Who are you?
Write about your background and previous experience in your field. Tell about your notable accomplishments, and about your partners and staff. If your company has been in business for some time now, then write about your "track record." Explain what your company has already accomplished and give an idea of how it stands in relation to competitors in your particular field of business.
What are Your Products or Services?
What are you producing or what are you going to produce? What are your products or services? What kind of revenue will these activities be bringing in or what is the expected range of revenue once the products are launched? Answer these questions giving a complete picture of the principal activity that you are engaged in or will be engaged in during the timeline of this business plan.
When Will things Happen?
If you have a new start-up business, this section of the plan will allow you to explain the steps that are needed to set-up your business and make it fully operational. How much time do you need? When will the business be up and running? If you are have an already existing business, it is useful to place somewhere in the plan a list of targets that you want to achieve and give approximate dates as to when these targets can be reached.
Where is Your Business?
Where are you located? Do you work at home or do you have business premises? If you have a business location such as a store or factory, then explain about the size and capacity of this establishment. What is the business climate like in your area? Are there significant competitors and what are your prospects of competing in this market? Answer these questions as best you can and give yourself and would-be investors a clear picture of where your business is situated geographically and with relation to your overall market.
Why are you in Business?
Explain why your particular enterprise, product or service is needed. What can your add to the already existing area of business that your are entering? What need are you going to fill? The answers to these questions are particularly important for investors looking for opportunities in emerging businesses and emerging markets.
Your sales and marketing plan should be outlined in this section. Explain how you intend to establish your product or service and what steps you will take to create or expand your customer base. How will you finance the start-up and/or expansion of your business? Explain the source of your funds whether you have existing loans or liabilities. How much money do you need to raise in order to get realize your overall plan for the launching or expansion of your business? Explain how you are going to translate your business idea into a living reality.
Take a look at your planned business or your existing business from the perspective that has been outlined in this article, and write a concise business plan. It will help to bring clarity to your operations and convince investors and lenders to participate in your enterprise.
1. Not proving that you have the management expertise to make it happen.
The quality of your people will lend credibility to your ideas and even to your financial projections. If your management team is not as strong as it could be, join forces with a great board of advisors.
2. Not demonstrating where your revenue will come from - what customers pay you and
why they pay you.
Don’t be too aggressive in setting revenue projections or you will undermine your credibility.
3. Not proving that your business model and long term cost structure is good enough to make a real profit.
How will your business make money - what is your margin structure, what are your costs?
4. Not being clear enough in your product description to allow the reader to quickly see the need and the niche for this product.
It may seem obvious to you, but not so to the reader not educated in your business.
5. Not proving that the market opportunity is big enough to get interested in.
How big is your market now and what will it look like in 5 years?
6. Not adequately acknowledging your competition.
Investors know that if there is no perceived competition, there may be no market for what you are offering. The better you can describe your competition, the better you understand your market, and the more likely you will dominate it.
7. Not writing for the target audience.
Although the core is the same, the plan should be written for the perspective of banks, equity investors, and others. Go as far as you can to tailor each plan to the audience’s specific interests to show you’ve done your homework and know to whom you are talking.
8. Starting with a boring, unenthusiastic executive summary.
This is the first section to be read, and if it isn’t exciting the rest may never be seen. Make it fun and be enthusiastic. It should stand alone and generate interest for more. It deserves all the thought you would put into a professionally done promotional piece for your customers.
9. Poor presentation.
If you have typos and grammatical errors in your business plan, the reader will assume the work you do in your business is sloppy too.
10. Saying too much.
Keep the entire plan to a maximum of 30 pages, with an executive summary of 3 pages or less. If investors are interested, they will ask for any other information they need. Amateurs talk in the business plan about unimportant details because they don’t know what they should say and what they shouldn’t. Hire a professional editor to reduce the page count and help you emphasize your strengths.
There are hundreds of questions essential to running a great business. Of all of the questions, I consider these the 50 most critical. Consider making each of these questions the topic for weekly management meetings. Do we have a vision about where we are going as a company?
1. Do we plan adequately to grow the company?
2. Do we communicate the plan to all who are involved with the company?
3. Do we have good cash management?
4. Are we building cash?
5. Is the overall financial condition of the company improving or deteriorating?
6. Do we have timely and accurate financial data to review?
7. Does the data we have help you make decisions? Do we need more? Do we look at all the
data you receive each month?
8. Do employees understand how their work impacts the company financially?
9. Is our company performing well compared to industry standards?
10. Do we have adequate internal controls to prevent employee theft?
11. Do we meet with employees at least once a month to review variances and trends?
12. Are we losing market share?
13. Have we surveyed or otherwise communicated with our customers for their input in
improvements in service and new products?
14. Are overall customer complaints trending up or down?
15. Do we clearly understand our customers and markets?
16. Do we know where we are positioned in our market?
17. Are our products and services out of date?
18. Is our pricing appropriate and competitive?
19. Are we regularly creating new products and offering them to existing customers?
20. Are we satisfied with our revenue growth?
21. Are all of our product sales profitable?
22. Is our customer base shrinking or increasing?
23. Can we identify customers or groups of customers whose business is not profitable for us?
24. Are we satisfied with our plans to expand via the Internet?
25. Do we spend time with our direct reports, one-to-one?
26. Do we spend time with our top customers, one-to-one?
27. Are our sales and customer service people superstars?
28. Do you celebrate the achievements of the company and its employees?
29. Do we do self-audits on our own records, and the maintenance of equipment?
30. Do we have back up suppliers for most of our manufacturing process needs?
31. Do we have adequate internal quality controls or do customers know first if processes failed?
32. Have we adequately protected our intellectual property?
33. Are our facilities that are adequate for today also adequate for our growth plans?
34. Are we adequately minimizing the threats to our business?
35. Are our facilities and information systems prepared for a natural disaster or other physically
destructive force?
36. Do we have adequate back up procedures for our information systems?
37. Are we making the best use of available new technologies in manufacturing?
38. Have we talked to our suppliers about better prices or terms or other changes to our
relationship to benefit us both?
39. Do we regularly chart and review operational performance?
40. Do we spend enough time to be sure we are hiring for the long run?
41. Do we follow compliance laws and have written policies as required?
42. Are we following procedures that are most likely to keep us out of employee lawsuits?
43. Does our compensation and benefit structure allow us to hire highly talented employees?
44. Are our employees overworked? Do we spend a lot in overtime and temporary help? Is that
number increasing?
45. Do we tolerate gossip or other behavior that undermines employee morale?
46. Do we ask employees to review the company?
47. Do we give enough types of feedback to employees regarding their performance? Do we
review them individually at least annually?
48. Do we insist our employees stay employable?
49. Is the CEO accountable to someone for his or her decisions and actions? Does the Board (if
you have one) communicate their expectations about the company?
50. Is the CEO accountable to someone for his or her decisions and actions? Does the Board (if
you have one) communicate their expectations about the company?
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