Do You Need a Business Plan For a Backyard Plant Nursery?
Do You Need a Business Plan For a Backyard Plant Nursery
?
For every business that fails because of poor planning, there are five that never succeed because of too much planning. As the great Michael Jordan said, "Just do it!" Here's how to jump start your nursery business:
The secret of a successful backyard plant nursery is growing the plants people want to buy. A business plan can't tell you that, but real customers can. Instead of wasting a lot of time and energy coming up with a business plan, just start growing the plants you think your potential customers will want to buy. Then put them out there where the customers go, like the Saturday farmer's market, and see what sells. You'll quickly learn what's hot and what's not, so you can grow more of your best sellers.
This takes care of the biggest problem small growers have, cash flow. Once the money is coming in from profitable plant sales, you can experiment with new plants and varieties, or finding new outlets for your plants.
Regardless of how much planning you do, it's only a hunch - an educated guess about how well your business will do. The danger is, by spending too much time on planning, you'll have less energy/time/money to try new plants and marketing ideas. The secret is to test your ideas as quickly and cheaply as possible, then improve and refine them.
And speaking of cheap & quick, here's a way to do a very simple business plan for your new backyard nursery business. If you plan to borrow money from a relative or friend - the most common source of funding for small startup businesses - do an "executive summary" business plan to show them you've done your homework. It should cover just the business plan basics, with an overview of the business, a market analysis with a look at your competition, and an estimate of your first year's sales. It assumes that you will not have employees or buying or leasing property or equipment. Here's a sample:
EASTWIND BAMBOO NURSERY - BUSINESS PLAN
Business Overview: Eastwind Bamboo Nursery offers over twenty varieties of container-grown bamboo plants that are selected just for our local climate and growing conditions. Bamboo varieties range from smaller plants suitable for ground covers to larger "specimen" plants. Our customers are homeowners who are looking for attractive, low-maintenance landscaping plants and landscapers who need plant material for their projects.
Market Analysis: The demand for landscaping bamboo plants has been growing steadily for many years, as homeowners and landscapers look for plants that are drought-tolerant, low maintenance, adaptable to a wide variety of landscaping plans and evergreen. Local retail nurseries report increasing sales and growing consumer awareness of bamboo as a landscaping plant. While there are three local nurseries offering container bamboo plants, all offer only a limited selection of varieties and plant sizes.
Marketing Strategy: Eastwind Bamboo Nursery's marketing strategy is to provide a wider variety of bamboo plant choices, both in varieties and sizes, than currently available at local retail nurseries, at competitive prices. In addition, we can provide in-depth information on how to select, plant and maintain bamboo, a value-added service unavailable at retail nurseries that sell a broad variety of nursery stock.
First Year Goals: Based on the size of the local market and our beginning stock of plants, our sales projection for the first year is $30,000. We plan to build our bamboo business and customer base through local advertising and referrals from happy customers. The in-depth bamboo information that we can share with our customers will appeal to homeowners and landscapers in our area, and help our reputation as the "go-to" container bamboo supplier.
One often overlooked free resource for small businesses is SCORE, a group of retired business owners who help startups and existing small businesses at no charge. If you find you need a full business plan to get funding for your new business, SCORE can help you with that as well.To find a local organization, visit: score.org. To learn more about growing profitable plants, visit http://extraincomebulletin.com
Craig Wallin is the author of twelve best-selling books about home-based businesses you can start for just a few hundred dollars, and the editor of EXTRA INCOME BULLETIN, an online resource about honest businesses you can start on a shoestring. To learn more, visit: http://extraincomebulletin.com
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