Resources for Creating a 5-Year Financial Plan Leveraging the right tools and resources can aid your financial planning process, such as: Budgeting applications: Budgeting apps like Mint and You Need A Budget are excellent tools for tracking income and expenses.
Describe Your Services or Products. The business plan should have a section that explains the services or products that you're offering. This is the part where you can also describe how they fit ...