Business-plan contents from beginning to end;
Common business plans come in all shapes, sizes, formats — even colors — but they all share a similar framework. The following components, presented in the order they generally appear, are common elements in most business plans:
- Table of contents: This element is a guide to the key sections in your business plan and is especially useful if your plan exceeds ten pages.
- Executive summary: This section is a summary of the key points in your business plan. You should incorporate it if your plan runs more than ten pages and you want to convey important information upfront. You want to keep it clear, captivating, and brief — in fact, try to keep it to two pages or less.
- Company overview: This section describes your company and the nature of your business. It may include your company’s mission and vision statements as well as descriptions of your values, your products or services, ways your company is unique, and what business opportunities you plan to seize. (Turn to Chapter 3 for help defining your business purpose and developing your company overview.)
- Business environment: This section includes an analysis of your industry and the forces at work in your market; an in-depth description of your direct and potential competitors; and a close look at your customers, including who they are, what they want, and how they buy products or services. It describes everything that affects your business that’s beyond your control. (Count on Chapter 4 to help you zoom in on your environment and develop your analysis.)
- Company description: In this section, include information about your management team, your organization, your new or proprietary technology, your products and services, your company operations, and your marketing potential. (Check out Chapter 6 for help in writing your company description.)
- Company strategy: This section brings together the information about your business environment and your company’s resources and then lays out a strategy for going forward. (As you prepare this section, you’ll find Chapter 5 an indispensable resource.)
- Marketing plan: This section is where you describe how you plan to reach prospects, make sales, and develop a loyal clientele. (Chapter 7 is devoted exclusively to helping you develop your marketing plan.)
- Financial plans: This section includes a detailed review of dollars and cents, including the state of your current finances and what you expect your financial picture to look like in the future. It typically contains financial statements, including an income statement, your balance sheet, and a cash-flow statement. (If any of these terms seem foreign to you, or if you want step-by-step financial planning advice, see Chapter 8 for all the details.)
- Action plan: Here you detail the steps involved in implementing your business plan, including the sequence of actions and how they align with your goals and objectives. (Flip to Chapter 3 for advice on establishing goals and objectives and then turn to Chapters 14 and 15 for information on how action plans ensure that you’ll put your business plan to work.)
- Appendixes: This section includes detailed information that supports your business plan. It may include analyses, reports, surveys, legal documents, product specifications, and spreadsheets that deliver a rounded understanding of your business plan but which are of interest to only a small number of your readers.
The preceding list of the major components of a typical business plan is featured in Form 1-5 on the CD-ROM. As you get down to the business of writing your plan, use the items on Form 1-5 as a checklist, ticking off the major components as you complete them.
Not all business plans include all the components listed here. In fact, you won’t find a textbook example of a written business plan. For that reason, we don’t provide any rigid business-plan model in this book. Instead, you find information on how to develop each of the major components, advice for how business plans tend to work for different kinds of businesses, and ways you can organize and present materials in your written plan.
From the business planning kits for dummies
