Essential Guide To Writing A Business Plan
A Business plan is one of the most in-demand documents required by Angel Investors and Venture Capitalists before investing in any Startup or relatively small new business. When you start your business, you ought to make sure that you have a viable business plan ready. But this can be confusing if you do not know where to begin. Luckily for you, we have eased out of creating a business plan for your startup. Now, all you have to do is follow through with these guidelines to understand how to incorporate each of your business plan steps.
To make it easier for you, we have planned this guide out in a question-answer pattern to get a better idea. It will address most of your questions while also making sure that you understand all the basics about starting a business plan.
Why Should You Write A Business Plan?
Before we move on to how you should create or go about writing a business plan, you should understand its relevance. There is a range of reasons why you should be focusing on this and making sure your plans are concrete beforehand.
- To set strategies
- To set objectives and goals
- For raising finance
- To attract workforce
- For attracting investors
- To prioritize relevant items
Your business plan has a lot to offer you if you go about creating it in the right manner. So, make sure that you have a professional on your team experienced in creating exceptional business plans for your startup business.
How To Go About Writing Your Business Plan?
Now, you want to make sure that you’re practicing the basic elements of writing a business plan. So, before any further ado, let’s take a look at what these basic principles are.
Keep The Business Plan Concise
For your business plan to be effective, you will have to make sure that you’re keeping it straight to the point. Don’t go on rambling for too long as the reader will lose interest pretty quickly. The challenge is to keep it concise, short, and as direct as possible. If you add excessive details that aren’t relevant, then the readers will surely not pay too much interest.
Keep The Business Plan Professional
Next, you want to make sure that you keep a professional tone as you go about writing your plans. You want to exude a serious vibe to your potential investors. Keeping it informal or unprofessional is not going to cut it. If you feel like you cannot do this on your own, outsource professionals who offer you these business solutions.
Make Realistic Business Plans
When it comes to the planning bit, you have to make sure you’re putting in concrete numbers. Don’t exaggerate your business plans because the other person can easily catch on to this. Please give them a real understanding of what your business looks like and all the forecasts attached to it. If you’re unsure about this part as well, then don’t worry. Hire a CFO service that will help create an ideal business plan for your start-up.
Add Information For The Business Plan Appendix
The last thing you want to keep in mind is the information that you’re including. Try to add all the relevant data that is required in your appendix. These can include the financial models, forecasts, analysis, or any other document that might prove relevant to your business. Leaving out documents from your business plan is not ideal, as that shows that you have no evidence backing up your claims for your planning.
What is Your Business Plan All About?
Now, we’re at the second step of writing the business plan. Here, you will define everything relevant to your business. This includes what it stands for, what it offers, and what makes it unique. This is where you get to lure in the reader by offering them compelling details about your business. So, try not to overlook this.
History of Your Business
Your business’s history is highly essential when it comes to your planning. You explain to the reader about your background that entails who owns the business, why it came to being, and when it started. All of these details are important to understand at which stage the business is at currently.
What Services Or Products Do You Offer?
Next, you want to get to the point and talk about what your business offers. If it wasn’t obvious enough, this is a crucial aspect. You get to define what your product is and what you hope to offer people who use it. The product itself can also be a service that you’re offering, so the entire idea should showcase what you offer. For example, for an online pharmacy business plan, the contents of the business plan will be different as compared to the car dealer business plan.
Salient Features Of Your Business
Now, when it comes to talking about your products or services, you want to make sure that you put out your business’s salient features. Keep them concise, as we discussed before, and add all the things that make your business stand out. Doing so is essential to prove to the readers what makes your business relevant and why they should be interested in it.
What Is The Market Competition For Your Business Plan?
Every business has competition in the industry unless you’ve come up with a business idea that isn’t already prevalent in the market. Generally, you want to ensure that you have legitimate market research to understand your competition. Adding this to your business is highly relevant, so let’s look at how you can go about this.
Define Your Market
First, you want to make sure that your market is defined. What is the market segment you want to work in? Where do you stand amidst the market? What are the main consumer behaviors in this market? Get the details of everything about the market you’re working in and add the relevant bits to your business plan.
What Is The Nature Of Your Customers
One of the major things that you will need to cover will be the nature of your customers. What kind of customers are attracted to your business? Take out the right ratios and assess what consumer behaviors they exhibit. Also, you have to focus on the current customers you have and whether they are in line with your market segment or not.
What Businesses Do You Compete With?
Now, finally, you will have to figure out what other businesses you compete with. Doing so requires a lot of research, so you want to make sure that you’re putting in the effort to get this right. What other businesses compete with yours in the same products or services?
What Is Your Marketing And Sales Strategy For Your Business Plan?
The next bit should talk about your marketing and sales strategy to show potential investors what you have in store.
The Position Of Your Product In The Market
First, you have to clarify how your product or service is positioned in the market. Does it come under the head of high-quality? Is it expensive? Other similar questions should be asked when it comes to this. Moreover, here is where you will reiterate what the unique features of your product are.
What Pricing Policy Do You Follow?
Your marketing and selling strategy will also cover aspects of the pricing of the product. You will have to explain whether or not your consumers are sensitive to price and to what extent. Here, you will also need to set your profit margins and explain what ratios you will follow. You might need help from a financial analyst at this point.
What Are Your Promotional Strategies?
The market where you will be working will require you to have promotional strategies in play. Here, you will have to give a brief overview of what strategies you consider when developing your business plan.
Use of Sales Channels
Another part of your marketing and sales strategy would revolve around what sales channels you use. Whether you sell to direct consumers or choose a different route filled with wholesalers, distributors, and whatnot.
What Is Your Selling Mechanism?
Lastly, you will have to describe how you go about your sales. What methods do you practice when you make sales? This will cover the costs related to unit sales and the process of it all.
What Does Your Management And Organization Structure Look Like?
While creating your business plan, you will have to cover your management and organization structure as well. Here you will discuss extremely important things that include your management team’s features and the number of people who work for you.
Salient Features Of Your Management Team
Here, you will have to consider adding details about how you manage core departments in your business. All of this will have to do with what your management is structured like and how you hire them.
Workforce In Numbers
You also have to analyze your workforce to take out estimates to help you understand their efficiency. A few key ratios that you should add to your business plan cover the employee retention ratio, average salaries, and other metrics that will help you better portray your workers’ efficiency.
How Do You Carry Out Your Business Operations?
We’re moving on to almost the end of the business plan. Here you will need to talk about things relevant to your business’s operations plan. So, let’s take a look.
The Premises Of Your Business
The premises of your business don’t mean you start discussing where your business is stationed. Instead, this is where you talk about whether the current location is suitable enough for plans. Go over the benefits and drawbacks of your location, along with any expansion plans.
Production Facilities For The Products
Get into the details of how whether or not the business location works well for your favor or not. Along with this, you need to talk about the equipment present inside the premises. Does it meet the requirements of the products? Is it effective? Does it offer enough capacity to meet the demands of production?
Do You Have Any Management Information Systems In Place?
While you talk about business operations, you also want to include any management systems onboard. Are you outsourcing and managing information systems? Do these aid in the overall operations? How well do they account for stock control, sales, and other relevant information?
How Are You Handling Financial Forecasts For Your Business Plan?
Now, the last thing that you will have to cover is the financial plan. Here, you will have to make sure that you’re adding the relevant data and getting a professional to do this for you.
Setting Out Historical Data For Your Business Plan
As you create your financial model and start with your forecasts, you will need to ensure that you have the right data to do this. Get the historical data for your business to forecast it. If you’re a startup, then you want to make sure you’re getting the industry data for your business to make use of that.
Create Forecasts For Up To 3 To 5 Years
When you go about forecasting, make sure to keep the forecast timeline for a minimum of three years. Be clear about your assumptions and ensure that you used proper metrics to create your business forecast.
Make Use Of Experienced Professionals
Financial forecasts aren’t easy to make and are also a highly important part of your business plan. You want to make sure you hire the right people to do this work for you. Otherwise, your business plan might not be as effective as you might want it to be.
If you’re looking for an effective way to create your business plan, then look no further. We, at Oak Business Consultants, are experienced in offering consultation on such matters. Whether you’re looking for creating a business plan or financial model, visit our website at Oak Business Consultants, and get a free consultation.