A Winning Guide to Write a Business Plan
In today’s competitive global market, most of the enthusiastic entrepreneurs tend to launch their business to get out in front of the customers as soon as possible to discover if there’s value to what they are creating. They do not have enough information to write a business plan.
Emphasizing on planning is the utmost important, and not the plan. The process of developing an annual plan should establish priorities for the coming year and become the basis for action. It’s important to eliminate things that aren’t profitable or are shrinking your margins.
In addition, most small businesses need a business plan to get a bank loan. Private investors and strategic partners often opt for a short video or PowerPoint presentation highlighting the main facts of the business.
Below guide will help all small businesses to understand the market, come up with plan, create and comply & nurture growth throughout the business lifecycle.
When you create a business plan for your business, try to keep a few things in mind.
- Length of your plan
- Reason for writing your plan
- Be clear on your goals and objectives
- Outline your financial needs
- Highlight your marketing strategies
- Target Audience for your plan
- Try to keep it focused and to the point
1. Research before writing a plan
Research is probably one of the most important things to keep in mind when writing a business plan. Your research needs to not only be thorough but extremely accurate, too.
Take more time to research your plan than you do to write your plan. This should signify how important your research actually is.
Sections of your business plan will primarily be informed by your ideas and vision, but some of the most crucial information you’ll need to include relies on research from independent sources. This is where you can invest time in understanding who you’re selling to, whether there’s demand for your products, and who else is selling similar products or services. Your research will later reflect on your business plan. If it’s wrong or inaccurate, it won’t look good to your investors and/or stakeholders.
If your research is thorough and reliable, it will make a good impression on your stakeholders. This gives you credibility and shows how serious you are about your work.
2. Company Overview
This section of your business plan should answer two fundamental questions: Who are you, and what do you plan to do? Answering these questions provides an introduction to why you’re in business, why you’re different, what you have going for you, and why you’re a good investment bet.
Clarifying these details is still a useful exercise even if you’re the only person who’s going to see them. It’s an opportunity to put to paper some of the more intangible facets of your business, like your principles, ideals, and cultural philosophies.
This section will most probably be available on your website. Some of it can also be in your ‘About Us’ section, so your audience has easy access if they want to learn more about you. This will make it easier to attract potential stakeholders and customers.
They don’t have to contact you every time they want to learn something about you; your profile will do it for you.
3. The Executive Summary
A good executive summary is one of the most crucial sections of your plan—it’s also the last section you should write.
The executive summary’s purpose is to distill everything that follows and give time-crunched reviewers (e.g., potential investors) a high-level overview of your business that persuades them to read further. Again, it’s a summary, so highlight the key points you’ve uncovered while writing your plan. If you’re writing for your own planning purposes, you can skip the summary altogether—although you might want to give it a try anyways, just for practice.
An executive summary shouldn’t exceed one page. Admittedly, that space constraint can make squeezing in all of the salient information a bit stressful—but it’s not impossible.
4. Tell Them Why You’re Here
One of the most important parts of a business plan is definitely engaging with your audience. It’s important to engage with your audience in a way that makes them feel like they’re special and evokes emotion.
State the problem and describe your solution.
One of the ways you can make your intentions clear is by stating the problem and giving a solution. Let your audience know that you are invested and are willing to make a change.
This gives you an edge. Every successful product or service is a solution to a problem. If you don’t clearly communicate what your solution is, your target audience won’t have as much confidence in your plan.
5. Business Model
The business model describes how you do what you do. It will include all your marketing objectives and what you aim to achieve with your business. Make sure you have a strategic marketing plan in place which answers all the potential questions your stakeholders might have.
This model can include questions like:
- Information about launching new products (if any)
- New marketing and advertisement schemes for existing products
- Expanding the business
- Increasing sales
- Raising prices and how will that affect sales
- Whether your business has a marketing strategy
- What you are doing to increase the quality of your product and delivery
Make sure your business model is extensive and covers all the topics and questions that your stakeholders might have. It is better to cover all bases even if those questions are rarely asked. Better safe than sorry.
Your marketing objectives and goals should be clearly mentioned in this business model so your investors and stakeholders are aware of where you’re planning to take your business.
6. Product or Services
Since your product or services is what you’re trying to sell, describe it in detail. Try making a separate section for your product or service overview. Mention all the essentials – what exactly your product is and how it is different than everything else in the market.
If it isn’t different, then why it is better than anything that consumers can already purchase elsewhere?
One of the ways you can easily describe your product is by using infographics. If you don’t already know, infographics are a great way to describe your product. They are essentially visual representations which include graphs, icons, and pictures. They can help make your product overview more interesting.
This is just one of the ways to keep your customers interested. Make sure that when you write a business plan, you use creative ways to market your product.
7. Detailed Market Analysis
Your marketing efforts are directly informed by your ideal customer. Your plan should outline your current decisions and your future strategy, with a focus on how your ideas are a fit for that ideal customer. If you’re planning to invest heavily in ads on Instagram, for example, it might make sense to include whether Instagram is a leading platform for your audience—if it’s not, it might be a sign to rethink your marketing plan.
Most marketing plans include information on four key subjects. How much detail you present on each will depend on both your business and your plan’s audience.
- Price:How much do your products cost, and why have you made that decision?
- Product:What are you selling, and how do you differentiate it in the market?
- Promotion:How will you get your products in front of your ideal customer?
- Place:Where will you sell your products?
Promotion may be the bulk of your plan, since you can more readily dive into tactical details, but the other three areas should be covered at least briefly—each is an important strategic lever in your marketing mix.
8. Know Who You Are Selling to
Your ideal customer, also known as your target market, is the foundation of your marketing plan, if not your business plan as a whole. You’ll want to keep this person in mind as you make strategic decisions, which is why an overview of who they are is important to understand and include in your plan.
To give a holistic overview of your ideal customer, describe a number of general and specific demographic characteristics. Customer segmentation often includes:
- Where they live
- Their age range
- Their level of education
- Some common behavior patterns
- How they spend their free time
- Where they work
- What technology they use
- How much they earn
- Where they’re commonly employed
- Their values, beliefs, or opinions
This information will vary based on what you’re selling, but you should be specific enough that it’s unquestionably clear who you’re trying to reach—and more importantly, why you’ve made the choices you have based on who your customers are and what they value.
9. Competitors Analysis
Every company has some other company that they are competing with – either directly or indirectly.
Don’t make the mistake of assuming that you aren’t competing with anyone.
You are, and you need to be careful about this.
Make sure you are up to date with what your competitors are putting out in the market and how they are advertising it. Not only will this make you look professional and show potential investors that you’ve done your research, but it will also help you in the long run.
10. Clear Financial Plan
Your financial plan should include:
- Cash flow statements
- Income statements
- Balance sheets
- Accounts payable statements
- Accounts receivable payments
- Projected income statements
- Budget
- Cash flow forecasts
11. Team Efforts
A business cannot be run by just one person. It’s a team effort, and you need to recognize that. Mention what you do and what exactly every member on your team does. Recognize their hard work as this will only encourage them to work harder.
12. Don’t Miss Anything
You might think that after doing so much research, that this won’t happen to you, but there is a huge chance that it just might. Your business plan should include as many details as possible. Besides your marketing objectives and strategies, your business plan should extensively mention your possible cash flow options, your expenses and how you are planning to make money.
13. Simple, Adaptable & To The Point
One of the most important things that your business plan should be is adaptable. You are not aware of where or what your stakeholders are going to be like. Make sure not to use excessive jargon that might further confuse the reader.
Your stakeholders might be bankers or venture capitalists. In this case, not only should your plan be something that they can understand, but you also have to make sure that you add something interesting for all of them. Your plan needs to cover all bases so it can be adaptable for all kinds of audiences.
14. Highlight Your Passion
Anyone who starts a business has a purpose. Now it’s finally time to let other people know about this purpose. You’re passionate about your work, and you put all this hard work into it. Make sure to let your investors and stakeholders know that.
It’s important to explain why you care, why you chose this exact business, why you want to work on this and how you will help in making it better.
Define your purpose. Why do you do what you do?
All the technical jargon is really important, but so is your passion. Your stakeholders need to know why you care and how it’s going to translate into your work. Let them know why you want to do this and what you’re setting out to learn and accomplish.
If you have previous experience in a similar line of work, you can talk about what you have learned and what your mistakes have taught you. You should also mention how you are going to work on your mistakes this time around.
This is a great way to form an emotional bond with your stakeholders and even your customers. Along with this bond, your passion can also make you stand out amongst all your competitors since it will show the customer that you care.
When you write a business plan, remember that it will be your road-map.
Conclusion
Don’t over-complicate it. Your plan should include all aspects of your business but needs to be concise as well. While you may use it to court investors and bankers, it’s most important use is to you.
