Jewellery Business Week: Creating a one-page plan for your jewellery business

This week we have looked at lots of aspect of running a jewellery business. Now London Jewellery School founder Jessica Rose talks about ways to pull them together to create your business plan.

Business planning is important and it is useful to do a full plan with all the different sections covering your market research, overview and background to the business, those crucial financial figures etc… But, business planning takes time and one thing most business owners lack is enough time to get it done or update it regularly. This is where the one- page plan comes in.

It is as simple as it sounds and is a great tool for either the early stages of starting your jewellery business or for getting a visual update throughout the year of what and how you are doing. I try to do one at least every quarter as I find it helps to set priorities, keep you on track and have something manageable to work towards. It is like setting yourself mini-targets to keep you going.

This is how it works. You have one page (A3 or A4) and nothing more and you can use it to write on, draw on, brainstorm on create a collage, anything but you can only use that one page. In the content of the page you need to say what you are working on for the next year (or how ever long the plan is for, it could be 3 months or 6 months).

Here are a few ideas of how it can work…

(Please note that none of the action points or goals in these diagrams are suggestions, they are simply there for illustration purposes).

1.      The brainstorm plan

I think this is my favorite. Use a mind mapping tool such as Simple Mind – or you can do it with a pen and paper, and create a map of your aims for the year. Put it on your computer desktop as a screen saver or on your wall next to where you work to remind you what you hope to achieve and by when.

Once you have created your mind map put it in a place where you will see it everyday

2.      The Orbit Tool Plan

This is great for longer term, overview planning. Draw three circles on a piece of paper and then lines going out for your axis. Put the key areas involved in running your business on each axis and make a note in the relevant circle of what you plan to achieve in that year.

This is usually a three-year planning tool. The great advantage of it is you can easily compare your goals and see if they relate. For example if you plan to double your sales in one year, will you be doubling your marketing too? If not how do you plan on reaching that goal? This could also be used as a three monthly tool or other timescales to suit your business.

The orbit tool is useful for long term planning

3. The Creative Collage plan

This is a fun one for anyone that likes to see pictures instead of words (who doesn’t!). Again, group the key areas of your jewellery business into sections on the page and then add images, cut outs or whatever else helps, even post-it notes. This will help you to see what your plans will look like over the coming months.

What ever you do remember it is for you, to help you keep focus and inspire you to go in the direction you want with your jewellery business.

Best of luck and let us know how you get on with your one-page plans

Jessica