Business Plan: Step by Step Guide

A business plan must be well developed and include certain pointers in order to be complete. It is not an easy task developing a business plan. However, funders will not fund a business that does not posess a clear and visable plan of action



EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
provides a summary of your business, your financial projections, where you currently stand, and what you need to be successful


COMPANY HISTORY AND BACKGROUND
immediately follows the executive summary, should be about 1 page long and will differ in that a startup business will have a different history than an established one


CLEAR DESCRIPTION OF BUSINESS CONCEPT AND VALUE PROPOSITION
explains your vision of the company and the value of your service or product. Explain why you are the one to offer the service or product as well as your growth potential and uniqueness


MARKETING ANALYSIS INCLUDING COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS AND MARKET DEVELOPMENT PLAN
contains your 3C's company, competition, customer. You want to explain all of these in this section as well as how you are going to get your product into the hands of your customers


PRODUCTION AND OPERATION ASSESSMENT AND DEVELOPMENT PLAN
an explanation of how your production and your startegy for operation. You should include what role will operations play in your company and where will you get your sourcing materials


FINANCIAL ASSESSMENT AND PROJECTIONS
you should be getting comfortable working with spreadsheets, they allow you to change your projections easily, plus investors want to see cold hard numbers. Since it is hard to project your resources for any number of years down the road, spreadsheets will work best


MANAGEMENT AND HUMAN RESOURCES ASSESSMENT AND PLAN
this section should describe your organizational structure, who will have what job and what will that job entail. You want to include the number of employees you intend to have, how you will manage them, and what it is going to cost you


IMPLEMENTATION PLAN
here you will show how everything is going to play together, you want to include objectives (which must be crystal clear), tasks that must be accomplished in order to reach your goals, determine deadlines, and chart your progress


IDENTIFICATION OF RESOURCES
here you will need to identify everything that you are ging to need for your business, i.e. equipment, staff, cash etc.


PROPOSED DEAL STRUCTURE FOR INVESTORS(IF APPLICABLE)
if you plan to use investors you must keep their interest in mind. Here you will explain how your business will provide them with a profit. You want to remember corporate structre, preferred shares, returns, restrictions, state laws, future offerings, most importantly remember to include a protect your equity with a non-compete clause (you will want to know that your investors will not leave you for your competitors)


SURVIVAL STRATEGY DESCRIBING INHERENT RISKS AND MITIGATION STRATEGIES
this will explain how you will deal with any changes in which you will have to react quickly. Many businesses experience a tough time and you will have to be able to show how you are going to get through those tough times. some strategies to consider are maximizing oyur cash holdings, diversify you products, be aggressive in your approach, use freelancers or part timers (they typicaly cost less), look for substitute materials, anything that you can do to stick out from your competition


GROWTH STRATEGY
here you will explain how you plan to grow your business once it is off the ground, investors want to know that you have a plan to bring your product or service to new customers and new markets whether it is through multiple locations, new client base, new products, frnachising, an online strategy, marketing, decreasing costs, etc.


EXIT STRATEGY
this will explain how you plan to leave your business, it may not be something you want to think about but investors want to see that you have a long term strategy. This is something that you need to keep in mind as well because the way you plan to exit your business will determine how you run your business from opening day


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