A Business plan – it is a comprehensible guide for the creator of the document and the investors, which, using the business’ mechanisms systems, leads the described main idea to implementation in the physical world.
‘’If you don’t plan, you plan to fail’’ Said Benjamin Franklin
Eugene Kleiner, a Silicon Valley and Venture capital pioneer, one day said that business plan writing requires creative thinking. A great business idea might seem significant. However, when you put all of the details and the figures down, it can come crashing down.
Although a corporate plan may be fundamental to successful entrepreneurship, it is not every businessman or woman who sees the need for one. Even though a business plan is critical to entrepreneurship, not all entrepreneurs know the necessity for it. A significant number of business owners are hesitant to have a plan drawn up. Indeed, many online articles claim that the business plan is dead or irrelevant. Of course, not everyone would agree with that.
Several experts in business analysis agree that it is not enough to have a healthy business plan to get your business project up and running. Even good business plans may be completely worthless unless you formulate, implement, and deliver detailed strategic planning to get your business idea working.
Remember that a quality business plan helps to raise funds from investors and lenders, and a great business plan is very precious. It will help if you strive for a business plan which is well-documented and which speaks for its own sake. It should also be written and easily understood.
How do you write a business plan for a small business?
Wanting to set up their business as quickly as possible, a lot of startup business owners start right away without knowing how their efforts will affect them in the future.
Another situation is when a business owner is spending most of his or her time dreaming wonderful dreams without doing anything because he or she doesn’t know how to go about making those dreams to become a reality.
When opening a new business, it becomes essential to prepare a good business plan which will act as a map on the battlefield for your idea.
Business plan (concept and objective)
Although the concept of “business plan” is somewhat ambiguous, it can be interpreted by its author
A business plan is the first step in a company. It is the business card of your future project. How to write a startup business plan template? The step-by-step instructions in this article will help you in this regard.
Writing a business plan for a small business may be different depending on why you need it. One of the most common goals of business planning is to present it for investment.
What are the three main purposes of a business plan?
Three skills are the critical factors of every project’s success:
-
Your current location
This means that if an employee wants to open a store, he needs to know what skills he doesn’t have, in what he has to invest (his financial projections): equipment, location, materials, and communications, etc.
-
The ultimate result
It doesn’t have to mean it’s a dream. You should have a strong vision of what your business’s turnover must be, how much profit it must make, and its place in the market, all in the same spirit.
-
It would help if you described and clearly understand how to go from where you are now to where you want to be
. The steps that will take you from point A to point B. Indeed, it is impossible to base all on financial projections, but it is useful to understand precisely and in great detail, based on your circumstances, the way to act.
Having dealt successfully with those three elements, you can proceed to that next stage, which consists of planning the development of your new business plan.
What are the five elements of a business plan?
A standard business plan consists of the following chapters:
Contents
General provisions
Market analysis, marketing, and strategic planning
Costs and production planning
Investments and financial planning
#1: Summary
In short, we can retain the following aspects: a description of the business idea, the information on the necessity of this particular business in the market, the implementation periods, the return on investment of the project, and competitiveness should be displayed. Of course, this part is more aimed at potential investors.
It is them, after reading the CV, conclude whether or not it is worth exploring the plan further. That is why, when a business plan is presented to the investors, it is necessary to describe this part carefully and be willing to make corrections to it again and again until compiling the following chapters.
However, this part is also essential for the entrepreneurs’ needs, as it helps them to have a better view of the whole process of the business organization.
#2: General provisions
If the CV is written on approximately one or two pages, then this chapter can be written in more detail. In other words, the chapter “general provisions” contains the same information as the summary, but invites in a more detailed form, the reader to become familiar with the project as a whole. It describes the characteristics and implementation of the project, its life cycle, the possibility of further development, and the expected changes in the product with a possible change in market trends.
The business plan services in this chapter should contain information on what the specific service is and how it will attract customers. For example, the restaurant business plan describes all the services offered, their characteristics, and distinguishing features.
#3: Market analysis
Parallel to or before the drafting of a business plan template, a market analysis must be carried out. This is a crucial part, as the success of a future project depends directly on it. After choosing a market niche and a target audience, an in-depth analysis is carried out to identify the relevance of the project’s business plan, the initial proposal, and its idea. If the analysis reveals an excess of supply, the idea should be revisited, and an attempt made to correct it to match the market situation. If there is increased demand, everything is in order, and you can safely proceed to other actions. Market analysis is done in different ways. But if there are problems with its implementation, there are companies where you can outsource the market analysis.
Nevertheless, the entrepreneur should deal with this problem himself, as any third-party organization will only give an objective average result, not fully taking into account the business plan for small businesses and all the nuances of the business idea of the project author.
#4: Marketing and strategic planning
This plan includes product introduction, development, pricing, sales and marketing, and advertising. To display the product, it is advisable to build a Gantt chart where the dates of the different events will be displayed. Based on the market and competitiveness analysis, a strategy is calculated, how the market will be conquered, and what tactical actions will be necessary for the implementation. Pricing is based on economic calculations and the expected revenues of the company. Sales can be represented in the form of a diagram where the whole process will be visible in stages, for example, from the receipt of goods at a warehouse to the receipt of money for the goods and their sale.
#5: Fees and production plan
This chapter includes the purchase of necessary pieces of equipment, repairs, rental of premises, and other costs. In the production schedule, it is necessary to reflect the number of people needed to implement the project, the timing of their work, payroll deductions, and related payments. The startup business plan template will become much more attractive to an investor if there is a team ready to work on the project, as this demonstrates the entrepreneur’s ability to carry out the plan. Therefore, this fact should be emphasized in the business plan format.
As far as the production plan is concerned, if the company will be a production company, it is necessary to describe the production process, as well as the partners and suppliers that will be involved in the company. For example, the coffee shop business plan in this chapter should include pieces of equipment for milking, bottling, and packaging coffee and a mechanism for marketing to specific suppliers.
#6: Financial plan and investment
The most crucial part of the entire business plan is, of course, the financial projections. Moreover, if the project is intended to familiarize the investor, after reading the summary, a serious investor is likely to consult the financial plan. After all, it is here that the entrepreneur’s real ability to implement business ideas will be visible. This is the essence of entrepreneurial activity.
The financial projections provide all the information on the possible costs and revenues of the project. Based on the marketing, strategic plan, and costs, a table is drawn up for several years, showing the necessary investments and a timetable for their repayment, all possible costs, and revenues. The last part of the financial projections must necessarily be the calculation of the profitability of the future business.
What is the format of the business plan?
Your business plan template must reflect the seriousness and professionalism that
represent your project. If it is well presented, your corporate-level strategy is more likely to be considered credible by the person(s) for whom it is intended. Sometimes the very success of your project depends on it!
Consequently, you must pay great attention to the appearance of your business plan. Here are some suggestions from presentations that can produce a positive reception of your business plan format:
- Your business plan template needs to be typed; the best method is certainly to write it directly on the computer;
- Your startup business plan template must be written with finesse; a professional secretary must check spelling before submission; your business plan must be free of errors.
- Ideally, the financial projections section of your business plan should be reviewed by an accounting expert to ensure that the data is presented following recognized standards (numerous and often complex) and also to prevent small inadvertent errors, such as spelling mistakes;
- The cover page of your business plan template should be attractively designed; it should ideally be a cardboard page (in color?) with your logo if you have already had one, if not, another visual element; professional binding is also recommended; imaginative presentation of your document is generally very well received.
Coffee shop business plan examples: a ready-to-use example
Coffee shops are located around every corner, and at the same time, the demand for them never falls. They go to such institutions for a variety of reasons, so it is one of the most frequently developed business plans. So let’s look at how to write a corporate level strategy – an example is a coffee shop business plan. Nearly the same as a restaurant business plan.
The estimated monthly income of such an institution will be about $200,000, and the total startup capital will be required to the tune of $2 million. However, your first action should be to develop a business plan.
Market analysis
When you choose the location of a coffee shop, you should carefully explore the neighborhood to look for competitors.
A lot of bakeries, restaurants, bakery shops, and coffee shops will make for an unpleasant atmosphere, as they all have some regular customers who will “eat” a portion of your cake first. The next step is to select the right size for your coffee.
It would help if you also determined what exactly you will be cooking in your business plan for the restaurant. It could be an institution offering a large range of meals, and it might specialize in kids’ food, a sushi bar, or an Italian dish.
Primary purposes of the main menu
As pizza has been ready for a long time, it might be a good idea to attract the customer’s interest in light sandwiches, snacks, and salad that can be quickly placed on the dining table. It is also a good idea to make quick Italian sweets which will quickly please the guest at the end of a dinner.
Keep in mind the large variety of drinks. This may include teas of various types, coffees, all types of juices, drinking water, and alcohol-free beer.
Also, you can let your visitors “play with toppings” on their own or let them make up their pizza. The base can be:
– A selection of different cheeses and salami;
– Different kinds of tomatoes, mushrooms, and various cooking technics;
– Sliced veggies and some herbs…
How to submit the project
The first thing you have to do to save your file is to decide on the spot. Without that, this process is impossible. The lighting, the space, and the location of the pizzeria will be of decisive importance.
Once you have hired a hall in a commercial center, you will need to write a contract, register your business, and notify the city administration that you open a new shop.
Financial planning
To start a pizza place, you are going to require at the very least two million dollars. Those figures are based on initial costs.
They are made up of the following points:
Cost of rent for the needed square setting of the mall space, which must be done in two months, until repairs are completed, the store is open. The initial benefit appears (you may, in fact) be willing to start a rent contract from the opening date of your store and thus reducing the initial charges).
Strategy of marketing
Cities with over half a million residents will have significant competition on site. Therefore it would be justifiable to create a big advertising agency to present this new service to the customer.
Be careful which methods of marketing have done the best for the least money. You would then have to give up unprofitable marketing solutions and focus on the more useful ones.
Keep in mind that creating a business plan is not just about the number of clients. It is also essential to keep a reasonable level of customer care and, most of all, the quality of the pizzas at a high standard.
Schedule for preparing the opening
The best time to open and develop the actual coffee is about two months. It all comes down to the speed with which you can find the type of collaborators you need, how fast you can fix the room, and make it look good again, how quickly it will take to finish all the registration files.
Apart from all this information, here are some additional resources to help you write your business plan.
Resources for writing the best business plan
- https://www.fgdc.gov/initiatives/50states/newspbp/BusinessPlanGuidelines_v2_052809_FinalVersion.pdf
- https://www.sba.gov/sites/default/files/How%20to%20Write%20a%20Business%20Plan.pdf
- https://www.citigroup.com/citi/citizen/community/data/guide8_eng.pdf
- https://articles.bplans.com/how-to-write-a-business-plan/
- https://www.slideshare.net/RichardLindfield/business-plan-writing-power-point?qid=29390e54-e795-4156-8c88-a484f8e1d9d1&v=&b=&from_search=5
- https://www.sba.gov/business-guide/plan-your-business/write-your-business-plan