With so many people out of work these days, it should come as no surprise that many are thinking about starting their own business. Even if you own a successful start-up, the struggling economy might have you worried. So how can long-standing business owners and first-time entrepreneurs survive these tough times? Jay Arthur, author of Double Your Profits: Plug the Leaks in Your Cash Flow, suggests that you avoid these five business plan development mistakes:

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1. Not listening to the voice of the customer. Too many entrepreneurs become enchanted with an idea and pursue it without thinking it through. In doing so, they neglect to take the time to understand the “voice of the customer.” Businesses large and small can collect and analyze the voice of the customer to understand what customers want and how to deliver it. These answers can be easily found for free with Google’s keyword tool.

   Let’s say you want to start a pet food bakery that makes healthy treats for dogs and cats. Just search Google’s keyword tool for “pet bakery” and “pet food.” There are more than 500,000 searches a month for “pet food” but only 8,000 a month for “pet bakery.” However, there are 33,000 searches a month for “wellness pet food.” Obviously, “pet food” is too broad, and “pet bakery” is too narrow. But “wellness pet food” might be just the niche to explore because those customers are probably willing to pay a premium.

2. Not speaking your customer’s language. A customer’s language can differ from a business owner’s. Based on the search terms above, it might be smarter to name your store “Wellness Pet Food” (customer language) instead of “Bow Wow Biscuits” (your language) because that’s what the crowd wants. Don’t paraphrase; use the customer’s exact words.

3. Not making your product or service better, faster, and cheaper. Too many entrepreneurs try to enter an already crowded market. Search the Internet for your product or service to find out how many competitors are out there. When searching for the key words “pet food Denver,” Google shows 697,000 results. “Wellness pet food Denver” yields 138,000 results. If Google reveals too many competitors, consider another line of business. If Google reveals no competitors, that can be just as bad. Someone, somewhere should be offering a similar product or service. If not, it’s possible there are no customers.

4. Not testing the business concept. Once Google has revealed what customers want and you’ve identified a unique value proposition from the voice of the customer (better, faster, or cheaper), it’s time to test the concept. For this, Google offers another powerful tool: Adwords. Google makes its money by putting ads around its search results. Many entrepreneurs use Adwords to test business and marketing concepts before investing a lot of money.

5. Not bootstrapping the business. Entrepreneurs don’t always need a lot of money to get started. If the business is a product, don’t make 10,000 of them. Put up a Web site, make a few, and sell them online or give away free samples to test the response. Or make a prototype and get people to try it and provide feedback. When customers start clamoring to buy your products, then get money to do a production run.

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