8 Simple Steps to Creating Your own Business Plan
A Business plan is a written document that describes, in detail, how a new business is going to achieve its goals. It will lay out a written plan from marketing, financial, and operational view points.
You don’t need to hire a business consultant to create a sound business plan that will help you identify the needs and challenges of starting a for-profit company. Using a variety of free resources, you can create a document that can help you attract investors, launch your business and guide you through your first year, or simply write it yourself using the tips we will show you in this article. The key to writing a practical business plan is to organize it into sections that will help you cover all the bases of running a business.
Instructions
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Organize your document:
A business plan should contain a cover sheet, contents page, executive summary, specific sections and appendix. Your specific sections should include a product or service description, a marketplace overview, a marketing strategy financial information, and implementation plan, controls and measurements.
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Beginning pages:
Your cover page should include a phrase such as “Business plan for” and the name of the business. Include your name the date and your contact information.
The contents page should include the headings for your special sections and subheads to help break the information into more manageable areas.
The executive summary should give a basic overview of your plan without details. Include what the product or service is, who the customer is, where you will send it and any example of similar products and financial projections. Limit the executive summary to about half a page.
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3
Product or service description:
Your first specific section should explain what the product or service is, how it works, why it’s needed, and its benefits. Do not sell the product or service with too much detail in this section. You will do that in subsequent sections. Use this topic to make it clear to the reader what you are selling. -
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Market place overview:
Use this section to discuss the need or demonstrated desire for your product or service in the marketplace, using example of existing retailers and products or services. Explain why the marketplace is adequately serving a consumer demand and how your version of product or service would do the same or even better. -
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Marketing Strategy:
Include a marketing strategy that starts with a detailed profile of your potential customers. Create a primary and secondary target customers. Use demographic such as gender.age.ethnicity, income level or location.
For example, your primary target market is selling clothes for children between 5-10 years .Your secondary target customer would be budget-conscious . Explain how you would get your product to the target customer.
Lay out your advertising, public relations, online and promotional market strategies, and finish the marketing section with information detailing how you will monitor your marketing activities to see how effective they are. -
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Financial Information:
Include a financial section in your business plan that covers all the operating costs of your business, including your cost of production, overhead, startup capital needs, projected revenue and projected profits.
Include a budget in a spreadsheet form for investors to review. Include conservative and optimistic projects to let potential investors see different possible scenarios. -
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Implementation:
Explain how you will launch and operate the business if you secure capital. Include and organization chart, job description, outline of your pay and benefits, and the license, fees and other legal aspects you will need to manage. Include your qualifications for running the business and the backgrounds of any employees or consultants you will use.
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Controls and Measurements:
Once the new business starts, you will need to monitor its operations closely to see if it is performing as you projected. Detail what steps to take to monitor the performance of the new business.
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Conclusion:
Remember that a business plan is meant to be a persuasive document and you will be looking to engage and convert potential investors. Have someone you trust, or a business professional, review your plan and check for spelling or grammatical errors that could create the wrong impression, and ruin your good work.
