How to Write a Business Plan

Now that you have an idea of what a business plan is, I will detail here how it should all be put together for presentation to the bank or whoever you are asking to invest in your business idea. It's really not as hard as it all sounds, but it is tedious and it should be done properly if you expect someone to hand a wad of money over to you for your idea. You need to sell them with the same enthusiasm you had when you first thought of the idea. Plus, you need to be realistic in the thought that maybe your idea isn't as great as you thought it was at first, but it is still a good workable and profitable idea. 

Before I get into the layout, I will tell you a couple of ideas that I thought were brilliant at first and now I think they are funny, and so did the bank! The first one was a "Drive Thru" pick up your kid's lunch for the day. It was going to be called the "Sack Lunch" and Moms could drive thru and get their kids lunches therefore saving them time. This one went poo-poo when I was asked, "How would it save time if every kid wanted a different jelly with his peanut butter, or maybe he didn't like broccoli bits for lunch. The mother was going to spend too much time in line "ordering" to please them all." So that one went by the wayside. 

   The other idea was a "Steak Branding Iron" with your family's brand on it for cookouts. I thought this one was brilliant, too. You could invite guests over and "brand" their steaks with your family branding iron. The bank got a REALLY good laugh at this one! "How was I going to manufacture it? Had I made a prototype? Since it would be a 'special order' item, how long would it take me to fill an order? Was I prepared to handle 10,000 orders in case it was a big hit the first week?" Of course ALL of these questions made me realize that I wasn't prepared to follow this business idea through to the end. So naturally I filed it in the "maybe-later-bin".  Okay...now on to the layout.... 

• The Summary- A summary of your business idea and a brief description of the contents of your business plan.
• The Company and it's Employee Team
• A history of the company whether the company be new or already in business. If the company is new, then give a history of the idea and how you came to the idea.
• A description of your qualifications that pertain to the business idea.
• A description of anyone on your team who provides valuable qualifications for your business idea.
• The Market Analysis-(get very specific here)
• A description of your target market. Provide demographics for backup
• A summary of competitors and how you will "fit in" to this market
• A summary of your market analysis prediction
• A summary of potential distributors of your product or service
• The Product or Service-(get very specific here)
• A description of your product or service
• A cost analysis of producing your product or service
• An estimated value of your product or service
• A description of how you are going to manufacture and produce your product or service
• A description of how you are going to "deliver" your product or service
• Sales and Promotion of Your Product or Service
• A description of how and where you are going to sell your product
• A description of how and where you are going to promote your product or service
• A description of how your sales plan is set up, in cases where, multi-level marketing were concerned, or bonuses paid, etc.
• A description of your defensive plan of action. I put this in bold because this one is VERY important and I will tell you why. You MUST have a defensive plan of action before you invest a single penny of your own money or the banks money that you will HAVE to pay back. An example is one where I invested a lot of my own money and some of the banks money into a Sculptured Nail Salon. Everything went as planned and the business opened up and we were busy as all get out, BUT then one day about a month later, we received an eviction notice from the landlord of the shopping center! Apparantly, the "smell" of the acrylic liquid we used for the nails was creeping into the shop next door and they complained and next thing I knew we were out! We had to find another building quickly and get moved which ran up a LOT of extra costs that we hadn't planned on.
• Financial Information
• A description of your "estimate" of how much money you will need to borrow.
• An outline of each and every expense you plan to have in the first year
• An outline of your projected sales for the first year
• An outline of what you think you will be able to afford as "payments" back to the bank and the time limit you have made for yourself.
• A description of what you are willing to put up as a down payment on your own business as far as cash or collateral
• A credit history report
• A report as to what you have in the way of assets for your business that you can put a dollar figure on.

Rebecca Game 
Copyright 2009

More How To ...