What Should your business plan contain?

A business plan is a written description of your business’s future, a document that tells what you plan to do and how you plan to do it. If you jot down a paragraph on the back of an envelope describing your business strategy, you’ve written a plan, or at least the germ of a plan.

Business plans are inherently strategic. You start here, today, with certain resources and abilities. You want to get to a there, a point in the future (usually three to five years out) at which time your business will have a different set of resources and abilities as well as greater profitability and increased assets. Your plan shows how you will get from here to there.

1. Product description

A product description is the marketing copy that explains what a product is and why it’s worth purchasing.


A product description is the marketing copy used to describe a product’s value proposition to potential customers. A compelling product description provides customers with details around features, problems it solves and other benefits to help generate a sale.

  1. A marketing plan is a comprehensive document or blueprint that outlines the advertising and marketing efforts for the coming year. It describes business activities involved in accomplishing specific marketing objectives within a set time frame.

A marketing plan may be part of an overall business plan. Solid marketing strategy is the foundation of a well-written marketing plan. While a marketing plan contains a list of actions, without a sound strategic foundation, it is of little use to a business.

2. Marketing Plan

3. Competitor Analysis

  1. Competitor analysis in marketing and strategic management is an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of current and potential competitors. This analysis provides both an offensive and defensive strategic context to identify opportunities and threats.

Competitive Analysis is mainly identifying your competitors and evaluating their strategies to determine their strengths and weaknesses relative to those of your own product or service.

  1. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.

Strengths and weaknesses are internal to your company—things that you have some control over and can change. Examples include who is on your team, your patents and intellectual property, and your location.

Opportunities and threats are external—things that are going on outside your company, in the larger market. You can take advantage of opportunities and protect against threats, but you can’t change them. Examples include competitors, prices of raw materials, and customer shopping trends. Critical part of your company marketing plan.

 

4. SWOT Analysis

5. Operations

Operations management is the administration of business practices to create the highest level of efficiency possible within an organization. It is concerned with converting materials and labor into goods and services as efficiently as possible to maximize the profit of an organization. Everything that happens within a company to keep it running and earning money is referred to collectively as business operations. Business plans often include a section dedicated to operations so that company founders understand the systems, equipment, people, and processes need to make the organization function.

a financial plan is a comprehensive evaluation of an individual’s current pay and future financial state by using current known variables to predict future income, asset values and withdrawal plans. Financial planning is the process which provides you a framework for achieving your life goals in a systematic and planned way by avoiding shocks and surprises. This article covers the following: Manage your Money. Regulate your expenses wisely. Maintain a personal balance sheet.

6. Financial Planning

7. Executive Summary

  1. An executive summary, or management summary, is a short document or section of a document, produced for business purposes, that summarizes a longer report or proposal or a group of related reports in such a way that readers can rapidly become acquainted with a large body of material without having to read it all. An executive summary is a critical document for new and growing businesses. The Art of Startup Fundraising, it is vital for entrepreneurs to understand how this differs from other documents, like pitch decks and full business plans.

A mission statement is a short statement of why an organization exists, what its overall goal is, identifying the goal of its operations: what kind of product or service it provides, its primary customers or market, and its geographical region of operation. A mission statement is, in some ways, an action-oriented vision statement, declaring the purpose an organization serves to its audience. That often includes a general description of the organization, its function, and its objectives.

8. Mission statement

9. Company Background

A company overview (also known as company information or a company summary) is an essential part of a business plan. It’s an overview of the most important points about your company—your history, management team, location, mission statement and legal structure. It usually appears after the executive summary in your business plan. This is typically the shortest chapter of a business plan document, but that doesn’t reduce its importance. If you’re presenting this plan to people outside of your company, this is your opportunity to introduce yourself and your business, and you are going to want to put your best foot forward.