A strategic business plan is the foundation for the planned strategic actions necessary to outthink and outlast the competition. Within the strategic plan is the strategic action plan that records all of the hits, misses and even errors for the current as well as past year. NOTE: A simple strategic plan definition is who does what by when and its construction is dependent upon the analysis of real time information.

With the current year quickly coming to an end, now is the time to review the business hits and misses for the last year. Success in business is directly tied to how much time is invested in working on the business instead of just in the business. These 7 top tips can quickly double your business results in 2007.

Tip One: List all of your hits. Hits are all revenue from the sales of your products and services.

Tip Two: List all of your misses. Misses include:

Lost proposals
Lost contracts and sales
Lost opportunities such as not asking for referrals
Lost performance from management to employees

Tip Three: Assign a dollar value to all of your misses. Then compare the results from this tip to Tip 1. Note: As a business coach, I have discovered that this simple reflection may create significant pain for the business owners, entrepreneurs or executives because they have been so busy working in their businesses they have failed to work on their businesses.

Tip Four: Learn the causes of the misses. Misses may be the result of poor job specific skills from sales to customer service, poor planning or lack of individual accountability. This real time information is necessary when constructing your Strategic Action Plan.

Tip Five: Identify your desired business results for the next year. Using the W.A.Y. S.M.A.R.T. goals criteria (W-Written, A-Aligned, Y-Yours, S-Specific, M-Measurable, A-Attainable, R-Realistically set high and T-Target date, time driven), you avoid those past missed opportunities and turn them into homeruns for the next business quarter or business year. These goals are based upon data received from the previous 4 tips.

Tip Six: Construct your business dashboard. By identifying key performance indicators and monitoring these on a daily or weekly basis, you can determine that your firm is operating at peak performance and quickly make any necessary course corrections to achieve the desired business results.

Tip Seven: Make a weekly appointment to work on your business. Schedule at least 1 hour each week working on your business. Use this time to review both your dashboard and strategic business plan. Your strategic plan (Who does What by When) should also include, but is not limited to your marketing plan, sales plan, growth plan and financial plans. Using your dashboard and other tools including organizational assessments, you can quickly monitor your business progress and become a proactive decision-maker instead of a reactive one.

Starting a business is something everyone should have in their to-do list, and certainly no one should let life pass by without having given a fair shot at it.

Having your own business unveils all kinds of benefits such as being your own boss and increasing your earning potential.

However, there is no denying that starting a business is easier said than done, and that is because before going ahead with it you need to know what you are going to do, and how.

The how part usually involves a somewhat heavy investment no all of us can afford, and that is where this article comes in.

You see, there are many ways to do business and not all of them require for you to pull out a fat checkbook or drown in debt, and I am going to give you a couple of tips to start on the right foot with nearly no money.

1.- Research and analyze online business models.

The internet is an ever more fertile ground for you to step in and develop your business. No matter what you have in mind, it is likely you can take it online and make a killing, and even if you do not have a particular idea in mind you can easily draft a business plan from scratch just by looking at all the opportunities you can find online.

From E-Commerce to online services and internet marketing, you can pretty much do what you want online.

The tools to do so are available everywhere and more and more of them are becoming free or dead cheap to use, such as content management systems to build complex websites without having to be much of a techie, market research tools etc.

2.- Choose one you feel more comfortable with and start working on it.

Chances are that any business option you choose to execute online will not demand an investment of more than $100 and you will have everything you need to start.

What comes next in order to get the ball rolling is to create a work routine and dedicate enough time and brain power to developing your business.

For example, if you decide to build an online store with a platform such as Yahoo Small Business Solutions, then you must commit yourself to do some product research everyday with the help of your product sourcing company, and keep your inventory updated.

Also, you must dedicate some of your time to promote your store by performing basic SEO tasks, ad placement in classified directories and other marketing activities that will increase your business’ visibility and performance.

It will be a slow process, but if you work on building your know how and you consistently push your project forward it will pay off sooner than later, and you will have spent just pennies for a business that will likely turn into your main stream of income.