Writing a Buniness Plan, Part I

This is the nitty gritty of forming a business, you have to have a Plan. Without a well written business plan, it will be impossible to secure financing, which will be critical in my business startup. I will need to purchase things like tools, a vehicle, office equipment, pay for marketing and advertising and off set expenses until the work starts coming in. As one source puts it, until you have a Business Plan (capital B, capital P) your business is still just a fantasy.

Areas and topics that a good Business Plan will cover include:

An executive summary outlining goals and objectives.
A brief account of how the company began or will begin.
The company’s goals.
Biographies of the management team.
The service or product the company plans to offer.
The market potential for that service or product.
A marketing strategy.
A three- to five-year financial projection.
An exit strategy.

Those are the basics, you can add more topics if you thing necessary such as number of employees, expansion plans, etc.

The most important part is the executive summary section. This should be a synopsis of the entire plan and be about a page or so long. Without a good executive summary, you will not have a good first impression and chances are you will not receive the financing you where looking for. It should be in a Who, What, When, Where, Why, How (How much) format.

The rest of the business plan should expound on what is said in the executive summary. Include as much information as possible to backup the information in the plan.

Finally, an exit strategy may seem a little negative, however, it is important to set some type of benchmark for when to call it quits.

When my business plan is done, I will post an outline here. Also, for further reading, the Small Business Administration has a good general outline and information on starting small businesses.

Bookmark to: