3 Apps to Help You Write a Business Plan,Business Plan Steps
WebAug 20, · Table of Contents Brainstorm an Executive Summary. An executive summary is an extremely important first step in your business. You have to Create a WebJan 28, · 27 Best Freelance Business Plan Writers For Hire In February - Upwork™ Hire the best Business Plan writers Check out Business Plan writers with WebFeb 4, · Here's a look at three apps that can help get your business plan rolling: 1. Enloop. This is an all-in-one web app that walks users through every step of creating a WebJul 4, · Business Plan Premier: This $ iOS app was touted by Entrepreneur as a full-featured app that writes a detailed business plan. Creating your plan is easy, as the WebThey are broken down into 3 sections. Section One: Company Overview. Customer Pain – What is the problem and how are you solving it. Who Are You – Mission, vision, core ... read more
I also found this practical infographic covering another structure for a successful business plan. I thought it was quite helpful. I hope you enjoy ��. This blog post was written by an independent guest contributor. Author Name: D Patridge. Our guests posts are written by independent bloggers. This is such an awesome resource! It seems so doable when you break it up into 3 parts and those parts into a few steps. I also see how you can kind of morph this — from a business plan to a plan for any dream really. Hey Dale. Thank you…. This outline is great and super helpful! Do you have anything you would add or take away for a non-profit that is four years old and looking to re-structure? Thank you for writing this! Would you change your approach in any of the sections if you were building the plan for a start-up nonprofit?
You really simplify things in the most powerful way. I have been trying to get started on a business plan for a bit now. This broke it down for me in a way that feels achievable. Thank you so much!! An online marketplace. Step 2 and 3 of the business plan is like another language to me poli sci major here! The financial projections? The hard numbers. Where do you conduct research? How do people calculate this stuff? You wrote 11 business plans in 12 years! And the Title post talk about writting a killer business plan in ONE WEEK.. Therefore my question is: Why are you talking about one week? I am thinking of starting a business to help the community and it is going to have to be in stages do you have any advice on how to organize that into a business plan?
Indeed, business plan is crucial to any business. Even if you have goals, but without a proper business plan, is just a wish. Thanks for sharing what you know. Keep up the awesome blog! On point. Great list you pointed out here. Your first sentence… made me stop reading the entire article. Smartsheet Contributor Joe Weller. A business plan is the cornerstone of any successful company, regardless of size or industry. This step-by-step guide provides information on writing a business plan for organizations at any stage, complete with free templates and expert advice. Plus, find information on how a business plan can help grow a business and expert tips on writing one. Additionally, it may include a mission statement and details about the specific products or services offered.
A business plan can highlight varying time periods, depending on the stage of your company and its goals. That said, a typical business plan will include the following benchmarks:. Startups, entrepreneurs, and small businesses all create business plans to use as a guide as their new company progresses. Larger organizations may also create and update a business plan to keep high-level goals, financials, and timelines in check. In turn, a business plan has functional value as well: Not only does outlining goals help keep you accountable on a timeline, it can also attract investors in and of itself and, therefore, act as an effective strategy for growth. For more information, visit our comprehensive guide to writing a strategic plan or download free strategic plan templates.
This page focuses on for-profit business plans, but you can read our article with nonprofit business plan templates. The specific information in your business plan will vary, depending on the needs and goals of your venture, but a typical plan includes the following ordered elements:. If your plan is particularly long or complicated, consider adding a table of contents or an appendix for reference. Broadly speaking, your audience includes anyone with a vested interest in your organization. They can include potential and existing investors, as well as customers, internal team members, suppliers, and vendors. Corporations require a thorough business plan — up to pages.
Small businesses or startups should have a concise plan focusing on financials and strategy. There is no set order for a business plan, with the exception of the executive summary, which should always come first. Beyond that, simply ensure that you organize the plan in a way that makes sense and flows naturally. A traditional business plan follows the standard structure — because these plans encourage detail, they tend to require more work upfront and can run dozens of pages. A Lean business plan is less common and focuses on summarizing critical points for each section. These plans take much less work and typically run one page in length. In general, you should use a traditional model for a legacy company, a large company, or any business that does not adhere to Lean or another Agile method.
Use Lean if you expect the company to pivot quickly or if you already employ a Lean strategy with other business operations. Additionally, a Lean business plan can suffice if the document is for internal use only. Stick to a traditional version for investors, as they may be more sensitive to sudden changes or a high degree of built-in flexibility in the plan. Writing a strong business plan requires research and attention to detail for each section. The executive summary will always be the first section of your business plan. The goal is to answer the following questions:. See our roundup of executive summary examples and templates for samples. Read our executive summary guide to learn more about writing one.
The goal of this section is to define the realm, scope, and intent of your venture. To do so, answer the following questions as clearly and concisely as possible:. In this section, provide evidence that you have surveyed and understand the current marketplace, and that your product or service satisfies a niche in the market. To do so, answer these questions:. In many cases, a business plan proposes not a brand-new or even market-disrupting venture, but a more competitive version — whether via features, pricing, integrations, etc. In this section, answer the following questions to show that your product or service stands to outpace competitors:.
In this section, write an overview of the team members and other key personnel who are integral to success. List roles and responsibilities, and if possible, note the hierarchy or team structure. In this section, clearly define your product or service, as well as all the effort and resources that go into producing it. In this section, define the marketing strategy for your product or service. Write an overview of the sales strategy, including the priorities of each cycle, steps to achieve these goals, and metrics for success. For the purposes of a business plan, this section does not need to be a comprehensive, in-depth sales plan , but can simply outline the high-level objectives and strategies of your sales efforts.
This section is one of the most critical parts of your business plan, particularly if you are sharing it with investors. You do not need to provide a full financial plan, but you should be able to answer the following questions:. Apart from the fundraising analysis, investors like to see thought-out financial projections for the future. As discussed earlier, depending on the scope and stage of your business, this could be anywhere from one to five years. Microsoft Excel Smartsheet. This basic business plan template has space for all the traditional elements: an executive summary, product or service details, target audience, marketing and sales strategies, etc.
In the finances sections, input your baseline numbers, and the template will automatically calculate projections for sales forecasting, financial statements, and more. For templates tailored to more specific needs, visit this business plan template roundup or download a fill-in-the-blank business plan template to make things easy. If you are looking for a particular template by file type, visit our pages dedicated exclusively to Microsoft Excel , Microsoft Word , and Adobe PDF business plan templates. A simple business plan is a streamlined, lightweight version of the large, traditional model. As opposed to a one-page business plan , which communicates high-level information for quick overviews such as a stakeholder presentation , a simple business plan can exceed one page.
Below are the steps for creating a generic simple business plan, which are reflected in the template below. Microsoft Excel Microsoft Word Adobe PDF Smartsheet. Use this simple business plan template to outline each aspect of your organization, including information about financing and opportunities to seek out further funding. Read our article offering free simple business plan templates or free day business plan templates to find more tailored options. You can also explore our collection of one page business templates. A Lean startup business plan is a more Agile approach to a traditional version. The plan focuses more on activities, processes, and relationships and maintains flexibility in all aspects , rather than on concrete deliverables and timelines. While there is some overlap between a traditional and a Lean business plan, you can write a Lean plan by following the steps below:.
Microsoft Word Adobe PDF. Startup leaders can use this Lean business plan template to relay the most critical information from a traditional plan. The template is completely customizable, so you can edit it to suit the objectives of your Lean startups. See our wide variety of startup business plan templates for more options. A business plan for a loan, often called a loan proposal , includes many of the same aspects of a traditional business plan, as well as additional financial documents, such as a credit history, a loan request, and a loan repayment plan. In addition, you may be asked to include personal and business financial statements, a form of collateral, and equity investment information.
Download free financial templates to support your business plan. Outside of including all the key details in your business plan, you have several options to elevate the document for the highest chance of winning funding and other resources. Follow these tips from experts:. Outside of these more practical tips, the language you use is also important and may make or break your business plan. And as with any sales pitch, you need to strike the right tone and hit a few emotional chords. This is a little tricky in a business plan, because you also need to be formal and matter-of-fact. But you can still impress by weaving in descriptive language and saying things in a more elegant way.
Include only what is percent necessary. While a template provides a great outline of what to include in a business plan, a live document or more robust program can provide additional functionality, visibility, and real-time updates. The U. Small Business Association also curates resources for writing a business plan. Additionally, you can use business plan software to house data, attach documentation, and share information with stakeholders. Popular options include LivePlan, Enloop, BizPlanner, PlanGuru, and iPlanner. A business plan — both the exercise of creating one and the document — can grow your business by helping you to refine your product, target audience, sales plan, identify opportunities, secure funding, and build new partnerships. Outside of these immediate returns, writing a business plan is a useful exercise in that it forces you to research the market, which prompts you to forge your unique value proposition and identify ways to beat the competition.
Doing so will also help you build and keep you accountable to attainable financial and product milestones. And down the line, it will serve as a welcome guide as hurdles inevitably arise. Empower your people to go above and beyond with a flexible platform designed to match the needs of your team — and adapt as those needs change. The Smartsheet platform makes it easy to plan, capture, manage, and report on work from anywhere, helping your team be more effective and get more done. Report on key metrics and get real-time visibility into work as it happens with roll-up reports, dashboards, and automated workflows built to keep your team connected and informed. Try Smartsheet for free, today.
Need help writing your business plan? Explore over free real-world business plan examples from a wide variety of industries to guide you through writing your own plan. If you're looking for an intuitive tool that walks you through the plan writing process, we recommend LivePlan. It includes many of these same SBA-approved business plan examples and is especially useful when applying for a bank loan or outside investment. Before you start exploring our library of business plan examples, it's worth taking the time to understand the traditional business plan format. You'll find that the plans in this library and most investor-approved business plans will include the following sections:. The executive summary is an overview of your business and your plans.
It comes first in your plan and is ideally only one to two pages. You should also plan to write this section last after you've written your full business plan. Your executive summary should include a summary of the problem you are solving, a description of your product or service, an overview of your target market, a brief description of your team, a summary of your financials, and your funding requirements if you are raising money. It includes information about the problem that you're solving, your solution, and how your product or service fits into the existing competitive landscape. Describe the problem you're solving, how your offering solves the problem, and who your potential competitors are.
You'll want to outline your competitive advantages and the milestones you have in mind to successfully start and grow your business. Conducting a market analysis ensures that you fully understand the market that you're entering and who you'll be selling to. This section is where you will showcase all of the information about your potential customers. You'll cover your target market as well as information about the growth of your market and your industry. Focus on outlining why the market you're entering is viable and creating a realistic persona for your ideal customer base. The marketing and sales plan section of your business plan details how you plan to reach your target market segments. You'll address how you plan on selling to those target markets, what your pricing plan is, and what types of activities and partnerships you need to make your business a success.
Use this section to describe your current team and who you need to hire. If you intend to pursue funding, you'll need to highlight the relevant experience of your team members. Basically, this is where you prove that this is the right team to successfully start and grow the business. You will also need to provide a quick overview of your legal structure, location, and history if you're already up and running. Your financial plan should include a sales and revenue forecast, profit and loss statement, cash flow statement, and a balance sheet. You may not have established financials of any kind at this stage. Not to worry, rather than getting all of the details ironed out, focus on making projections and strategic forecasts for your business.
You can always update your financial statements as you begin operations and start bringing in actual accounting data. Now, if you intend to pitch to investors or submit a loan application, you'll also need a "use of funds" report in this section. This outlines how you intend to leverage any funding for your business and how much you're looking to acquire. Like the rest of your financials, this can always be updated later on. The appendix isn't a required element of your business plan. However, it is a useful place to add any charts, tables, definitions, legal notes, or other critical information that supports your plan. These are often lengthier or our-of-place information that simply didn't work naturally into the structure of your plan.
You'll notice that in these business plan examples, the appendix mainly includes extended financial statements. While all business plans cover similar categories, the style and function fully depend on how you intend to use your plan. To get the most out of your plan, it's best to find a format that suits your needs. Here are a few common business plan types worth considering. The tried-and-true traditional business plan is a formal document meant to be used for external purposes. Typically this is the type of plan you'll need when applying for funding or pitching to investors.
It can also be used when training or hiring employees, working with vendors, or any other situation where the full details of your business must be understood by another individual. The business model canvas is a one-page template designed to demystify the business planning process. It removes the need for a traditional, copy-heavy business plan, in favor of a single-page outline that can help you and outside parties better explore your business idea. The structure ditches a linear format in favor of a cell-based template. It encourages you to build connections between every element of your business. It's faster to write out and update, and much easier for you, your team, and anyone else to visualize your business operations. The true middle ground between the business model canvas and a traditional business plan is the one-page business plan.
This format is a simplified version of the traditional plan that focuses on the core aspects of your business. By starting with a one-page plan, you give yourself a minimal document to build from. You'll typically stick with bullet points and single sentences making it much easier to elaborate or expand sections into a longer-form business plan. The Lean Plan is less of a specific document type and more of a methodology. It takes the simplicity and styling of the one-page business plan and turns it into a process for you to continuously plan, test, review, refine, and take action based on performance. It holds all of the benefits of the single-page plan, including the potential to complete it in as little as minutes.
However, it's even easier to convert into a full plan thanks to how heavily it's tied to your financials. The overall goal of Lean Planning isn't to just produce documents that you use once and shelve. Instead, the Lean Planning process helps you build a healthier company that thrives in times of growth and remain stable through times of crisis. Ready to start writing your own plan but aren't sure where to start? Download our free business plan template that's been updated for This simple, modern, investor-approved business plan template is designed to make planning easy.
It's a proven format that has helped over 1 million businesses write business plans for bank loans, funding pitches, business expansion, and even business sales. It includes additional instructions for how to write each section and is formatted to be SBA-lender approved. All you need to do is fill in the blanks. How do you know what elements need to be included in your business plan, especially if you've never written one before? Looking at examples can help you visualize what a full, traditional plan looks like, so you know what you're aiming for before you get started.
Here's how to get the most out of a sample business plan. You don't need to find an example business plan that's an exact fit for your business. Your business location, target market, and even your particular product or service may not match up exactly with the plans in our gallery. But, you don't need an exact match for it to be helpful. Instead, look for a plan that's related to the type of business you're starting. For example, if you want to start a vegetarian restaurant, a plan for a steakhouse can be a great match. While the specifics of your actual startup will differ, the elements you'd want to include in your restaurant's business plan are likely to be very similar.
Every startup and small business is unique, so you'll want to avoid copying an example business plan word for word. It just won't be as helpful, since each business is unique. You want your plan to be a useful tool for starting a business —and getting funding if you need it. One of the key benefits of writing a business plan is simply going through the process. When you sit down to write, you'll naturally think through important pieces, like your startup costs, your target market , and any market analysis or research you'll need to do to be successful. You'll also look at where you stand among your competition and everyone has competition , and lay out your goals and the milestones you'll need to meet.
Looking at an example business plan's financials section can be helpful because you can see what should be included, but take them with a grain of salt. Don't assume that financial projections for a sample company will fit your own small business. If you're looking for more resources to help you get started, this guide on how to write a business plan is a good place to start. You can also download our free business plan template , or get started right away with LivePlan. Think about business planning as something you do often , rather than a document you create once and never look at again. If you take the time to write a plan that really fits your own company, it will be a better, more useful tool to grow your business.
It should also make it easier to share your vision and strategy so everyone on your team is on the same page. Keep in mind that businesses that use their plan as a management tool to help run their business grow 30 percent faster than those businesses that don't. For that to be true for your company, you'll think of a part of your business planning process as tracking your actual results against your financial forecast on a regular basis. If things are going well, your plan will help you think about how you can re-invest in your business. If you find that you're not meeting goals, you might need to adjust your budgets or your sales forecast.
Either way, tracking your progress compared to your plan can help you adjust quickly when you identify challenges and opportunities—it's one of the most powerful things you can do to grow your business. If you're planning to pitch your business to investors or seek out any funding, you'll need a pitch deck to accompany your business plan. A pitch deck is designed to inform people about your business. You want your pitch deck to be short and easy to follow, so it's best to keep your presentation under 20 slides. Your pitch deck and pitch presentation are likely some of the first things that an investor will see to learn more about your company. So, you need to be informative and pique their interest.
Luckily, just like you can leverage an example business plan template to write your plan, we also have a gallery of over 50 pitch decks for you to reference. With this gallery, you have the option to view specific industry pitches or get inspired by real-world pitch deck examples. Or for a modern pitch solution that helps you create a business plan and pitch deck side-by-side, you may want to check out LivePlan. It will help you build everything needed for outside investment and to better manage your business. Are you an educator looking for real-world business plan examples for your students?
With LivePlan, you give your students access to industry-best business plans and help them set goals and track metrics with spreadsheet-free financial forecasts.
Step-by-Step Guide to Writing a Simple Business Plan,Find your business plan
WebThey are broken down into 3 sections. Section One: Company Overview. Customer Pain – What is the problem and how are you solving it. Who Are You – Mission, vision, core WebAug 20, · Table of Contents Brainstorm an Executive Summary. An executive summary is an extremely important first step in your business. You have to Create a WebJul 4, · Business Plan Premier: This $ iOS app was touted by Entrepreneur as a full-featured app that writes a detailed business plan. Creating your plan is easy, as the WebJan 28, · 27 Best Freelance Business Plan Writers For Hire In February - Upwork™ Hire the best Business Plan writers Check out Business Plan writers with WebFeb 4, · Here's a look at three apps that can help get your business plan rolling: 1. Enloop. This is an all-in-one web app that walks users through every step of creating a ... read more
The plan should discuss the logistics and costs of getting products onto store shelves and any potential hurdles that the business may have to overcome. In turn, a business plan has functional value as well: Not only does outlining goals help keep you accountable on a timeline, it can also attract investors in and of itself and, therefore, act as an effective strategy for growth. After you have the executive summary in place, you can work on the company description, which contains more specific information. How is business planning for a nonprofit different? Instead, keep everything objective, balanced, and accurate. All rights reserved.
Therefore my question is: Why are you talking about one week? Apart from the fundraising analysis, investors like to see thought-out financial projections for the future. Lean Plan The Lean Plan is less of a specific document type and more of a methodology, help to write business plan. While there is some overlap between a traditional and a Lean business plan, you can write a Lean plan by following the steps below:. Hey Dale. Additionally, it may include a mission statement and details about the specific products or services offered. These plans take much less work and help to write business plan run one page in length.
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