How to Write a Business Plan

A business plan is an essential roadmap for business success. This living, breathing document generally projects 3-5 years ahead and outlines the route a company intends to take to reach, maintain and grow revenues. A well thought out plan also helps you to step-back and think objectively about the key elements of your business venture and informs your decision-making.

The following guides offer tips that will help you research and develop a winning plan.

*Essential Elements of a Good Business Plan

*How to Make Your Business Plan Stand Out

*Guide For Writing a Business plan

Essential Elements of a Good Business Plan

What are the key elements of a business plan? From market analysis to your company financials, this guide walks you through the essential components of your plan, including how to develop a funding request.

• Business Plan Executive Summary
  Your executive summary is a snapshot of your business plan as a whole and touches on your company profile and goals.
• Market Analysis
  Before launching your business, it is essential for you to research your business industry, market and competitors.
• Company Description
  Your company description provides information on what you do, what differentiates your business from others, and the markets your business serves?
• Organization & Management
  Every business is structured differently. Find out the best organization and management structure for your business.
• Marketing & Sales Management
  How do you plan to market your business? What is your sales strategy? Read more about how to present this information in your plan.
• Service or Product Line
  What do you sell? How does it benefit your customers? What is the product lifecycle? Do you plan R&D activities? Get tips on how to tell the "story" of your product or service.
• Funding Request
  If you are seeking funding for your business, find out about the necessary information you should include in your plan.
• Financial Projections
  If you need funding, providing financial projections to back up your request is critical. Find out what information you need to include in your financial projections for your small business.
• Appendix
  An appendix is optional, but a useful place to include information such as resumes, permits, leases, and so on.

How to Make Your Business Plan Stand Out

One of the first steps to business planning is determining your target market and why they would want to buy from you.

For example, is the market you serve the best one for your product or service? Are the benefits of dealing with your business clear and are they aligned with customer needs? If you're unsure about the answers to any of these questions, take a step back and revisit the foundation of your business plan.

The following tips can help you clarify what your business has to offer, identify the right target market for it and build a niche for yourself.

Be Clear About What You Have to Offer

Ask yourself: Beyond basic products or services, what are you really selling? Consider this example: Your town probably has several restaurants all selling one fundamental product—food. But each is targeted at a different need or clientele.

One might be a drive-thru fast food restaurant, perhaps another sells pizza in a rustic Italian kitchen, and maybe there’s a fine dining seafood restaurant that specializes in wood-grilled fare. All these restaurants sell meals, but they sell them to targeted clientele looking for the unique qualities each has to offer. What they are really selling is a combination of product, value, ambience and brand experience.

When starting a business, be sure to understand what makes your business unique. What needs does your product or service fulfill? What benefits and differentiators will help your business stand out from the crowd?

Don’t Become a Jack of All Trades-Learn to Strategize

It’s important to clearly define what you’re selling. You do not want to become a jack-of-all trades and master of none because this can have a negative impact on business growth. As a smaller business, it's often a better strategy to divide your products or services into manageable market niches. Small operations can then offer specialized goods and services that are attractive to a specific group of prospective buyers.

Identify Your Niche

Creating a niche for your business is essential to success. Often, business owners can identify a niche based on their own market knowledge, but it can also be helpful to conduct a market survey with potential customers to uncover untapped needs. During your research process, identify the following:

• Which areas your competitors are already well-established
• Which areas are being ignored by your competitors
• Potential opportunities for your business

Guide For Writing a Business Plan

What goes into a business plan?
There is no single formula for developing a business plan, but some elements are consistent throughout all business plans. Your plan should include an executive summary, a description of the business, a plan for how you will market and manage your business, financial projections and the appropriate supporting documents.
To help you get started in writing your business plan, we have summarized the essential elements in the following outline.

Elements of a Business Plan

1. Cover sheet
2. Executive summary (statement of the business purpose)
3. Table of contents
4. Body of the document
   
   1. Business
      
      1. Description of business
      2. Marketing
      3. Competition
      4. Operating procedures
      5. Personnel
      6. Business insurance
   2. Financial data
      
      1. Loan applications
      2. Capital equipment and supply list
      3. Balance sheet
      4. Breakeven analysis
      5. Profit and loss statements
      6. Three-year summary
      7. Detail by month, first year
      8. Detail by quarters, second and third year
      9. Assumptions upon which projections were based
      10. Pro-forma cash flow
   3. Supporting documents
      
      1. Tax returns of principals (partners in the business) for last three years, personal financial statements (all banks have these forms)
      2. Copy of franchise contract and all supporting documents provided by the franchisor (for franchise businesses)
      3. Copy of proposed lease or purchase agreement for building space
      4. Copy of licenses and other legal documents
      5. Copy of resumes of all principals
      6. Copies of letters of intent from suppliers, etc