GoCanvas Marketing

Growing? Starting? 7 Reasons You Need a Business Plan

Posted on by GoCanvas Team

Growing? Starting? 7 Reasons You Need a Business Plan

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Starting a business can be stressful, time-consuming, and resource-intensive. That’s even truer if you start operating without a clear business plan. Developing, enhancing, and considering your business plan, can help ensure you know what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and how you will accomplish it. 

This article discussed the seven reasons you need a business plan to increase your chances of success. If you already understand the importance of a business plan but aren’t sure where to start, check out our business planner templates today. 

Continue reading to learn the importance of your business plan and where to get the best business plan template for your business. 

Why a Business Plan is Needed

Technically, you don’t have to write a business plan. However, in doing so, you set your business up for short-term and long-term success. That’s true regardless of the type of business you’re planning to start. A solid business plan can help you, your employees and potential partners answer the following questions: 

  • What are our company mission, values, and goals?
  • What weaknesses should we address to be more competitive?
  • What are our financial, staffing, marketing, etc., needs? 
  • What’s our long-term vision? 

Every business plan is different, but starting with a business plan template can help ensure you have a solid foundation to build on. 

1. Establish a Direction For Your Business 

Jimmy Dean once said, “I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.” This is also true in the business world. Think of your business plan as sails. You can stay above water without them, but plotting a direction is challenging. 

Whether you use a business plan template or start from scratch, it’s an essential first step when forming an LLC, INC, S-Corp, etc. 

2. Understand Your Customers and Competition Better

A significant part of a business plan is analyzing your competitors and identifying customer profiles. A well-thought-out business plan can help you recognize specific advantages over the competition and exploit them. 

Additionally, identifying and creating customer profiles can help your marketing team target the right prospects, offer the best products, and meet them where they are (i.e., through social media apps, direct mailers, phone calls, text messages, etc.). 

3. Create Meaningful Milestones For Your Business

Big long-term goals can motivate you and your team to achieve the impossible. A business plan allows you to define those goals early in the process. This helps you plan and prepare for the next steps, which include financial, product development, marketing, and expansion goals. 

4. Identify Your Revenue Model and Financial Needs 

Do you know how your business will make money or finance big plans? Understanding your revenue model can help you identify and address potential problems before they happen. Further, a solid revenue model can help your team identify and attract potential investors, obtain business loans, and more. 

5. Attract Talent and Partners Who Align With Your Business Vision 

The first step to completing most business plan templates includes identifying your company’s mission and vision. Doing so will help you plan your business goals and be a roadmap to the type of employees and business partners you want to work with.

This can help your HR team pick the best candidates and help you choose business partners who will be an asset to your vision. 

6. Document Your Marketing Plan 

Effective marketing requires a solid marketing plan. Otherwise, you’ll choose where to target your customers, what to sell them, and how to retain them on the fly – which is never a good idea. A well-crafted marketing plan helps your business set attainable goals and identify clear parameters for the price of services/goods, services offered, target audience, and more. 

7. Ensure Your Business Can Evolve When Necessary

20% of small businesses fail within the first year. In many cases, they didn’t appropriately assess market needs, neglected to hire the best team, had too much competition, lacked sufficient capital, etc. For the most part, a solid business plan can address these issues and provide solutions before they overtake your business. 

Try a GoCanvas Business Plan Template Today – For Free 

Creating a business plan can be a stressful process. That’s why we’ve developed the perfect Small Business Plan Template Mobile App (works on iPhone, Android, iPad, Windows, etc.) to help build the best business plan for your needs. 

Follow the step-by-step instructions to complete the following: 

  • Executive Summary
  • Start-up Summary 
  • Market Analysis Summary
  • Milestones
  • Sales Forecasting
  • Financial Projections, 
  • And much more! 

Click here to try our Small Business Plan Template Mobile App today for free – no credit card required.

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About GoCanvas

GoCanvas® is on a mission to simplify inspections and maximize compliance. Our intuitive platform takes care of the administrative tasks, freeing our customers to focus on what truly matters – safeguarding their people, protecting their equipment, and delivering exceptional quality to their customers. 

Since 2008, thousands of companies have chosen GoCanvas as their go-to partner for seamless field operations.

Check out even more resources

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Gown Your Business with GoCanvas Partner Program

Join our Partner Program and gain instant access to our global network of thought leaders and industry experts enjoying shared collaboration and collective success.

Learn more
Forte Supply Chain Solutions Partner Video

Partner Snapshot: Forte Supply Chain Solutions

Explore how Forte Supply Chain Solutions partnered with GoCanvas, combining in-house industry expertise with our white-label mobile forms to revolutionize their processes.

Watch VIDEO
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GoCanvas Integrations: Streamline your Workflow

Integrate with over 1,000 software applications. Enhance your GoCanvas experience by syncing real-time data to one or all of your business tools.

View integrations

Connect with an Expert Today.

We’ll help you put together the right solution for your needs.

Let’s Build A Plan Together

The Complete Guide to Digital Data Collection for Your Small Business

Posted on by GoCanvas Team

The Complete Guide to Digital Data Collection for Your Small Business

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Information and data: you can’t avoid these words online. Big businesses are even learning to anticipate their customers buying behavior. Information has become crucial for not only competitive advantage but also for staying relevant. Collecting information has become easier than ever with technology. All sorts of businesses need to gather data, including small businesses.

Is Paper Dead?

In today’s digital era, many people are moving away from paper forms—and for good reasons. Paper forms tend to be slow, bad for the environment, require redundant data entry, and are easy to damage, lose, or misfile. More than a pain, they’re hurting your business financially. PWC reports that up to 11% of paper forms get misfiled or lost every year. If you lose just 5% of your invoices a year that lengthens your sales cycles, and you lose the opportunity to work with more customers or provide additional services. Paper forms also require extra data entry and storage, costing you thousands of more dollars a year in redundant work and storage costs.

Paper forms were the best solution for the 20th century. But today? They’re only holding you back.

Transform Your Small Business with Digital Data Collection

In 2014, this race to collect information felt like a game only open to the big guys: the businesses with money and resources for data analysts and hundreds of developers. If you’re a plumber, a landscaping service, or even a daycare facility, you’re trying to keep up with the day-to-day. The algorithms and tech side of the story can seem overwhelming and unavailable to small businesses.

With digital data collection on the rise, small businesses can track their data collection with the simple use of a digital data collection device. These devices can transform your workflow and transform your small business.

Digitally Gather Quantitative and Qualitative Data

If you have a mobile device and a computer, you have all the hardware you need to get started. Businesses in all sorts of fields can collect better information on smartphones and tablets. Some of the benefits include:

  • Collect more information (Photos,GPS, Signature, Calculations)
  • Share information in real-time
  • Eliminate redundant data entry
  • Validate information externally with location or time and date stamps

Digital Data Collection Methods for Small Business’

The mobile forms experts at GoCanvas created a FREE 80+ page guide to help you get off the ground running: The Ultimate Guide to Digitally Collecting All Types of Data for Your Small Business. Chapters include:

1. Productively Collect Customer Data for Your Business

Helping business owners understand the full benefits of mobile, and how you can tailor it to your business needs is very important. Consumer data is important to collect. Collecting customer data through digital data collection methods like data analytics will help you better understand your target market, improve your customer service, and make more informed strategic decisions.

2. Utilize Data Collection for Workflow Decision-Making

Discover what information you need, what to lose, and how it can grow your business. Too much data can be just as crippling as too little. Collect only the business information you need, and use it to create new opportunities, improve your workflow, and make better decisions for your small business.

3. Choose the Right Data Collection Device for Your Marketing Strategy

Ruggedized to consumers, there’s a huge variety in devices. Ensure you get the right devices, and policy, for your business. Finding the right mobile device for your small business data collection needs is important to your success.

4. Save Money By Going Digital

Bonus Chapter: Going mobile is just one way to save time and money. We’ve got tips and tricks to keep you focused and using your time wisely.

Enhance Your Small Business Workflow with GoCanvas Mobile Apps

Enhance your workflows and customer experience with GoCanvas. Mobile apps and forms help you ditch the paper and transform your business workflows. Learn more about how GoCanvas can benefit your business. GoCanvas offers a variety of mobile apps and digital forms to meet your specific business needs.

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About GoCanvas

GoCanvas® is on a mission to simplify inspections and maximize compliance. Our intuitive platform takes care of the administrative tasks, freeing our customers to focus on what truly matters – safeguarding their people, protecting their equipment, and delivering exceptional quality to their customers. 

Since 2008, thousands of companies have chosen GoCanvas as their go-to partner for seamless field operations.

Check out even more resources

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Connect with an Expert Today.

We’ll help you put together the right solution for your needs.

Let’s Build A Plan Together

2018 Spring Subscriber Survey: 5 Most Interesting Trends

Posted on by GoCanvas Team

2018 Spring Subscriber Survey: 5 Most Interesting Trends

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We’re very excited to begin sharing with you the results from our 2018 Spring Subscriber Survey.

At GoCanvas, we believe that our subscribers should have a voice in everything we do. That’s why we love all the feedback we received this year in our subscriber survey!

We take all the responses captured, create a report, and distribute them throughout the company so that every department is able to benefit from the feedback. We also use the responses to analyze how and why subscribers choose the GoCanvas platform for their business.

This type of insight into our subscriber’s usage and deployment of GoCanvas allows us to better roadmap what types of functionality should be added to the development roadmap. It also allows our team to measure what areas of the platform we should focus more time, and what features deserve higher priority.

As you read through the survey infographic below, you’ll find a number of interesting stats and trends. Here are my top 5 most interesting statistics:

  • Flexible Platform – Aside from Construction, usage is deployed somewhat evenly across 5+ different industries. This illustrates the flexibility of the App Builder, PDF Designer, and the platform’s core features like Dispatch and Workflow.
  • Fast Payback – 7 months is the average time in which a subscriber receives a full return on their investment and deployment of mobile forms.
  • Multiple Forms & Use Cases – Inspections were the only type of form that was selected by more than 50% of subscribers. This illustrates the different amounts of use cases that GoCanvas subscribers deploy!
  • Photo Capture – Still the most popular feature across every industry and demographic, capturing photos gives every type of business the evidence they need to keep the most accurate digital records possible.
  • Multiple Submission Per Day – Over half of all subscribers said that they fill out and submit 2 or more mobile forms per day. This shows the common trend of implementing GoCanvas in operations that are frequent, data-intensive processes.

About GoCanvas

GoCanvas® is on a mission to simplify inspections and maximize compliance. Our intuitive platform takes care of the administrative tasks, freeing our customers to focus on what truly matters – safeguarding their people, protecting their equipment, and delivering exceptional quality to their customers. 

Since 2008, thousands of companies have chosen GoCanvas as their go-to partner for seamless field operations.

Check out even more resources

business people discussing project

Gown Your Business with GoCanvas Partner Program

Join our Partner Program and gain instant access to our global network of thought leaders and industry experts enjoying shared collaboration and collective success.

Learn more
Forte Supply Chain Solutions Partner Video

Partner Snapshot: Forte Supply Chain Solutions

Explore how Forte Supply Chain Solutions partnered with GoCanvas, combining in-house industry expertise with our white-label mobile forms to revolutionize their processes.

Watch VIDEO
Closeup of a handshake.

GoCanvas Integrations: Streamline your Workflow

Integrate with over 1,000 software applications. Enhance your GoCanvas experience by syncing real-time data to one or all of your business tools.

View integrations

Connect with an Expert Today.

We’ll help you put together the right solution for your needs.

Let’s Build A Plan Together

Say Hello to the NEW GoCanvas Online Community!

Posted on by GoCanvas Team

Say Hello to the NEW GoCanvas Online Community!

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Welcome to the Community

We are super excited about the release of the GoCanvas Community.

Why are we so excited? Because the Community is a great way to view and share the information that matters the most to you. The GoCanvas Community is where tips, tricks, best practices, and advice live. You’ll be able to get real-world solutions from other users, submit feature requests, and keep up-to-date with the latest releases!

The Community will soon become the hub for all things GoCanvas.

How is it Different from the Help Center?

The Help Center is a static database of information pertaining to the many different aspects of the GoCanvas platform. By being static, the information is presented to you in a way that is meant to be quickly digested and comprehended. While useful in many situations, it doesn’t always apply to more complex situations within the GoCanvas platform. Whereas the Community is dynamic; with users creating posts, and anyone (including GoCanvas staff) having the ability to respond to feedback or insight.

The Help Center will continue to house documentation about our features and how to use the product, while the Community will cater more to creative problem solving, specific use cases, and collaborative troubleshooting, as well as giving ways for users to give feedback and to make feature requests.

Who & When Should I Use it?

When you’re having a problem or are trying something new, chances are someone can point you toward a solution. Think of the Community as a sounding board for your specific questions and issues.

The Community will truly thrive when everyone, new and experienced GoCanvas users alike, see it as a place to post problems and find creative solutions. The more input from you the better!

How to Get Started

It’s super simple! Just click here to access the GoCanvas Community. Once there, you’ll be able to view, post, and comment on a variety of different GoCanvas topics. Can’t find what you’re looking for? Create your own post and get the conversation started!

We look forward to ‘seeing’ you in the Community soon!

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About GoCanvas

GoCanvas® is on a mission to simplify inspections and maximize compliance. Our intuitive platform takes care of the administrative tasks, freeing our customers to focus on what truly matters – safeguarding their people, protecting their equipment, and delivering exceptional quality to their customers. 

Since 2008, thousands of companies have chosen GoCanvas as their go-to partner for seamless field operations.

Check out even more resources

business people discussing project

Gown Your Business with GoCanvas Partner Program

Join our Partner Program and gain instant access to our global network of thought leaders and industry experts enjoying shared collaboration and collective success.

Learn more
Forte Supply Chain Solutions Partner Video

Partner Snapshot: Forte Supply Chain Solutions

Explore how Forte Supply Chain Solutions partnered with GoCanvas, combining in-house industry expertise with our white-label mobile forms to revolutionize their processes.

Watch VIDEO
Closeup of a handshake.

GoCanvas Integrations: Streamline your Workflow

Integrate with over 1,000 software applications. Enhance your GoCanvas experience by syncing real-time data to one or all of your business tools.

View integrations

Connect with an Expert Today.

We’ll help you put together the right solution for your needs.

Let’s Build A Plan Together

Why States Need to Improve their Bridge Inspection Processes with Mobile Forms

Posted on by GoCanvas Team

Why States Need to Improve their Bridge Inspection Processes with Mobile Forms

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The American Road and Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA) recently declared almost 56,000 bridges in the United States structurally deficient. Almost half of all states fall into the category of having 9% or more of their bridges structurally deficient. According to the ARTBA, “this means one or more of the key bridge elements, such as the deck, superstructure or substructure, is considered to be in “poor” or worse condition.”

Percentages of structurally deficient bridges by state 2017 data

More than 25% of all bridges (about 174,000) were reported as being at least 50 years old and never having major construction work. 

This is pretty scary stuff. Officials tend to agree on the need to find new sources of funding for bridge and highway repair projects, as the current funding mechanisms haven’t kept pace with the cost of construction in recent years. However, this data also highlights the potential need for improved bridge inspection processes to ensure accurate data is collected, shared and analyzed quickly. Here are 5 reasons why bridge inspectors should be using mobile forms and apps for bridge inspections. 

Mobile Bridge Inspections

Easily document bridge conditions and structures with photos

 If inspections are currently being done on paper, it may not be easy to see visually the extent of damage and it may be easier for folks to put off improvements. If an inspector does happen to have a digital camera, time is probably wasted around getting the photos off the camera, printing them, attaching them to the inspection report and then storing them somewhere in a filing cabinet. 

With mobile forms and devices, inspectors can complete bridge inspection forms and add photos to the reports at the same time, eliminating the need for an additional device and time wasted compiling the photos into a report later. 

Prove an Inspection Happened

Ever wonder if an inspection really happened? Or if the form was filled out on-site instead of at another location? With mobile forms, a GPS and time stamp can be required as part of the process, so you can ensure inspectors are where they are supposed to be and doing the inspection on-site. 

Standardize Inspection Processes

Ever have the problem where one person may fill the same form out differently than another? Maybe person A starts on page 3 and works backwards while person B starts on page 1. Or skips around. Or skips various fields. Or standard langauge to describe something isn’t being used so analysis becomes difficult. 

With mobile forms, you can set them up so that various fields must be filled out, in a specific order, or the inspector cannot advance forward. This helps standardize inspection processes and ensure the right data is captured every time. 

Get Data Back in Real-Time

With paper bridge inspection forms, someone fills them out and then has to get them back to the office. Many times, they’re just physically taken in, then scanned into a computer or worse, transcribed by hand into another system. All of this takes time and resources. And if there’s a crucial issue, it might not be seen until days later! 

With mobile bridge inspections, the data is captured via mobile devices and stored in the cloud so it can be accessed instantly. No waiting around, no manual data re-entry or having to worry about expensive and annoying filing cabinets. 

Digital Data = Easier Analysis

Can you imagine combing through paper inspection forms for thousands of bridges and trying to determine what the most common issues are with the deck or substructures? And trying to look for trends based on location, temperature, time of year, inspector, building material, etc? And you’re doing this with data that may not be structured optimally, having to read messy handwriting and account for missing fields and forms? 

NIGHTMARE. 

With digital inspection data, dashboards can easily be set up so you can see data at an aggregate level for a variety of fields and conditions. It is much easier to analyze digital data, look for trends and then prioritize issues so action can be taken! 

As you can see, there are clear benefits to digitizing bridge inspections with mobile forms and apps. If you’d like to see how GoCanvas can help you improve these kinds of processes and save time while getting more accurate data, try us free today! 

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About GoCanvas

GoCanvas® is on a mission to simplify inspections and maximize compliance. Our intuitive platform takes care of the administrative tasks, freeing our customers to focus on what truly matters – safeguarding their people, protecting their equipment, and delivering exceptional quality to their customers. 

Since 2008, thousands of companies have chosen GoCanvas as their go-to partner for seamless field operations.

Check out even more resources

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