HOW TO PREPARE A BUSINESS PLAN

A business plan is a document states in details the objectives of a company and a roadmap on how to achieve the business goals.

A well-written business plan should include details about your business financial goals, products or services, succession plan, finances, how to achieve this goal and a roadmap which the business will take for some years ahead to guarantee is success.

The article describes step by step on how to write and produce a good business plan,

Business plan guide

• Write an executive summary
• Describe your company
• State your business goals
• Products and services Description
• Swot Analysis
• Succession plan
• Do your market analysis
• Who are your target customers
• Perform a business financial analysis
• Make financial projections

 

• Executive summary

This is one of the first thing in your business plan and should be interesting because that’s what makes the reader interested in going through the remaining plan. The mission statement and a brief product and services description should also be stated clearly.

• Describe your company

A brief description of the business, the business structure weather sole proprietorship, partnership or corporation. In the case where the business is not sole proprietorship, the plan should include percentage ownership each owner has and the extent of each owner’s involvement in the company.

Also to be included are the day to day of the services to be rendered to the customers and other information like; the business location and how customers can access it, the business name weather registered or not, names of the key team members skills and technical expertise.

• State your business goals

This can be said to be business objective statement. Here it spells out exactly what and what the accomplishment would be both in the near term and the long term.

The goals helps one to focus on a direction to take while running the business and the each step to take on the way.

• Products and services description

Every business owner has what the business is selling therefore this section explains in detail about products and services you plan to offer, how the services work, your supply chain and distribution strategy.

• Swot Analysis

Swot simply means strength, weakness, opportunities and threats. it is the understudy of the organizational strength and weakness of the business as well as the threats and opportunities and how to identify such. It also helps the entrepreneur to understand factors that will help business growth and development and also factors that may affect such business

• Succession plan

The reasons some businesses fail after years of success is lack of successor. As a business owner, you have to nurture your successor on the business activities, this is because the death of the owner brings the death of the business in most businesses and in the case of incapacitation of the owner, the business will still be running as the owner wants but maybe with a fresh ideas.

• Do your market research

Lenders and investors will want to know what sets your product apart from your competition. In your market analysis section, explain who your competitors are. Discuss what they do well, and point out what you can do better. If you’re serving a different or underserved market, explain that.

• Who are your target customers

Here, you can address how you plan to persuade customers to buy your products or services, or how you will develop customer loyalty that will lead to repeat business.

• Perform a business financial analysis

Performing a financial analysis about the business you are to setup is first step before financial projection, projection data can only be achieved if the analysis is done. This is the only way to know the exact amount needed to finance a business and areas to fit the finance in other to push the business.

• Make financial projections

Making financial projections is not as easy as the other part of the business plan especially if you are seeking for loans or investors for the capital. This clearly state how your business will generate profit to payback loan.

The business monthly or quarterly sales, expenses and profit estimation for at least four years future numbers should be made putting into consideration that the business owner have obtained loan.

This might not be perfect but must be close to perfect is important or the business owner might risk losing its collateral. It should also be very realistic, if not no investor will be interested in investing into business.