Tweet

Tips For Writing A Business Plan For Your Small Business

Guest post by: Maryjean Howe

Article Overview: A business plan is the skeletal bone of any business venture. It is a strategic roadmap that will help your business attain the set goals. The plan helps you look at the industry, customers, competitors, opportunities and threats. You are able to view your company objectively and recognize your capabilities, resources, advantages, strengths and weaknesses.

Tips For Writing A Business Plan For Your Small Business

A business plan is the skeletal bone of any business venture. It is a strategic roadmap that will help your business attain the set goals. The plan helps you look at the industry, customers, competitors, opportunities and threats. You are able to view your company objectively and recognize your capabilities, resources, advantages, strengths and weaknesses. Planning for an uncertain future so that you start with plans and strategies for a successful future is made possible by your business plan.

Before you write a business plan, you must have parts of the business in place.

• Company - Include organization name, vision, objectives, members and contact information.
• Problem - Describe the problem that is present and why your company wants to target it.
• Solution - Explain what solutions your company offers to alleviate the problem. Describe the products or services offered.
• Business Model - Here explain how the company makes money, who pays you, channels of distribution and gross margins.
• Technology - Mention the technology being used. Also, include what makes your products and services unique and appealing.
• Marketing and Sales - Explain the process of how you are going to reach your customers and your key marketing and advertising points.
• Competition - Have a complete view of the competitive landscape. Compare your strong and weak points to that of your competitors.
• Management team - List who are the key players of your business including advisors, directors, investors, and other stakeholders.
• Financial projections - Graphically project a five year forecast containing key metrics like customer numbers, earnings, and other essential data.
• Current status and achievements - Clarify the status of your business in terms of products or services and what you aim to achieve.

You basically need to prepare a presentation based on your company's objectives to scrutinize it effectively.

While writing the business plan, try not to exceed 20 pages in length. Keep it short and simple. After all a lengthy and wordy document is not very exciting to read! A good start to a business plan is a well articulated Executive Summary including the company's technology and products, the market opportunity, competition, funds requested to sustain and grow the company.

Limit your financial projections to a couple of pages. This is very important because no one knows the future of economy and how your business will do in the far future. Set realistic and short-term goals. Include numbers with respect to customers, locations, profit estimates etc. These metrics provide a better understanding of the company's goals.

There are many tools and resources available online and "offline" to help you design your business plan. Hit the library, bookstore and best of all - the internet to get started.

The ultimate strength of a business relies on the following:

Plans: Company objective, visions, goals, mission

Organization: A good and strong structure

Procedure: Effective and efficient business procedures

Leadership: Ability to influence and encourage team members

Skills: Collective talents and expertise of members

Culture: Positive attitude and belief

Writing a business plan is a crucial stepping stone to a successful venture. There are many key factors to be addressed such as the mission, goals, finance, forecast, and marketing & sales. Having a strong plan in hand will help your business survive in any economy. Use the tips listed here to write an effective plan for your company.

Happy planning!!

Related Articles
  Top 7 Steps to Increase Article Writing Speed if Internet Marketing Is A Key Marketing Strategy
  Business Plan Writing
  Five Keys to Book Writing Success
  Writing Business Articles
  Tricky Truths
  Writing Tips and Articles rules:
  How to Choose a Business Plan Writing Service
  Business Plan Help
  The Art of Copywriting Tips - What it Can Do For You
  Make Writing a Priority, Not a Pain
  These 3 Tips are Fundamental to a Successful Internet Based Business
  Making a plan for your home business
  Business Plan Forms
  Top 7 Tips to Avoid the Top 7 Mistakes Small Business Owners Make
  How to Develop the Writing Habit-Even if You Don’t Have Time to Write
  It Takes Planning
  Steps to Follow That Make Article Writing Really Simple
  Writing and Publishing eBooks Made Easy #02 - The Creative Writing Process
  How to Write Better and Faster -- And Have More Fun Doing It!
  Writing for Blogs - 5 Tips

Article Tags: business venture, small business, writing a business plan



Related Forum Posts
My entry - 1. The Best Business Books Ever: The 100 Most Influential Business Books You'll Never Have Time to Read - this is a fascinating book about the history of Business theory, and I'd recommend it to anybody. 2. The Big Book of Small Business: You Don't Have to Run Your Business by the Seat of Your Pants, by Tom Gegax. Ditto. 3. PADI: The Business of Diving Book Okay, so this book won't be of use to anyone who doesn't want to start a scuba store, but I did, and this book was of course invaluable to me in reaching that goal.
New Small Business Topic - Hello everyone, I'm on the lookout for new topics to add to my site. We just launched a Franchising section and are planning Human Resources section. Do you have any thoughts for a new section? Here's a list of what we currently have: Angel Investors Branding Bank Loans Business Coaching Business Plan Franchises (New) Insurance Legal Marketing Public Relations Sales Small Biz Loans Venture Capital
Business Innovation - Hi Simon If you can finish off the Business Plan and think about your strategic direction or how you are going to use your product to convince people it's a great idea, it will set the foundation for your programming project. You see, when you are looking for funding you will need a Business Plan and Strategic Plan that will convince companies to invest into your new idea. Has anyone achieved this idea before using another industry besides health and fitness that you know of? You should also design some mockups as a "preview" for your programming project. This will also help reduce your programming costs as everyone will know exactly what you want if you have detailed mockups already completed including any functionality you require. Starting mockups for websites and software applications on paper is the best way if you're not a guru in graphic editing software.
Exclusive: Interview with Results - Hi Forum Members, I'm helping start up a Business Coaching and Consulting company here in Toronto, Ontario, Canada (a Subsidiary of RSC Business in Los Angeles). As a Research and Development Intern I am required to practice my listening and interview skills by surveying Small and Medium Businesses on thier Business. This Survey is designed by RSC Business to also assist the Business being interviewed more insight into their own business. I am looking to interview about 30 businesses across North America over the span of 3 months. At the end of these interviews I will be publishing a report of the results and they will be made available for free to the Interviewees. The Report data will include responses from a minimum of 100 interviews. I would like to extend this opportunity to members of the Forum. If you would like to have this short 20-30 minute interview conducted on your Business and you reside in North America please send me an email or PM. Please contact me at andy[at]jvprosperity[dot]com to arrange our interview and to get free access to the results when they are published.
Re: NEW VIDEO - How to improve your business plan - Ask Evan - Thanks Evan, great intro into how the VC's see business plan. I will take a look, but hope that this video as number 1 in a series. It is unfortunate that these types of errors, the most basic of errors as you point out here are common to too many business plans, having reviewed a few hundred myself from both a development and funding perspective. As a mentor and workshop facilitator for Business Plan development for a number of start-up IT and multimedia companies, your presentation help support and show how the VC's see and evaluate a plan Shameful, that too many don't take the time to learn how to properly prepare, present and defend their plans. Over the years, I have enjoyed Business Plan competitions, and help re-work some of the winning proposals


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Unspoken Yet Important Rules for Book Proposals

How to sell a business

Listen to Your Inner Melody

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.