Do you have a business strategy or are you here by accident?

Its true, that to be successful in business it can happen by accident, well not quite, but it can happen without the business owner having a clue how he/she got there. Personally, I would rather see clients have some sort of strategy that goes beyond ‘I need more sales to make it work!’.

To get you started here are some pointers:

Pricing your product/service for success, this is very important, also what is the industry norm, is there a ceiling price?
What are your costs going to be? Negotiate hard when ever you can (except for the accountant )!
Finding good staff, how will you find them?
Once you have your good staff, how are you going to motivate and retain them?
Ensure you have a robust system in place for dealing with the accounting function, otherwise how will you know who is owed and who owes you?
Consider stopping/dropping less profitable products/services.
Set targets, do a projection, and make a point of a regular sit down with the staff the reassess the health/direction of the business.
Retirement, succession, exit strategy, even at this early stage it does no harm to have an eye on the future, it may shape the type of business you build.