You’ve chosen and tested the business idea you’re going to turn into a business; now it’s time to put together a business plan that details your company’s goals and how you intend to achieve them.
Your business plan should include many key elements and adhere to a simple and straightforward structure. Always aim to create a business plan that anyone can pick up and understand what your company is, what its goals are, and how you intend to achieve them; this means breaking it down into distinct sections.
A brief summary
An executive summary is an introduction to your business plan, its content, and an overview of everything in it. It should provide the reader with a brief, concise, and clear overview of your company and what you are attempting to accomplish in no more than two paragraphs.
Page of Contents
Your readers will frequently want to skip to specific sections that interest them; a contents page allows them to quickly navigate to the appropriate section.
Products/services and business model
In this section, you must outline your business model as well as the products, services, and solutions you offer.
Customer, market and competition
In this section, you must demonstrate a clear understanding of your ideal client, the market for your product, service, or solution (as well as a clear segmentation of your market), and an understanding of the competitive landscape, including who your competitors are and where you stand in relation to them.
Marketing and sales
This section is about demonstrating a clear plan from a marketing and sales perspective. How do you intend to generate revenue?
Finances and projections
You want to show your current finances and any projections you have for the business. This can be done for 12 months, 2 years, or even 3-year projections.
Team
Include a short section about your current team, who they are, and their qualifications/experiences. You can talk about how they are going to be relevant to your business and why you selected this team.
Summary of the business plan
This part should highlight the entirety of your business and your business plans in bullet point format, as well as providing contact information so that a reader can readily contact you.
Keep your writing concise.
Be careful to summarise and keep your writing as brief as possible to help your proposal and be as obvious as possible. It not only helps you organize your thoughts, but it also makes it a lot easier for others to grasp
Make certain that everything is up to date.
It is quite easy to incorporate irrelevant material in your business strategy, and it is very tempting to do so. This extra information frequently slows down your conversation and makes the concept more difficult to grasp.
Make a straightforward mission statement.
A mission statement should simply convey what your company’s overall objective is. For example, the mission may be: to make it easy for customers to find a partner
Formats for business plans
Create your first document with Word, Google Docs, or Open Office; these programs are simple to use and will result in a file that is easily editable. You can also use Excel to design and update a clear framework, which will help you get a better picture of the plan. Make sure to stick to a consistent theme in terms of fonts, colors, and design elements throughout the document
