Did you decide you wanted to get your business idea going, only to find yourself wondering next, how do I write a business plan? You can't get your business off the ground without one, so you've come to the right place. The business plan is a complex document that describes your concept, analyzes the market for sales, looks at different strategies you could apply to drive revenues, and forecasts your financial success over a period of either 3 years (for debt capital) or 5 years (for an equity raise). A great business plan will have a financial model driven by assumptions tied to the market analysis and will be supported by research germane to your industry and the current market. Tools on the Internet can help you, some of them free (the U.S. Census Bureau, for example), though you need to be prepared to buy special reports or rent access to an industry reporting site if there's a critical piece of data you need to obtain and cannot find through other sources.
The business plan outline you'll need to create should follow this path:
• - Executive Summary – overview of entire document
• - Product Description – what do you sell?
• - Market Analysis – who will buy from you, whom do you compete with, what's the market need, etc.
• - Strategy – how will you market yourself?
• - Management – who leads your venture, and who do you need to hire?
• - Financials – when is your break-even, what are your sales estimates, how do your expenses grow, etc.?
You can experiment with online guides or software to help you build the business plan, especially if you don't have access to a working financial template or don't feel comfortable building a pro forma. You can also seek guidance from SCORE offices or other business volunteers. If you aren't dead-set on producing the document yourself, hiring a prominent consulting firm like MasterPlans is a great shortcut. We have years of experience writing business plans for a range of industries and have written 8,000 successful documents for audiences ranging from bank loan officers to corporate boards. Call 877-453-2011 to talk to a consultant about writing your business plan today.
