Writing a Business Plan For A Small Business

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What Is A Business Plan?

A helpful definition of a business plan is found in Wikipedia:


“A business plan is a formal statement of a set of business goals, the reasons they are believed attainable, and the plan for reaching those goals.”

What Should You Include In Your Business Plan?

1. Executive Summary

Covering key points of your business plan, the executive summary should be completed last as a summary of each section.

  • [Objectives] Include only if you need to explain the purpose of the business plan
  • Our Business
  • Our Products/Services
  • Our Customers
  • Financial Summary

2. Business

An introduction. Provide practical information on your location and premises, management team, suppliers, production facilities, required equipment, management-information and IT systems.

  • Business Overview
  • Management Team
  • Operations

3. Products and Services

Explain the products and services you provide. What need does each product or service fill for your customers? Research your competitors. Who are they? What do they do well? What do you think your company does better? Why?

  • Products and Services
  • Competitors

4. Target Market

Who exactly are your customers? What is their profile? How (or where) will your customers find you, how will they buy from you? Think about what’s going on with this market (growth, trends), and how your business fits into this market.

  • Market Overview
  • Market Needs

5. Strategy and Implementation

Work through each of the “4P’s” of marketing in turn, Position, Pricing, Promotion and Place to create your marketing plan. Then identify the milestone events that are important for your business, and make your best guess at when you will achieve them. You should review and update your milestones regularly, as a way of measuring your success in achieving your business plan.

  • Marketing Plan
  • Milestones

6. Financial Plan

Your financial future begins with your sales, so try and estimate sales in bite size chunks, per week, per month etc. Be realistic otherwise you will soon start to feel despondent. What will it cost to operate your business? Don’t forget that while sales are uncertain, you have full control of how much you spend and keeping your costs down may be the key to your success.

  • Sales Forecast
  • Personnel Plan
  • Budget

Does it all sound too much? If you need some inspiration, find the section you feel most comfortable with and start with that. Make sure you don’t try and do your business plan in one go. Set a deadline for completion of your business plan and get started!

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