A business plan: a term that most everyone has heard of. If you are an entrepreneur, you have probably been told countless times that it is an essential document for any startup.
What is a business plan?
A traditional, formal business plan is both a tool to help you structure your idea, and a fund-raising instrument that will help you convince investors and banks to finance your idea.
How fortunate, then, that the BIL agreed to write up a post telling us how to structure our business plan.
- The executive summary
In this first section, you should briefly present your value proposition, your objectives and how you plan to achieve them.
- Presenting the business
Provide detailed information related to your business (name, legal form, share capital, etc.). Also include its mission and the human assets and key people.
- Products and services
In addition to your products and services, don’t forget to mention their value added for the identified target groups.
- The market and the competition
Demonstrate in this section that you know your market, its potential and how it is likely to change. Also include an analysis of your competitors.
- Marketing and sales
Focus primarily on your target market segment, as well as any related target groups. Your target market share, expected turnover and your marketing strategy are all important information.
- Action plan
The action plan should cover the major stages of launching your business, the associated deliverables and planned implementation costs.
- Risk analysis
While your business contacts may pay close attention to your strengths and opportunities, they look even more closely at your project’s risks or even its weaknesses. Do not let them discover your challenges by themselves; maintain control by preparing this SWOT analysis yourself.
- The financing plan
Overall concept, day-to-day financial management, expected balance sheet and profit & loss account, cash-flow plan, sureties, deposit statement, property valuation, current lease or loan agreements: it should all be in there!
- Appendices
This is the section for all additional information: any sources to check your analyses and any certificates that will help the reader understand the status of the project and its potential success.
Want to know more? Read the full article here.
About the author:
myLIFE is an information platform developed for BIL. myLIFE is designed to educate users on managing their financial situation and help them reach their personal and professional goals. It does this through regular publication of informative and interesting multimedia content.
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