Be general and direct A good business plan shouldn't have more than 25 or 30 pages, and many good one's clock in at 15 pages. Provide a ballpark estimate of the funding you need and make it clear whether you're open to a negotiation. The goal here is to explain what your company does and why it will be successful. You can also see what actions you will need to take on a regular basis and create a default diary where you can block out time every week to get those regular tasks done. What are their strengths and weaknesses? Organizing yourself this way will make it much easier to bring on team members when you eventually get to that stage, as processes will already be in place.
They cover 99 percent of the global serviced office market and their talented team are market specialists enabling them to offer free, impartial advice to help find a dream workspace and negotiate the best deal for a business. Step 7: Summary Close your business plan with a pitch for funding, and list any supporting data, graphs and charts that bolster your pitch. If you are looking for investment or are looking to build a team, a clear, credible plan is necessary to get those individuals interested in being part of your business. What impact has that had? What kind of research and development have you already put into your company and what results are you getting - and expecting? Step 3: Market analysis In this section, you'll detail the marketplace you'll be competing in. In it, you'll go into more detail on what your company does and what solutions to brings to the marketplace. If you can, split them out over the 13 weeks of each quarter, too.
These are the primary questions you'll need to answer in the company organization section of your business plan. Step 2: Business description This section leads off the main portion of your business plan. Do you have any loans outstanding? Who has ownership of the company and at what percentage? Even if you are a one-man-band, this is an important exercise. This opening section kick starts your business plan and briefly outlines the key points of your plan. Include a brief history of your company and mention any top-level talent you have aboard to get your company off the ground.
Where are the best opportunities in your market? Next to each goal, write down what you actually need to do to achieve it. A lean startup business plan is often a bullet-pointed document that's only one page long. Here's the place to tell them exactly that. Step 4: Company organization How will your company operate i. Choose just one goal in each category and highlight that as your most important to achieve. Company funders consider this the most important section of your business plan, so be thorough and as accurate as possible in presenting financial data to your readers - they'll be pouring over every word and every digit to judge whether there's a good business opportunity here or not.
In this section, it's time to get specific and detail what product or services you're developing and what customers you're targeting. How will the company be structured legally? Include a company mission statement i. You can also extract your business goals from this and further categorize, if required e. Split those out over the four quarters. If you claim sales figures twice as large as the competition, for example, they may well think you're not being realistic.
If nothing else, it will show how feasible your business is and how far it could go. What are your quarterly projections going forward? Below, we will discuss some of the universal best practices that apply to any business plan. After all, your business plan is your first opportunity to make critical evaluations of your idea, and to view it from the perspective of different stakeholders. What does your balance sheet look like?. A traditional business plan can be dozens of pages long. Step 5: Products or services provided What will your company produce and how will it benefit customers? These are the questions you'll need to answer in this section.
These required functions should be clear from when you categorized the goals for your business. Being overly technical and overly descriptive can add unnecessary copy to your business plan and keep readers from focusing on what really matters, like your company's organizations and how your product or services will sell in your market. A company that knows how much money it needs will be taken as a serious one, and will be treated as such by funders and financiers. Aim to keep your plan as succinct as possible. Check your copy thoroughly Good grammar and spelling are absolutely imperative in a business plan. Also, how will you market your product or service to customers? The use of charts, graphs and images will provide factual and visual evidence which can help to back up your potential ideas. What is the management hierarchy? Hire a professional business writer and copy editor to make sure you have a clean and error-free business plan - good writing and editing will get noticed by readers, and in a positive way.
Provide informative ideas which will get them interested in your business. If there is no competition, where is the market? If your company is already up and running, list any income statements and cash flow numbers for the past several years, if possible. Step 6: Financial outlook In this section, you'll need to lay out your financial projections for your company. Set personal goals and see how they synchronize with your business goals so that you are more motivated to achieve both together. Set clear realistic goals for individuals, plans to reach those goals and what the result of reaching those goals will be. Getting your idea down on paper will help you formulate your thinking and will ensure you have thought through how you are going to get your business off the ground, what resources you need and what your objectives are. What is the leading marketplace product or service and what are you doing to improve on the leading products or services? Make it clear what you're looking for financially from financiers - equity, a partnership or a loan.
Financing companies want to work with differentiators, and they'll want to know what separates your business from the pack. Businesses that have invested in young companies have been around the block a few times and have a general understanding of what's realistic. One missing comma or one misspelled word may be taken by readers as a sign of sloppiness. . . .