The Business Plan: A Roadmap to Success Melissa Fromm
Business plans are critical for every type of business: small or large, for profit or not-for profit, manufacturing or service oriented. The business plan provides a roadmap to lead the organization into the future and should be the cornerstone to any business operation. Through words, graphs and numbers, the business plan can articulate the organization’s long-term goals, how the organization will achieve them, their milestones and how they will measure their progress.
The business plan will enable the organization to attract investors by providing them with critical information about the history of the company, objectives, mission, management team, the marketplace, the customers that will be serviced, the products and services that will be delivered, the competitive advantages of the organization, the operational structure, the market and financial strategies and the short and long-term goals. The business plan should also be realistic about the critical risks and obstacles that the organization must overcome to be able to succeed in the marketplace.
The foundation of a successful business plan is the market research and data that is collected and analyzed. If important market information is overlooked, prospective investors can be lost and creditability and the future of your organization can be severely damaged. Therefore, it is critical that a thorough investigation and analysis of competitors, industries, technologies, and external threats be reviewed and analyzed.
A business plan can also provide valuable guidance and direction for the internal organization. The business plan can serve as a management tool which clearly articulates the goals and future direction of the organization to senior managers and employees.
Writing the business plan is an important undertaking and should involve an extensive amount research, time and commitment. An important process in writing a business plan is for the management team to agree on the strategic direction of the corporation. Once this important hurdle is achieved, short and long term goals can be developed and the business plan can be constructed.
A quick outline of a business plan should include the following topics:
Title Page
Executive Summary
Table of Contents
Business Description
Market Analysis
Competition
Management
Critical Risks
Financial Analysis
Milestone Schedule
References
Appendix
Dos:
a
Seek advise from other small business owners who have developed successful companies and business plansa
Conduct extensive market researcha
Have the plan well organized and professionally writtena
Motivate reader with dynamic language and accurate financial dataa
Clearly articulate competitive advantages of the firma
Describe your management team and founders of the organizationa
Provide clear, accurate and detailed financial informationa
Clearly identify the amount of funding that will be sought from investorsa
Have key employees and outside experts review the plan to provide valuable feedback before it is distributed to potential investorsa
Closely monitor changes in the marketplace, customer demands and the organization. Make changes to business plan when appropriate.a
Prepare a brief (no longer than five minutes) oral presentation to accompany business planDon’t s:
r
Rush through writing a business plan - it takes time and deserves priorityr
Make the business plan too long - keep it under 30 double spaced pagesr
Forget to address the customer and their needs and how they will be metr
Forget to address the benefits and cash in opportunities of potential investorsr
Overvalue the companyr
Create unrealistic financial projectsFour Great Sites to Explore when Writing A Business Plan
http://www.webcom.com/seaquest/sbre/busplan.htlm: This site entitled "How to Prepare a Business Plan that Guarantees Big Profits" provides an outline and discussion the key elements that should be addressed in each section of the business plan. It recommends additional reading sources that will be useful in developing a business plan.
Http://www.win.org/library/services/busgov/busstart/lssmfirm.htm: This site is extremely user-friendly and provides a template for the basic elements of a business plan. This site also provides a worksheet to organize the information for the business plan, marketing plan, financial plan and management plan.
Http://www.dtonline.com/writing.html: This site outlines the important process of developing a business plan: introduction; data collection, outline, choosing the appropriate type of plan and delegating responsibilities for writing the plan.
Http://www.sb.gov.bc.ca/smallbus/workshop/busplan.html: This site reviews the planning fundamentals, preparing a cash flow forecast, preparing a business plan and provides sample business plan that can be downloaded.