As a young entrepreneur, one of the most important documents to have is a business plan. Your business can hardly survive without one. A business plan guides and helps you keep to the aims and objectives of your business.
What should be included in a business plan? Keep reading to find out:
- Executive summary: It’s a section of the document that summarizes the entire report or proposal such that readers can understand the business without having to read the whole material. Think of it as the first impression to your business. The most important information should be succinctly outlined in this section of your business plan.
- Products and services: Every business either sells products or offers a set of services to its customers and this section helps your reader understand the value you offer to customers in exchange for their money.
- The management team and other members of staff: Your business should be able to define all the management positions and other key positions in the organization. Identify the representatives and who’s responsible for what, and in this part of the document, summarize the key roles and responsibilities in your business.
- Competitive analysis: A competitive analysis is a very important part of your business plan. Here, you want to know who else is involved in a similar business and perhaps, already offer your potential clients similar products or services. With this evaluation, you should determine what gives your product or service an edge over your other competitors.
- Sales strategy: Here, you want to outline how you plan to let people know about your products or services, as well as increase income during the business year. Ideally, you should have a 12-month sales strategy at the minimum.
- Financial projections: This is basically projecting how much you are likely to make in terms of revenue and profit at the end of a specified period. Of course, expenses and overheads must also be considered.
Glad you read to the end, now go make yourself a good business plan!
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