If you are thinking of writing your own Plan, having a go at a bit of it, or if you are thinking of getting us to do some of your Plan, this blog will give you an overview of how you can.
Just quickly though, if you do start, get stuck, or get lost, we would be more than happy to help at any stage you get to. Click here for more information on our Business Plans.
“Where do I start with my Business Plan?”
We get asked this question often.
Don’t be tempted to start with the Executive Summary, although it does appear first in the finished Business Plan document, it’s not the first step because it’s a summary of the other steps.
The first step is the operational overview of your Business.
Business Plan operational overview
This is where you look at all of the procedures and policies that you have and need to deliver your product or service seamlessly and perfectly and consistently every time to your customers, clients, and stakeholders.
You will need to typically spend a couple of hours to pull together from a number of different sources which include your local government, federal authorities if it’s going to be a national Business Plan. If you are writing a Business Plan for an overseas business, the same applies to those countries as well. Much of this information is online and with a couple of hours of searching, you will be able to find it.
This step also includes who is going to work in the Business which also means what service providers you have such as accountants, lawyers, marketing agencies, and so on. The bigger your business, the longer this list, and so it may include work health and safety, quality control consultants, and other expert advisors.
If you haven’t done this sort of research before, we recommend you spend around four to six hours on this.
How to do market research for a Business Plan
Moving on now to the next step and section of the Plan – the market research section. This drives revenue forecasts and future growth targets. It also dictates how much you will need to spend on marketing because it shows how competitive your market is. Market research falls into three areas and to do this, you will need a good list of sources and know where to look on the internet and in market research and journal databases. If you haven’t done this sort of market research before, we recommend you spend around six to eight hours on this.
There are three areas that you will need to be research, gather information, analyse, and put into your Plan.
- All competitor information you can get
- All information about the numbers and type of the people or businesses that will buy your product or service
- All of the overarching trends and drivers in the industries and market that your Business will be in
This section will have lots of numbers and data and will typically have around four to six tables, charts, and graphs from reputable sources of data. When you are doing this yourself, don’t be tempted to copy and paste from blogs or any sources on the information that aren’t major market research companies, government departments, or large private national or international market research companies.
It’s during this step and section of the Plan you define your target market in the previous step when you did the market research.
How to write your marketing strategy in a Business Plan
Thirdly, marketing strategy Plan. This will take you around four to six hours. This includes:
- Brand image, brand positioning, imagery, messages, and emotions that you want your target market to see, read, feel, and most importantly of all, act on when they buy you products and services. Customer Relationship Management
- Website and search engine optimisation
- Referral sites and SEO backlinks
- Digital advertising
- Electronic Direct Mail
- Public relations
- Business Development
- Telemarketing
And that’s you done for your marketing strategy.
How to do your financials in a Business Plan
Step four is the financials. This section will typically take your accountant around five to six hours. If your Business a start-up, it will take less time than this. These reports should include three years projections for Profit & Loss, Balance Sheet, and Cashflow. These are absolutely vital for your Business, and we do recommend you use a professional to do this section.
Here’s some Financial templates for Business Plannning links to help:
https://smallbusinessplans.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/TEMPLATE-Profit-and-Loss-Statement.xlsx
Appendices to your Business Plan
At this point, you should attach any and all other information that you gathered during the market research, your organisation structure including job descriptions (if you have them), a list of policies and procedures, and pop them all into the appendices.
Then pull everything together into your Executive Summary which, as you will remember, is the first part of the Plan.
Executive Summary
The executive summary will include your mission statement, vision statement, and your values, and the rest of the Executive Summary will have a couple of paragraphs for each of the main sections that I mentioned earlier in this video clip. Just as a reminder, they are the operational overview, the market research, the marketing strategy, and the finances.
The rest of the executive summary has a couple of paragraphs on each of the main sections that I have mentioned in the Plan, market research, marketing strategy, operational overview, and the finances.
That’s it.
Click here for more information about how to write Business Plan financials.
What’s next
If you do decide to write your own Plan and you get a bit stuck and you want us to take over, that’s absolutely no problem at all. If you write your Plan and you’re happy with it and you just want a second opinion, that’s absolutely no problem at all and we have a one-hour service to do just that for you.
I’d love to hear from you if you have some questions or you just want to have a chat before you buy. Please use the CONTACT US in the top menu of our web site home page.
If you’re ready to buy, it’s as easy as clicking on the BUY NOW button on the webpage for any of the business plans that we create.