Wondering what the services of products part in a business plan should look like? What it should say, and what it should exclude? There's no rule per se but the conventional format is this: a "parent" section that summaries your products and/or services in general, with a bullet-pointed list of them by category, and then a separate sub-section that explores these products/services in detail. Depending on your industry, and depending on whether your company is a start-up business or an established venture, you may also want to include a Future Products & Services section to profile potential future market opportunities you envision. No matter what you do for this part of the plan, consider the following tips:
• - Pictures never hurt. If you have photos, diagrams, or schematics of what you sell, put them in. There's no better way to bring a description to life.
• - If you feel like you're providing too much detail, which can sometimes happen with a highly-technical service (think IT, or greentech), cull out the most important information for a novice reader and place all the remaining text in an appendix.
• - If you're not sure whether to talk about a potential future service or not, remember—if you haven't modeled it into your pro forma, there's no harm in mentioning that it MIGHT be something you pursue if market forces and your funding allow.
Not sure you're doing it right? This is a section of the business plan with no shortage of examples online. You can also read more about this topic in library books, online business forums, or in any business school textbook. You can also get free samples from MasterPlans.com simply by contacting a consultant and asking for them. We've been helping entrepreneurs get their business plans together since 2002, and so far we've written more than 8,000 business plans. We've probably seen your exact dilemma once or twice before. So give us a call at 877-453-2011 and we'd be happy to talk about the products and services section with you.
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