Who Do I Write it For?
First and foremost, recognize that the writing of a business plan benefits you and your business. Planning ahead helps you set realistic goals and make educated decisions. Beyond yourself, we need to have you start by asking yourself some questions.
1) Who are you writing the business plan for? Who is your audience?
2) Is the goal to secure funding? What kind of funding are you going for? This also helps you to determine your audience.
There are two groups that you can approach to ask for money from: banks (debt) and investors (equity). The length of your business plan can sometimes be as small as 10 pages but yet as large as 30 pages. Don’t skimp; be as informative as you possibly can. Both of the groups above are going to want to know about the risk involved with either lending you money or investing in your business. Realistically, they want to be sure that they’re going to get their money back from you and not be left high and dry. Opposite of the risk, you should be addressing the Return On Investment (ROI): benefit over cost.
Research
Within the business plan, you have to provide research and tell about your industry. This is not something that you can base on opinion. When you make a statement, back it up with solid facts: information from the library, trusted websites or database services. You may even want to include interviews with customers, suppliers, industry experts and competitor profiles.
The basics of a good business plan include the following:
- A cover page to identify your business. Work with your desired branding, this is key.
- A table of contents to organize the information for your audience.
- Show the big picture with an executive summary that gives the basics but also highlights the factors that will lead to success.
- Include a pitch with your business background and include your skills and experience.
- Present your marketing plan to convey the marketing strategy: How do you plan to get business? How do you plan to keep it?
- How do you plan to take action? Have an action plan that will outline how you will create and deliver your product or service.
- Remember that you’re asking for money with this plan and include financial statements and projections. These will illustrate how the business will perform financially based on the research and assumptions you supplied earlier in the business plan.
- Conclude with the appendix that includes statistical analyses, marketing materials and resumes of those involved in the business.
The most important thing is to be clear, concise and support your every statement. Do so with evidence on how your business is going to be able to pay back the money but also exceed the ROI because really, that’s all your bank or investor cares about.
