The Business Plan is finally finished! After years of adding too much, crumpling the paper, and starting over, the Posh’aah Nail Spa Business Plan is ready. Yay! {Insert happy dance, here.} But now what?

As I’ve pranced around attempting to show off my business plan to family and friends, I was surprised by their "blah" responses. At home, Gene (my guy), widened his eyes with fake excitement, opened the little white binder and flipped through the pages. He nodded his head and added a lackluster, “Wow.” Less than a minute later, he picked up the TV remote instead. Gene is an intelligent fellow, but seriously, one minute to read forty pages?

So, I toted my pretty white binder over to Mom’s house. “Look Mommy, it’s my Business Plan.” She let out an exhausted sigh, and thumbed through the pages out of sheer obligation. Then she grumbled, “Keda, do I actually have to read this? I don’t even have my glasses.” I get it; she was tired.

Since I finished the Business Plan, I’ve found myself wondering who will open my little white binder and actually read it. Obviously, lenders and investors would at least skim through the financial projections before offering a yay or nay (or at least I hope so).

However, I learned that writing the plan benefitted me the most. While preparing the business plan, I was forced to vet out the general idea of Posh’aah Nail Spa and mold it into something that made sense financially. Just a couple months ago, while working on the revenue and expense projections, I learned that my expenses were so high that the business would have been belly-up before we opened our doors! {Insert deep gasp, here.} I went back to the drawing board and drilled down to the cost of each item, then built the service cost and a healthy profit margin into our pricing. I also drew a fine line between "must have items" and "you can wait a couple years before buying items".

In the end, it turns out that I’m the person that will open my cute white binder and actually read the well-scribed prose. {Inserted self-compliment, there. Sometimes you have to encourage yourself.}

What’s next? Still trying to secure the space, so close to being a qualified foreign business in Illinois, and prepping for the website launch…Go Posh’aah! Go Posh’aah!

--Makeda, Posh'aah Nail Spa, Chicago