‘’Regardless of its size, every business should have a business plan in place.’’ – says Joseph Green, a business writing expert at an assignment writing service.
And he is definitely right – a business plan is a vital step leading to a successful company. If you do this right, you can use the plan to guide you toward the final goal, as well as to attract customers to your business’ idea.
However, here remains the challenge of how to make a good business plan. A business plan should includea summary, description of the company, analysis of the market, management and organization of the company, marketing and sales strategies, funding requests, financial projections, and appendix. The list is as exhausting as it sounds, but if you do it well, you are in for a grand success.
To assist you in the writing and planning of your business plan, we’ve made a list of seven essential steps everyone must go through to create a perfectly written plan.
Step 1: Do Your Fair Share of Research
The first part of the business plan strategy is the longest and most exhausting of them all. It will take most of the time spent on your company’s business plan creation, but if you dedicate enough effort to it, you can create an excellent strategy for success.
Start by researching the market, the competition, as well as your product. Evaluate the expenses, both expected and unexpected, and perform a comprehensive research of everything you need to know about the industry you are getting into.
Step 2: Find a Purpose for Your Plan
What’s the goal of your business plan? There are many purposes and goals a plan can aim to fulfill, but one of them is the key goal your entire business will be striving to reach.
Look at your plan as a road map that will direct the actions of your business. That being said, you need to find a sole, most important purpose for your plan and make it as clear as possible. Only then you can define the rest of the goals.
Step 3: Create a Company Profile
This profile will combine the product and services offered by your company, the history of the company as an organization, information about the target audience, your plans and goals, as well as business’ unique characteristics. All of this information goes on the About Us page on your business’ website.
Step 4: Include a Marketing Plan
A good business plan cannot be successful without a marketing plan, a strategy in place. Such plan should combine the following objectives:
- Improve the existing products or extend their market
- Create and introduce a new product
- Spread your company on different territories
- Cross-sell different product
- Find a way to raise the prices without losing customers
- Find great, long-term clients and build a relationship with them
- Create quality content to promote your business
Step 5: Document Everything
When reading your business plan, investors expect to learn details about your business, the achievements, as well as the plans for the future. To aid this process and get more investors on board, document everything. Under everything we mean cash flow, expenses, as well as industry projections.
Step 6: Adapt Everything to Your Audience
In most cases, your business plan will have the aim to impress investors. Take this into account when preparing the plan. Learn what the audience is interested in and what would attract more investors.
Step 7: Review and Edit
The final step of every written piece, especially the professional pieces such as a business plan, is to edit and review. This might be your only chance to impress a group of investors and build your business, which makes it critical for you to check the plan and make sure it is perfect. If you fail to do so, you risk seeming unprofessional and uncaring in the eyes of those you want to impress.
In order to win the backing of the target investors, you need to make sure that your plan is perfect. Look at it several times before sharing it with others. Search for mistaken words or phrases, wrong dates or numbers, spelling and grammar errors, etc. Ensure that your formatting looks professional, but most importantly, make sure that your plan is clear, concise, and convincing.
Finally, review the plan to see if it fits all the steps in this list. Once you are done doing so, your business plan is ready!
