If you’re one of the many people thinking about starting a small business, having a business plan is one of the first things you should have on your list of things to do. It doesn’t matter if you’re starting a small business from home or away, having a plan for your business is considered a blue print for a successful small business. What is a business plan and why do you need one?

A Business Plan
A business plan is simply a plan of what your goals are for the business, and how you plan to go about accomplishing them. Some people refer to it as a vision for your business. I like to refer to it as a blue print or a road map to accomplishing your goals.

Your plan should be spelled out in clear and defining terms and be kept simple. It should be a written document and used as a tool in managing the business.

A plan should include but is not limited to the following:

1. A statement of your business purpose
2. A description of your company
3. The goals of your company
4. The structure of the company (sole-proprietorship, partnership or corporation)
5. The product or service that you are selling
6. A market analysis of your product or service
7. Resources spent (time and money)
8. A financial plan to include financial statements
9. Information about the managing principals in the company
10. How you plan to manage and operate the company

The Importance of a Business Plan
The success of a business starts with a business plan. The plan defines your business as to what it is and how you plan to achieve the goals of the business. It presents a clear picture of your business in terms of goals and objectives.

The plan reflects how you plan to operate your business. How you plan to market your product or services. It provides a financial picture of the company.

If you are looking for money to fund your business, you’re going to need a plan for your business. When you go to borrow money, lenders and investors are going to want to see written documentation in a business plan of your financial situation. Why do they want to see this information? Lenders and investors want to see this information because they are the ones taking the risk in lending your business money.

Once you have a plan in place, it’s important that you follow it. If you’re achieving your goals you should stick with the plan. If you are not achieving your goals then you will have go back, analyze your plan to find out what is working, what is not working and why it is not working.

A plan is not etched in stone. It is subject to change. As time goes on, things change in this world and businesses like everyone else are subject to change. A good plan will reflect changes that a company has to make to keep it competitive and successful.

Where can you find samples of a business plan for a small business? If you go into any of the search engines such as Google or Bing and type in “samples of a business plans for a small business” you will find websites with this information.

This is why it is important that a small business should have a business plan. If you look at those small businesses that are successful, you will find that most of them all started with and have a plan for their business.

Most successful businesses have created a business plan at some point, usually before their start-up.

Why?

A business plan is needed to address all of the central components to starting a business. It is essential to make sure that you, as a new entrepreneur have carefully thought through many if not all, of the important components of your business. Ideally, you need to do this BEFORE starting your business.

What is a business plan?

They are generally prepared for two reasons:

1. To obtain financing for the business

2. To help determine if essential components of starting a business have been considered.

Often times with new entrepreneur’s (and sometimes even with the more experienced!) they overlook certain aspects of starting a business. So the business plan helps to ensure that most, if not all reasonable questions have been answered and strategies thought about.

Although business plans are often considered optional – they serve a vital importance to entrepreneurs.

Many aspiring entrepreneurs and even experienced entrepreneurs fail to recognize their importance. It is often considered an “optional” component of their business and should only be prepared when absolutely necessary.

Not so!

It is needed to address all of the central components to starting your business. It is essential to make sure that you, as an entrepreneur of quality, have carefully considered what you are offering, how you are offering it and whom you are offering it to.

Although it may be tempting to say “I have everything in my head about my business” – could lead to a lack of clarity.

Why?

The idea of keeping everything in your mind makes it possible for you to:

• forget certain things
• remember things incorrectly or too modified to later be useful
• misconstrue thought combinations that you had at one point but later revised
• revisit ideas that you already have thought of and since dismissed…

Preparing a business plan will allow you to document what you know and have the permanent impact of writing it down.

But this is complicated – Right?

In the context of the larger corporate world a business plan is not only essential but required. Many formats of business plans are modelled after the layouts and inclusions used for larger public companies. The time frame and level of detail is much greater for large corporate entities as they are required for various interested parties (stakeholders). However, it is not necessary for smaller businesses, especially start-ups to prepare overly lengthy and complex documents.

Your business plan need not be a time consuming, uncontrollable and over-the-top difficult process!

How Can I, As an Entrepreneur Achieve This?

Through the simple process of preparing a Preliminary Business Plan you will:

1. Engage in a key strategy that will help you to organize your thoughts
2. Help you to focus on your business intentions.
3. Apply a straightforward, step-by-step process to prepare one.
4. Obtain clarity about your business.

Why is it called a Preliminary Business Plan?

Traditional business plans, like those used for large public corporations can be very complex and have the level of detail that is not required for most smaller, private businesses.

A Preliminary Business Plan is shorter, designed more for the start-up of the business and it is easier to understand and prepare.

Here are just some of the questions that it should answer:

• Describe in detail exactly what your business is to be.
• Describe whom your products and/or services are for.
• How do you plan to deliver your products/services to your customers/clients.
• What pricing do you plan to use.
• If you have a product, list the major suppliers
• Indicate whom your major customers/clients are likely to be.
• What are the risk factors that you see for your business.
• What current businesses pose as competition to your business?
• How many employees do you plan to have in the company and at what point will they become active?
• Have you completed one?

It will address all of the central components to starting your business. It is essential to make sure that you, as a new entrepreneur have thought carefully through and considered all that you need to BEFORE starting your business.

A Preliminary Business Plan is a step-by-step method that allows you to organize your thoughts and WRITE DOWN your intentions through documenting them in a meaningful way. It also provides you with a document to provide to interested parties (for example, banks, investors, etc.) if the need arises.

You need to prepare one, if you are:

• An aspiring entrepreneur who is serious about properly planning a business and would like to discover if you need one for their new business.
• An experienced entrepreneur who never has prepared one, but would like to learn how.
• An aspiring entrepreneur who is skeptical, but would like to explore the process and know more.
• Any entrepreneur who has heard about them, but are confused and would like some clear DIRECTION of what to do.

A business plan may be defined as the formal statement of a collective set of business goals or planning. It can also contain the background information about the organization. Business plan is mandatory to run a company because it is an essential part of initial strategic planning of any company. The capability of writing this plan effectively is a fundamental quality that a businessman should have, especially while starting a new business company or organization. The plan acts like a road map which may guide the company towards success.

There are some objectives or reasons to write a plan for business. These are mentioned below:

– It’s a tool or equipment for obtaining financing
– This helps to unite joint venture partners in a common goal or destination
– It makes the whole business goals feasible to study and analyze
– It will serve as the blueprint for the debut business companies.

A business plan works to convince individual or institutions for investing money in his business or loaning money. Sometime the plan writing is more important than the plan itself. While attempting to write a plan, the businessman’s strategic foundation should be identified first. This strategic foundation explains about the type of business he wants to start or which type of firm he wants to establish. It also indicates the basic elements that are needed to start the business firm. One can predict about the future condition of the company by the plan on his business. In the plan, the main products and the information on the clients should be written down in detail. To get more idea about it the business man can contact with business marketing consultants who can help him.

The planner can be able to declare the financial conditions and financial goals of the company by the help of written form of the business plan. A businessman must think about the present and the future conditions, which mean that he must analyze recent conditions as well as the upcoming needs. He should categorize the ideal and awful clients so that he can take steps to attract the best clients, at the same time to refuse the others. A business plan should be written in brief way so that he won’t forget any topic or information.

Writing a business plan proves the deadly seriousness of a businessman. It is very important in acting as a guide in different stages of the business. While writing a business plan one should follow some criteria which make the plan more effective and work worthy. To set up a unique business goal that is verifiable. The main purpose of writing the plan is to notify the specific goals or plan that a company is going to perform. It will guide the businessman to take decision himself as well as it will explain his plans on business and aims to anyone reading his plan. It also states the long term objectives of the business.

The plan must be realistic in every aspect. It includes the time line, market analysis, specifies projected expenses and revenues, and creates an accurate forecasting. One must keep his plan simple, easy and clear to be understood easily. If the language is difficult and inflate for impressing the customers, it may affect in reverse way. It may be confusing for the businessman himself. It should be very easy and naturally described without any excess verbiage. It should be in proper tone so that the reader can response and react positively to that tone. One must consult with some of the institute concerned with the business sector. These firms and organizations help you to take proper decision at the right time. Consulting institutes such as business consulting firms, business technology consulting, business plan consultants, organizational consultants etc. They help and give you the proper guideline in every aspect and decision. These types of firms summarize the plan and efforts that is effective for the company.

One must write a plan staying along the lines of traditional business plan format. Creative thinking is always appreciable, but to make yourself look more professional you must go with the guide of a tested business plan template. This may organize the plan into a well structured data and document.

One must clearly state and define the main purpose of the business plan. Similar to the identification of the goals of business, the writer must identify and specify the goals of the written business plan. It will help to secure the financial backing from the investors.

Once the plan is ready for the inauguration of the business, the businessman should decide his priority. These priorities will make the success in business easier. The main contents of writing a business plan are given below:

Cover sheet
Statement of purpose
Table of content
The business
-Description of business
-Marketing
-Competition
-Operating procedure
-Business insurance
Financial data

Summary:
Overall a business plan should be written in such a manner that it is easily understandable and that have the ability to attract newer clients. After these mentioned process been finished, one would be ready to face challenges that a new business would bring.