Article: Avoid too much jargon or long-winded explanations. Streamline your writing to get your point across quickly and concisely. Replace some longer words with shorter words, such as replacing "utilize" with "use." It is fine to use bullet points to make your business plan easier to follow. Describe your company, including how long you have been in operation, where you have operated, your achievements thus far, and what type of legal entity you are (sole proprietorship, limited liability corporation, etc.). Describe the service or product you are offering. What is unique about your product or service, and why do your customers need you to offer it? For example, you might write: "Ultimate Kid Granola Bars (UKGB) is a limited liability corporation registered in the state of California that will provide quality healthy baked goods to schools in the Sacramento area. Created in 2008, UKGB has received numerous awards, including Best Small Business in Sacramento and Best Granola Bars from Healthy Foods Magazine. Our granola bars are made from all natural, locally-sourced ingredients and will healthy foods to local children." You may also want to include your company's goals or objectives, so the reader of your business plan will get a good sense about why you are in business and what you hope to achieve by operating your business. You should definitely include this part if your enterprise is a nonprofit organization, since a nonprofit is based on mission and vision. This will convey to funders or other supporters the objectives and goals towards which you are working as a nonprofit. This section describes the industry or market that you are entering and how you plan to bring your product or service to your customers. What size is your market, in terms of population and in terms of potential sales? You should have a solid argument about how your product or service will be a welcome addition to the market, meeting a currently unmet need. Talk about your target customers, describing their demographics and their potential to buy your product or service. Include information about your competitors, both direct and indirect. Then describe how you plan to price your product or service, reach your customers, expand your services, and promote your business. For example, you might write: "The proposed market for Ultimate Kids Granola Bars covers the entire Sacramento area public school system. There are 11 schools with a total of 2,000 children. Approximately 67% of these students buy lunch at school." Continue talking about your customers, your potential or existing relationships with customers, competitors, and so on. While you want to remain positive about the potential success of your business, it is good planning to think about the ways in which it might be challenged or fail. Think through how you will respond to problems, such as a downturn in number of customers or the loss of a key supplier. If you have specific parts of your business plan that might not work out, what are they and how will you respond to and accommodate these shortcomings? For example, you might write: "We rely on locally-sourced ingredients for our granola bars, and our local suppliers are dependent on good conditions for producing crops. If California faces more drought-like conditions, we may need to expand our supplier list into Oregon, Nevada or Idaho. We will prioritize working with California-based suppliers, however." A good business plan will not only describe the business and its services, but the people actually implementing and operating the business. Include a description of the key people involved, their roles in the company, and their background and suitability for contributing to this venture. Include their resumes in the appendix of your business plan. If your business is just you, that's fine. Give yourself a title and write a brief bio highlighting your relevant experience that has prepared you for your current business idea. For example, you might write: "CEO Kate Smith has two decades of experience working for highly regarded baking companies in Northern California. She attended culinary school in Paris and also has a degree in Environmental Science from the University of California Davis." The financial picture has a couple of different components. You should give an overview of the financial viability of your business through financial projections (projected revenue, expenses, profits), as well as funding or investment strategies. The financial information you include doesn't have to be extensively detailed in a basic business plan, but they should include a good indication of the potential financial wellbeing of this venture. Provide numbers for revenue and expenses. To calculate revenue, base a sales forecast on pricing of your product or service and how many customers you plan to serve. Estimate sales over the next 3-5 years. You may need to make an educated guess on this section, as it might be difficult to absolutely say for sure how many units you'll sell or how many people you'll serve. It's best to be somewhat conservative at this point. Expenses will include fixed costs (such as salaries, rent, etc.) and variable costs (such as promotions or advertising). Think about costs to launch the business, operate the business, hire and retain staff, pay advertising, and so on. Also include expenses like fees, licenses, and taxes. Consider too assets and liabilities that you have; assets can include property or equipment, while liabilities might be loans you owe for this business. Include strategies for funding or investments. If you are using your business plan to secure funding of some sort, this section will be especially important. You need to know exactly how much money you want and how it will be spent. For example, you might write: "Ultimate Kid Granola Bars is asking for $25,000 in investment funds to support the expansion of our current kitchen location. $10,000 will go towards renting additional space in our current location, $5,000 in additional equipment (two ovens, assorted supplies), and $10,000 in salaries to hire an extra employee to meet the needs of our Sacramento public school contract." Depending on your business and the level of detail in your business plan, you may want to include additional materials to support your plan. Some possible materials to include might be: tax returns, balance sheets, cash flow statements, contracts, letters of intent, resumes or curriculum vitae of key management, and so on. This section is written last and should be no more than two pages. If you are writing a very short business plan, your executive summary may be just a paragraph, or you may forego it altogether. The executive summary is essentially an overview of your company, your uniqueness in the marketplace, and a brief description of the services or products to be sold. You will also include an overview of your financial projections, including your expected revenues, profits, and expenses for the next five years. If you are seeking funding, you should outline this briefly as well, describing the exact amount of money you seek and how it will be used. Each of these sections will be mini-essays that contribute to an overall picture of your business. You should make it look professional by putting it all together in a single document with consistent formatting, section headers, and a table of contents with page numbers. Read through it several times and check spelling and grammar. You don't want to have mistakes in your plan, as that will reflect poorly on your preparation and organization. Don't use more than 2 fonts in your business plan. Too many fonts can be visually distracting. Likewise, make sure your font size is readable by using an 11- or 12-point font. If you are at the stage of writing a business plan, you are probably excited to get moving on your idea. You should, however, still take your time at this stage, thinking through the possibilities and eventualities of your business. Your plan may help you identify problems before you start so you can avoid them. It also sets out a roadmap for you to use, keeping you focused and on track. Spending adequate time, even on a basic business plan, will be time well spent.
What is a summary of what this article is about?
Keep your writing simple and straightforward. Write the company description and describe your service or product. Present your market research and outline your marketing plan. Discuss contingencies. Provide information about the key people in your business. Give a financial picture of your business venture. Add supporting materials. Write the executive summary. Put it all together. Take your time.