How Do You Write A Business Plan – It is the cornerstone of any successful company, regardless of size or industry. This step-by-step guide provides information on writing business plans for organizations at any stage, complete with free templates and expert advice.
Included on this page, you’ll find a step-by-step guide to writing a business plan and a chart to identify what type of business plan you should write. Plus, get information on how a business plan can help grow a business and expert tips on writing one.
How Do You Write A Business Plan
It is a document that communicates the company’s goals and ambitions, including timelines, finances, and the methods needed to achieve them. Additionally, it may include a mission statement and details about specific products or services offered.
How To Write A Business Plan
Depending on the stage of your company and its goals, a business plan may highlight different periods. 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 they progress their new company. Large organizations can create (and update) business plans to control high-level goals, finances, and timelines.
While you need to have a formal outline of your business goals and financials, creating a business plan can help you determine the company’s viability, its profitability (including when it will first turn a profit), and how much money you will need. Investors In turn, a business plan also has functional value: not only do outline goals help keep you accountable on time, they can attract investors in and of themselves and, therefore, act as an effective strategy for growth.
For more information, visit our comprehensive guide to writing a strategic plan or download a free strategic plan template. This page focuses on for-profit business plans, but you can read our article on nonprofit business plan templates.
How To Write A Freelance Business Plan
Depending on your business needs and goals, the specific information in your business plan will vary, but a typical plan includes the following elements in order:
If your plan is particularly long or complex, consider adding a table of contents or an appendix for reference. For an in-depth description of each step listed above, read “How to Write a Business Plan Step by Step” below.
Broadly speaking, your audience includes anyone with a vested interest in your organization. They may include potential and existing investors as well as customers, internal team members, suppliers and vendors.
The stage of your business and intended audience determine the level of detail your plan needs. Corporations require a full business plan — up to 100 pages. Small businesses or startups should have a concise plan that focuses on financials and strategy.
How To Write A Business Proposal (+ Examples & Templates)
To identify the type of business plan you need to create, ask: “What do we want the plan to do?” Identify function first, and form will follow.
There is no set order for the business plan, with the exception of the executive summary, which should always come first. Beyond that, just make sure you organize the plan in a way that makes sense and flows naturally.
A traditional business plan follows a standard structure — because these plans encourage detail, they require more work and can run dozens of pages. A lean business plan is less general and focuses on summarizing the critical issues for each department. These plans take very little work and usually run about a page in length.
In general, you should use the traditional model for a legacy company, a large company, or any business that does not follow Lean (or another agile methodology). Use Lean if you expect the company to pivot quickly or if you are already using a Lean strategy in other business operations. Additionally, a lean business plan may be sufficient if the document is for internal use only. Stick to the traditional version for investors, as they may be more sensitive to sudden changes or the high level of flexibility built into the plan.
Examples Of Company Overviews In A Business Plan
Writing a strong business plan requires research and attention to detail for each segment. Below, you’ll find a 10-step guide to researching and defining each element of the plan.
The executive summary will always be the first section of your business plan. The goal is to answer the following questions:
See our 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 scope, scope and purpose of your initiative. To do so, answer the following questions as clearly and concisely as possible:
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In this section, provide evidence that you have surveyed and understood the current marketplace and that your product or service fills a niche in the market. To do this, answer these questions:
In many cases, the business plan is not a completely new (or even market-disrupting) venture, but rather a more competitive version of what’s currently available—by features, pricing, integration, etc.—proposed. In this section, answer the following questions to demonstrate how your product or service outperforms competitors:
In this section, write an overview of 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 required to create it. The strength of your product largely defines the success of your business, so it’s imperative that you take the time to test and refine the product before launching into marketing, sales or funding details.
How To Write A Business Plan For Internet Business (with Pictures)
In this section, define the marketing strategy for your product or service. It doesn’t have to be structured like a complete marketing plan, but it should answer basic questions like the following:
Write an overview of the sales strategy, including priorities for each cycle, steps to achieve these goals, and success metrics. For business plan purposes, this section doesn’t need to be a comprehensive, in-depth sales plan, but can easily lay out the high-level goals and strategies for your sales efforts.
This section is one of the most important parts of your business plan, especially if you’re sharing it with investors. You don’t need to provide a complete financial plan, but you should be able to answer the following questions:
In addition to fundraising analysis, investors like to look at thoughtful financial projections for the future. As discussed earlier, depending on the scope and stage of your business, this can be anywhere from one to five years.
How To Write A Business Plan
Although these estimates may not be exact — and must be somewhat flexible — you should be able to calculate the following:
This basic business plan template has space for all the traditional elements: executive summary, product or service details, target audience, marketing and sales strategies, etc. In the financial sections, input your baseline numbers and the template will automatically calculate estimates for sales forecasts, financial statements and more.
For templates tailored to more specific needs, visit this business plan template roundup or download a blank business plan template to make things easier.
If you’re looking for specific templates by file type, visit our pages dedicated exclusively to Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Word, and Adobe PDF business plan templates.
How To Write A Business Plan: Beginner’s Guide (& Templates)
, which communicates high-level information for a quick overview (such as a stakeholder presentation), a simple business plan can be more than one page.
Below are the steps for creating a typical simple business plan, which is reflected in the template below.
Use this simple business plan template to outline every aspect of your organization, including information about financing and opportunities to seek further funding. This template is fully customizable to suit the needs of any business, be it a startup or a large company.
Read our article on Free Simple Business Plan Templates or Free 30-60-90-Day Business Plan Templates to find more tailored options. You can also explore our collection of one page business templates.
How To Write A Business Plan For Your Startup
There is a more agile approach to the traditional version. The plan focuses more on activities, processes and relationships (and maintains flexibility in all aspects) rather than focusing on concrete deliverables and timelines.
While there is some overlap between traditional and lean business plans, you can write a lean plan by following these steps:
Startup leaders can use this lean business plan template to relay the most critical information in a traditional plan. You’ll find all the sections listed above, including industry and product overview, cost structure and revenue sources, and key metrics and timelines. The template is fully customizable, so you can edit it for your Lean Startup goals.
, includes many of the same aspects of a traditional business plan, plus additional financial documents such as credit history, loan application and loan repayment plan.
A Beginner’s Guide To Writing A Business Plan — The Branded Agency
In addition, you may be asked to include personal and business financial statements, collateral forms and equity investment information.
In addition to including all the key details in your business plan, you have several options to enhance the document for the highest chance of winning funding and other resources. Follow these tips from the experts:.
Outside of these more practical tips, the language you use
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