Business Expansion – Part 3

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Over the last few days, we’ve talked about the “Research and Dream” and “Plan and Execute” phases of expanding a business.  Today, we’re finishing this series and covering the “Review and Refine” phase.

Let’s assume you’ve launched into a new market, you put your business plan strategies into place, and you’ve been in business there for 3 months.  It’s time to review how effective your expansion has been so far, and adjust your plan to make any necessary changes.

Does the Research = Reality?

For me, I quickly realized that although all of my research and business plan was focused on “Dallas/Fort-Worth”, these are two completely different cities even though they’re only 40 minutes from each other.  The cultures are worlds apart – Dallas brides for the most part want very traditional affairs, and Fort Worth brides tend to prefer more laid-back events.  The wedding professionals in each of these cities are very different, there are advertising options that work better for one of these cities vs. another, etc.  Until I actually physically moved here and immersed myself in the culture and navigated my way around the industry, I wouldn’t have necessarily been able to learn these differences.

Refine the Plan

So, it was necessary for me to refine and update my business plan in order to reflect my new learnings and make sure that my Marketing Plan, Financial Plan, etc. still made sense.  Quite honestly, I scrapped about half of my business plan that I originally wrote for my expansion because it needed refinement once I actually moved here to experience the market first-hand.

As Michelle and I always preach in The Simple Plan, your business plan should always be evolving.  I will venture to also say that if you expand your business you’ll likely be evolving at a much greater speed than you were used to with your current market.  Your business plan will likely need several revisions within a short period of time after you expand, so that you can either validate or change your assumptions.

I hope this has been enlightening to those of you who have been curious about expansion, and if you decide to pull the trigger and launch into a new market get ready for a wild, exciting ride!