Business Plan Structure

All plans should include at least the elements listed below, and perhaps additional sections depending on the type of industry.

* Executive Summary
* Company Background
* Products or Service Overview
* Unique Selling Proposition and competitive advantages
* The Marketplace
* Operations
* Leadership and management profiles including professional competencies
* Professional Support
* Risks and Threats assessment
* Financial forecasts including key assumptions
* Relevant appendices

Collecting the information for all the sections is time consuming and sometimes difficult. The business section of your local library is always a good place to start research. Ask your friendly librarian about how to look up market research reports, and how to investigate competitors.

If you are not familiar with spreadsheet software, constructing the necessary financial forecasts represents a significant hurdle. You have 2 choices:

Pay someone to put part or all of the plan together for you, or a small investment in some business planning software.

The advantage of using a professional is you will receive the benefits of their experience, combined with a professional looking plan.

The disadvantage is that it won’t be easy to make changes, and more importantly, because you will not have been as involved in its preparation, you won’t be as familiar with its contents as you maybe should be. Make sure to learn the contents well.

The advantages of investing in business planning software, are that you will save time and money over having a professional put the plan together for you.

You will be able to take advantage of the thousands spent consulting professionals, and users alike, by the software company in developing the product. You can disregard your worries about having any spreadsheet skills, or your lack of confidence in buiding a complete financial model, as this software will take care of that for you.

For less than the cost of having a professional put the plan together for you, you can produce a professional document, but more importantly continuously update your plan for new information. This means you’ll always have a first class plan ready to present to banks or investors at any time.