How to Write a ‘Killer’ Business Plan
Businesses are reliant on well-executed plans to make it in this world, but don’t worry if you don’t have a plan yet. You might be able to take advantage of the many sample business plans that are available for free on the web and use these as a way to build your own. However, before you start constructing your own plan from scratch, consider some of these tips to not only write an effective business plan but also stand out from the crowd:
1) Be Specific about Your Audience
This might seem like common sense, but most businesses overlook valuable information about who will use their product or service. As a result, they wind up talking about things that might interest them personally but don’t reflect the needs of their target demographic. In addition, you should try to anticipate who these people are and why they would be interested in your product. To help with this, ask some of your friends and family members what kind of business would be appealing to them if they had a choice. This will give you some unique insights into what your business could look like, as well as what features might make it seem more attractive than other options in the marketplace.
2) Don’t Put the ‘Lid’ on Your Business
An effective business plan will help you get a leg up on the competition, but it doesn’t have to be particularly long. For example, try to keep your plan at 10 pages or less and include any estimates that might give people an understanding of how much money you expect to make in a year. Also, be sure to schedule meetings with your lawyer and accountant to ensure that you don’t overlook any important points that might affect your business. Some businesses wind up spending too much time writing about things the reader already knows about them, so try to avoid this by including only relevant information about your company.
3) Know Your Audience’s Perspective
What does the reader want to know about your product or service? Does it help that reader reach a major life milestone? Prepare to answer these questions and any others that you can anticipate from your audience. It might seem overwhelming, but remember that you’re in this world to help people and not just sell products, so don’t forget to address why people should care about what you have to say as much as what they will get out of it (hint: the answer is usually money). An effective business plan will not only cover how a person can benefit from what you have available but also how they might feel about using it.
4) Show Me the Money
First things first — you need to put a dollar value on everything that you are doing and say exactly how much it will cost. Specifically, try to make sure that every category of expenses will have a corresponding revenue stream. For example, if you make your product for $4 and sell each one for $8 each, then the total revenue generated will be $32 (the cost of making the product + selling each of them). You can also include potential savings from this plan if it can reduce or eliminate any costs or expenses associated with your business. While it might seem like a little thing, including this information is up there with being thorough when it comes to presenting all sides of an argument.
5) Make Sure It’s Easy to Read
If you’re looking to write an effective business plan, it can be very tempting to include too many charts and graphs in your plan. Remember that this is a document that will be read by a lot of people, so make sure that it’s easy for them to understand. One way to help with this is to include an executive summary at the beginning of your plan. This will give people who haven’t read the whole thing a taste of what it has in store for them, as well as making sure that they are on board with the process from this point forward.
6) Keep It Realistic & Attainable
A plan that doesn’t include a realistic outlook on what you can achieve and the steps necessary to get there isn’t worth writing. For starters, don’t sell yourself short on your projected numbers. Not only will this make it hard to get the attention of potential investors (which may be your ultimate goal), but it will also make you look like someone who doesn’t know what they’re selling. You should also aim to keep these projections for at least three years into the future if possible. This way you can provide your numbers with enough time to prove themselves in a real-world environment.
7) Keep it Simple
When you’re trying to write an effective business plan, don’t go overboard with all of the details. Your plan is about presenting your ideas in a way that will help potential investors and customers see their potential for success, so keep this in mind when trying to come up with ideas that are different from what someone else may have. For example, if your company provides a service like wedding planning, people might expect to see a lengthy business plan that tries to cover everything from the beginning until the end of the process. However, keep it simple by outlining a few key points about how this service would work and what makes it successful as opposed to covering everything in one section.
8) Use Tech & Be Consistent
Many people are turned off by business plans that have a lot of technical details. However, you don’t need to go overboard when trying to integrate the latest tech into your plan. Even if you are selling something that is high-tech in its nature, it won’t matter if people don’t buy it. That said, it can help to make the PDF of your business plan available on your website so that people can download it digitally. This can help with promoting your business around the world, as well as making your plan easy to find and read among all the other documents on a person’s computer.
9) Be Realistic About Fees
It’s tempting to non-realistically charge for your services, but this just makes it harder to make a profit. This is especially true if you don’t have an established reputation, so it can be beneficial to set the prices at around 20% of the cost that you put into those services. In addition, when it comes to legal fees, be sure not to include them in the business plan unless your attorney has given you his stamp of approval. You don’t want to later find out that you didn’t meet those standards and could have been charged too much money for something unnecessary.
Conclusion
Writing an effective business plan can be daunting at first, but once you get the hang of it, it becomes much easier. Remember that you don’t necessarily have to follow everything that’s in here to a T, but just use it as a general guideline for your own plan. Once you’ve got this down, you can move on to other important areas of running a successful company!
Image credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/bravodenis/202073716/sizes/l/in/.
source: https://www.webucator.