Learn how to create the perfect business plan to get your business running
Even though it may seem like successful ideas and business fall into place coincidentally, there are countless hours of planning that occured behind the scenes.
So if you're planning on launching a business of your own, you need to start by laying out a clear and feature rich plan.
What is a business plan?
Business plans are comprehensive documents that paint a complete picture regarding every aspect of the business. They provide a clear insight into what the business does, what sets it apart from the rest, what its revenue models are as well as core information areas that allow investors to have a clear picture of the business and its workings.
Generally, financials and projections are an important aspect of business plans because they allow investors to have a clear idea about the financial breakdown of the business and the way everything works. A clear business plan generally includes all the required details about your business to provide the reader with an elaborate idea of the past, present, and future of your business idea. In formal circles, having a proper business plan is mandatory to conduct business and grow your business.
It would be fair to say that having a business plan is one of the most important steps when starting your business.
Importance of having a business plan
Having a properly curated business plan can be instrumental in the success of your business. There are multifold benefits of having a comprehensive business plan. Here are some of the biggest benefits.
Investor Outreach – Every new business needs to appeal to investors to effectively take its business acumen to the next level by adding new layers of revenue and experience. Having a business plan is mandatory if you are looking to reach out to investors for your business. Properly configured business plans provide a clear path forward to investors to take the step forward and invest in your business venture.
Scalable Approach – Your business is not going to start out at the level you want it to grow to. Growth is always going to be a slow and steady process. Scalability is a mandatory part of the growth of every business. It can be a major mistake to start out not knowing what they want to do with their company. It's always a great way to plan out your business a few steps in advance so you have a clearly laid out scalable plan to effectively grow your business. The business plan provides that information and effectively simplifies the step you are going to take.
Financial Details – Financial details are a major part of any business plan. These financial details provide a clear insight to investors on the way your business is earning and what they can expect on their investment. Having a clear financial breakdown backed by solid, well-researched investments is a great way to encourage investors to take the leap forward and invest in your company. It can also be a big confidence booster for investors to know that you have a clear idea of what you are doing.
Marketing Aid – A lot of the content accumulated for the business plan can be instrumental for use across different spheres of marketing. The time put into the business plan reveals channels of marketing and other important selling points that are essential to keep in mind while expanding your reach. This data is very useful at a later stage in the market due to its applicability and relevance.
Now that we have a clear idea of how important business plans are and the positive impact they can have on the propagation on your business, let's dig deeper into what constitutes a great business plan and all the important details you need to keep in mind to curate the perfect business plan.
Essential elements of a business plan
Business plans are extremely important to provide a clear structure for the content in terms of the way the business will achieve its goals. Here are the following factors which are essential for a good business plan.
Business Introduction
It is important to provide a proper introduction for your business to let people know more about your company and what makes it special. The following details are important to cover.
What does the company do?
Who are the founders of the company?
What is the mission of the company?
What is the vision of the company?
Is there any history behind the formulation of the company?
These details provide a clear idea about the general introduction of the company and dig deeper into essential aspects that investors might have questions about.
Revenue generation and profitability
At the end of the day, the core purpose of any business is to generate revenue and stay profitable. It is important to provide a clear sense of revenue and profitability.
Make sure that you are not vague about these essential details. It is important for the investors to have a clear idea about the ways you are projecting to generate revenue and stay profitable. Proper costing and projects go a long way in portraying professionalism and providing an avenue forward to investors to positively evaluate your product.
Marketing strategy
It is important to provide a comprehensive idea about the marketing strategy of your company. The general tools employed for that purpose are the usage of SMART marketing objectives and other technology-oriented resources to lend credibility to the general marketing plan. Here are some important avenues to cover the marketing strategy of your company.
Social Media Marketing Plan
Competitor Marketing Analysis
Elaborating on the aforementioned topics provides a clear idea of the direction of the company to the investors and helps them realize how you are going to market and grow your company.
Financial projections
Like previously iterated in the revenue section, nothing appeals more to investors that properly researched financial data. It is extremely important to present a clear insight of the company and the financial projects to give them an idea of the way the company is going to be managed and how it will grow. Here are some of the most important details to include in your financial projects.
5-year revenue projections
Projected costs and salaries
Projected income and applicable taxes
Properly providing these details ensures that your investors are clearly aware of the direction of your company and that they can put their support behind the general direction in which you are having. Having this data is also important to properly put a financial value on your company.
Future plans
Your vision for the future tells a clear story about what can be expected to form your company. It is important to carefully layout your future plans to properly define the way your company is going to grow and the steps you are going to be taking to ensure that the management is effective. Make sure your future plans are realistic and quantifiable. There is nothing worse than seeing a business plan with figures that are completely out of touch from reality. Seeing that just presents the picture of overconfidence and general inexperience, which is the last thing you want.
Even though it may seem like a major hassle to put in hours of your time to put up a document and not focusing on the practical aspect of things. However, it is important to realize that the time you put into the creation of your business plan is time that you are going to be saving in the future because of having a clear idea of what you want to do.
Should you write your business plan yourself or hire writers?
This is an important question to consider.
Business plans are quite complex and an expertly written business plan could land you
the funding needed to launch your dream business. So if you're not a confident writer, you should definitely get someone else to write it for you.
Ideally you should outsource your business plan project to an experienced business plan writer, to ensure the correct format outlined in this post is followed.
Hiring a freelancer to write your business plan
Hiring a freelancer to write your business plan is a very efficient and cost effective solution. Before hiring a freelance writer you can gauge their level of expertise by perusing through previous employer reviews and you can also read through their portfolio of work on their profile.
Unlike business plan writing agencies where you communicate with writers through a third party, by hiring a freelancer you will be communicating directly with your writer. This keeps the feedback loop tight and incredibly efficient.
An efficient business plan creation process means you can get your business idea in front of investors before any of your competitors do.
Final thoughts
A business plan is essential for keeping your team aligned with the vision of the business and it's also the ticket to securing any funding you might desperately need.
Our global pool of expert business plan writers are ready to help you step closer towards building your dream business.
Hire a writer today!