Are you putting together a business plan? The Small Business Administration has calculated that the average entrepreneur will have to dedicate 400 hours of time to this task from start to finish. That's a real commitment. The thing that makes it difficult is that there is a whole wealth of research that needs to go into both the market analysis and the financial model – and if you're not an expert with Excel or comfortable with software, the financial section can be very hard. Alternately, if you don't have a lot experience gathering research or feel like you're not the best writer, you'll have a hard time getting the business plan complete. But there are options and tools you can turn to – the Census Bureau offers workable data sets, there are downloadable templates available, and you can look to Dun & Bradstreet or peel through Google to try to estimate costs, find industry figures, or look over samples that might be applicable to your business plan. But beware of flimsy templates and freelancers who don't offer you any value – you're better going it alone than hiring a company that's new to the block.
If you want to plod through the business plan on your own, one of the most important considerations is that you will need a complete financial model including start-up summary/use of funds, cash flow, profit and loss statements, balance sheet, break-even analysis, and sensitivity analysis. The financials also need to show the first year of your business post-funding on a month-by-month basis. For the market analysis, use as much data as you can obtain to prove that there is a sufficient market opportunity and that you can reach break-even on schedule. Industry figures and competitive research in your business plan are both essential. You should also sketch out a marketing strategy describing how you will meet your sales benchmarks. If this amount of work putting together a business plan seems like too big an investment of time, you can outsource the process to a team of trained professionals. MasterPlans has worked with more than 8,000 entrepreneurs just like you, preparing business plans from scratch to secure capital from banks and investors alike. Call us at 877-453-2011 to discuss your objectives.
