Business Plan

What is a business plan?

A business plan is a document that describes your future business goals and initiatives — what you’re going to achieve and how you plan to do it. Business plans help you run your business and make sure all your teams pursue the same goal. A business plan has to guide you and everyone involved through each stage of its execution.

What does a business plan have to tell?

Summary. Tell your company background, perspective, values, and profit highlights. Include short quotes from other paragraphs.

Business description and structure. Describe what and how you produce and distribute. Uncover internal and external relationships, make the processes transparent.

Research. Narrate your market analysis and describe your marketing strategy. Compare yourself with competitors, find your strengths and weaknesses.

Personnel and roles. Specify the team’s roles and responsibilities. Everyone must know what they have to do to reach the strategic goal.

Financial documents. Provide the numbers. Include your expenses (budget), profit projection, and cash flow.

Goals. Set up the goals and objectives that you have to reach. They must be realistic, measurable, and time-limited.

Initiatives. Decide what actions have to be done to reach the goals. Draw a roadmap of your success. Don’t forget that initiatives also have a timeframe and metrics.

Metrics. What do you consider successful completion of an initiative? Set up an analytics system and measure how you approach the desired level. Update your metrics in accordance with your progress.