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The 7 best reasons to write a business plan

Written by: Susan Martin

Article Overview: Lots of business owners skip a crucial step to ensure the success of their companies - writing a business plan. This detailed overview of your company and its future is commonly overlooked - often because it's a lot of work. However, it's some of the most valuable work you can do when starting up a business, which is why everyone from banks to venture capital companies require detailed business plans before they will even consider your business. The process of creating the plan and thinking things through has helped many business owners learn what it takes to be successful

The 7 best reasons to write a business plan

Lots of business owners skip a crucial step to ensure the success of their companies - writing a business plan. This detailed overview of your company and its future is commonly overlooked - often because it's a lot of work. However, it's some of the most valuable work you can do when starting up a business, which is why everyone from banks to venture capital companies require detailed business plans before they will even consider your business. The process of creating the plan and thinking things through has helped many business owners learn what it takes to be successful.

Too often, business owners as so busy working "in" their business that they overlook the necessity to work "on the business". A business plan helps you do this. How can you improve the odds of success? Planning! And the way to start planning is by creating a business plan, and continuing to pull it out, look at it and tweak it as your business grows. So, even if you don't need to raise capital or borrow money, a plan can help your business significantly.

Some questions that a well-designed plan will answer:

* What does your particular industry look like right now and what will it look like in the future?

* What markets are you competing in - what will they be 5 years down the road?

* What specific competition will you be up against? What are their strengths and weaknesses?

* What products or services do you offer? Will they remain constant?

* What value (not features) do you provide to your customers?

* What long-term advantages do you have over the competition?

* How will you maintain them?

* How big and profitable will your business become?

* If you're using the plan to borrow money or attract investors: How much will you need & why?

* What action steps will you need to take to have your plan succeed?

* What will happen to the business when you retire or after your death?

As you may have realized, In order to create this detailed view of the future, you'll have to make a lot of projections, assumptions and predictions about what will happen. The more research you do, the easier it will be to make educated ones. And, the longer you're in business the better you'll become at forecasting the future. What are the top 7 reasons to write your business plan?

* Make more money

* Save time

* Keep you on track and make it easier to be successful

* Give you a chance to make mistakes on paper

* Create a foundation for your company's growth

* Make running a business easy and fun

* And, keep you from making the same mistakes over and over again

So if you've been putting off working on your business plan, please reconsider - it may be more helpful than you realize.

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Is A Business Plan A Waste Of Time? - According to various government statistics, up to 80% of businesses will fail within their first five years of operation. That number is staggering to me. At the same time, when I look at most business owners, most of them do not have a business plan for where they want to go. When you ask entrepreneurs why they don’t have a business plan, most of them will say something like: “it’s too much work”, “I’m not trying to raise money”, “it’s all in my head already”, or “my business changes too often for a business plan to be worthwhile.” Sound familiar? Did you write a business plan for your company when you first started? Are you planning on doing it for your new business idea?
Business plans - [quote:2cj5vift]I wrote one and I did so because I feel that one needs to determine whether their business stands a chance at being profitable before they start-up.[/quote:2cj5vift] I would think that a business plan is all important. It's no sense trying to start a business on a wing and a prayer, you have to have all your financials and other details ready and easily accessible. And anyone who hasn't written a business plan to start with, should write one as soon as possible - just to have it documented how far you've come, and how far you want to go in your chosen field.
Do you want your business plan reviewed for free? - At some point, either when you start up or if you're running a business, you may find you need to write a business plan. I work with many small business owners and small businesses in this situation and have seen many of them struggle with this area. So, I thought I'd let you know that I have a free tips sheet on top things you need to put in a business plan and how you can avoid some common mistakes. Just email me on helen.dowling@exceptionalthinking.co.uk Also, as a special offer for Evan Carmichael members, if you have written a business plan and would like me to review this entirely for free, I'd be happy to do so - email me at helen.dowling@exceptionalthinking.co.uk and I'll email you back comments on how you can improve your plan. Please note that I will not share your plan with anyone and I am happy to sign a confidentiality agreement if you're at all concerned. I look forward to hearing from you. Helen Dowling
Re: True Characteristics of an Entrepreneur - [quote="BuzzAroundBooks":sl9904z9] I think there are a lot of quizzes out there which people can take to evaluate themselves, but the problem is that people generally don't objectively answer the questions. And if you take a college course on entrepreneurship, you really won't know if you're cut out for that lifestyle change until you're actually doing it. In class, writing up a full business/marketing plan and presenting it to your classmates doesn't mean anything (or prove that you got what it takes to succeed at running your own small business). For instance, in an eMarketing class I took, the instructor gave me an "A+" on my business plan, but when I asked for additional feedback when the course was over... he gave me his "real" thoughts and said the idea would never "swim" in reality.[/quote:sl9904z9] Very true - a brutally honest answer to the questions is necessary to get a real answer. I've known plenty of people who could pass a test on a topic, but that did not mean they could implement the things they learned. Did he give you any reasons why it wouldn't work? What I'm thinking is - what information in the business plan should have revealed it wasn't feasible? If that element wasn't in the business plan - it should be added. Analyzing the plan, the location, the target market, market research, needed expertise, people to fill those needs, financial projections and needs and so on should reveal problem areas in a plan. Shri
Re: Hello - Hey, Thanks for the link Kevin! And thank for the warm welcome from everyone. My business partner and I are currently trying to write out our business plan, how do you do such a thing without concrete numbers for revenue? ~Loredana~


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