How to create a business plan?
To make an effective business plan, you need to get special education and have a huge amount of knowledge, becoming a real encyclopedia. This is only one myth related to business planning, which is definitely not worth believing.
In this article we will talk about a business plan, the rules for its preparation and its most important components.
What is a business plan impossible without?
You should not try to find the answer to this question in Google, because it is not there. In fact, everything is simple and any business plan will not do without 6 key sections. Let’s analyze them in more detail.
1. Resume
You may wonder why we put a resume first, because it is always the last one to be done.
Yes, it really is. In a resume, we always give a kind of overview of our plans, goals. Only in the business plan the resume is always given first so that the person reading it can immediately understand what he is dealing with. Do not prolong this section too much, giving it only one or a half pages.
2. Opportunities
At the head of any business is always the product and its ability to meet customers’ needs. In this section it is necessary to clearly define what exactly your company is ready to offer the market and who can become your customers. Also in this section you can analyze your main competitors.
3. Execution
Perfect! We learned about our capabilities. Now it’s time to understand how we are going to communicate these features to our target audience. What sales model you will use? What key marketing tools you need to focus on? All of this must be clearly understood by the investor who plans to invest. Here you should use not some confusing phrases, but the specifics confirmed by calculations.
4. Management and team
Answer the question about team, what their main responsibilities are, the history of company.
5. Financial plan
You have business goals. You know main competitors, but this is not enough. First, investors are interested in specific figures, a clear financial forecast. Show them your sales forecast, capital flows. The more realistic calculations your business plan contains, the better.
6. Add-ons
In the process of creating a business plan, you will use graphics, images and other visual materials. All these images can be put in a separate section of “Add-ons” and refer to this section as necessary.
Rules of making an effective business plan
No need to worry and think about having to start from scratch, making one mistake after another. If necessary, you can always find a huge number of ready-made business plan templates on the Internet, taking any of them for yourself.
Also, do not forget to follow some rules that have been tested in practice:
- Do not stretch your business plan to 100 pages. Perhaps you want to surprise a potential investor and give him the maximum of calculations and details, but this desire can play against you. Make it concise as possible. Investors do not have much time to spend a whole day reading.
- Less jargon and abbreviations. If you are developing a complex scientific project and want to attract investors through a successful business plan, try to use as few incomprehensible words as possible. Think what phrases will be understandable for investors.
- Do not be afraid of criticism. Entrepreneurs and investors who will read it have also made many mistakes. They are practitioners, not theorists, and will certainly not criticize you for using the wrong term in your business plan.
- Remember to briefly describe the problem that your product will solve. Just use two or three sentences for this.
And remember that investors love specifics.
If you have difficulty creating this important document, you can always seek assistance from professionals who provide the appropriate services. They will do the job quickly and with all the important nuances your investors will love.