Business Plan Overview

Every business needs a plan; a business without a plan is like driving a rudderless boat;it need a path to follow and this path is written onto paper. Before starting anything with your business idea you should make the plan.... Read more

The truth about setting a Business plan

During the first year of business school our coach told us that a business plan gives the strategic direction for business activities. Writing the plan describes where you want to go and how to get there, and then you follow the plan you have written to achieve your goals. It really sounds pretty good! But the real thing is much more different from school. If business were successes as simple as following a few steps we all have be running our millionaire businesses, but we are not. If you want to run a successful business you have to be an “artist” and use your imagination and improvise. No business plan in the world can give you these resources; you have to provide them yourself.... Read more

Starting your planning engine: Part one

The foundations for a business plan

A business plan is for all steps in a business even if it's old still a business plan is needed to make things easier. In order to make our business plan improvement possible, we need to setup a planning engine so we can make changes with out starting from the beginning. ... Read more

Starting your planning engine: Part Two - Audiences

Target Audience

A business plan is the blueprint that will help to build a successful enterprise. It is a document that covers a wide territory and addresses all sorts of issues. To keep in focus our efforts we consider to build a list with the groups of people where the plan will have the impact of our success. Those groups will be the primary audiences for the business plan.... Read more

Starting your planning engine: Part three - Structure

Business plans are as varied as the companies that compile them, some plans runs most than 80 pages whereas others fills a few sheets. Some plans starts with executive summaries and others go straight to detailed description of products and services. Some companies prints their plan on paper, and other publish their plans on the web.... Read more

Short Business plan FAQ

Going deep on the subject could bring some interrogatives which must be answered so here is a small FAQ. ... Read more

Starting you planning engine: Part four - Time Frame

The time frame for your business plan

The time frame represents how far out into the future you want to plan. We want our business to grow successfully for years into the future but that does not mean your business plan goes all the way forever. Each plan covers a specified planning period. Some are designed to get a company to a defined sales level, a funding objective, or the achievement of some other growth goal. A good business plan covers a time frame that has a realistic start and finish, with a number of measurable checkpoints in between.... Read more

Locating informative resources for your business plan

On the last four posts we were talking about the planning processes but that was just merely an idea, at this point we know: what are the benefits of a business plan, who are our target audience and we know about our time frame for our plan (if you don't know what I am talking about check out the last four posts:... Read more

Writing a business plan step by step

Previously, we have analyzed, which are the basic points of a business plan. We will continue showing step by step how to write a business plan. It’s important to define at what moment we are defining, our business plan, since for every new business, we need a plan but for those are running too.... Read more

Setting the market research

Many entrepreneurs with brilliant business ideas will fail because they do not analyze enough deep the market demand for their ideas. Start a business without previous analysis is like shooting in the darkness. Therefore, the next step will be the market definition for your product. For this, we need to ask questions, starting with wide context and later working to more specific aspects of the market.... Read more

Introduction to business planning

Incorporating a new business into the market as well as a new product, require a decent amount of capital investment to allow the correct functioning of the business. No matter the reason, an improvement always will require more investment as well as workforce.... Read more

Guidelines to organize a good business plan

Defining objectives: Make a list of the people who you may want to show the plan and the effect you want to produce on them. The objectives might help you to decide how much emphasis the business plan should need to address the different aspects of the business.... Read more

The executive summary

This is the section of the business plan, that must be written at the end of the process, it must be placed at very beginning of the document; in other words, before the business plan description and immediately after the front. Because this is the summary no longer than 2 pages, it has the purpose to attract the attention of the reader, through a descriptive synthesis, in which we highlight what is considered important to achieve this objective.... Read more

Description of the business

History of the company... Read more

Products and Services

Description of products and services

Describe the products and/or services your company sells or will sell.... Read more

Description of the sector

Market studies

It’s important to have a good understanding of the sector where the business will operate. At this point, it will be useful to explain if you have researched the market of your niche. For example, if we have made any poll among our potential customers, if we had access to other data sources like articles, newspaper and other statistical information, whether we have spoken to people about the activity of the sector or other reliable source.... Read more

Marketing Strategy

Target Market

In the last post Description of the sector, we described our marketing activity. Which clients or market segments your company will point for? For example, we may define an objective market by client type and geographic region. How your markets may change during your business planning period?... Read more

Management and staff

The structure of the company

Make a description of your company. How many personnel do you have, and how much would you like to have for the next years?... Read more

Protection and regulations

Copyright protection

In case of any patent, branding, license or any other kind of protection is protecting the processes, products or services, describe them briefly.... Read more

Implementation and risks

When will start the major activities of the business plan, and who will be the responsible to carry them out? When will they finish these activities?... Read more

Financial Information

Content

This section identifies the financial needs of your business and shows the potential profits, therefore, is one of the most important. A business can grow and survive only if generates profits. During the preparation stage of the business plan, we must know how much money is needed and the expected profits. For this, the financial information that the business plan has, must include four documents:... Read more