Small Business Plan

Step two in the process of starting a small business is to develop a small business plan.

No matter who you go to for advice, they will recommend that you put a lot of time and effort into your business plan but unless they need external financing (in my experience at least) very few first time entrepreneurs do.

Writing a business plan is hard work. Much of the content will need to be researched and tested and the end result is often far from exciting, so why would you bother?

Believe it or not (look out - cliche coming):

it is the journey and not the destination that is important when you are talking about business planning!

The work you put into researching your business idea to prepare your business plan will provide you with valuable information about how your business will operate.

A Simple Business Plan

When you are just starting out it doesn't pay to get too fancy with your business plan. Keep it simple and fairly straight forward, rather than spending money on glossy covers and expensive paper concentrate on developing well researched and relevant content for your plan.

Most business plans follow a similar format.

Below, I have listed the contents of a small business plan that can be adopted or modified by most small business startups. Depending on the purpose of the business plan and who your audience is, you can either include all of the sections or leave out a few to produce a more streamlined or simple business plan.

A detailed business plan would include the following sections:

• Executive Summary
• Background
• Sales Analysis
• Market Analysis
• Competitor Analysis
• SWOT Analysis
• Objectives
• Marketing Plan
• Organization and Management
• Financial Plan
• Operational Plan
• Key Milestones and Responsibilities
• Attachments

Business Planning Software

If you are not sure how to get stared, Business Planning Software can be very helpful.

Most take you step by step through each section of your plan and provide guidance on what to include. The software will not write the plan for you, but it will provide you will a template to follow.

Getting The Information You Need for Your Business Plan

If you look through each of sections the business plan layout above, you will notice that there are several different types of analysis required to complete your business plan.

Not everyone who wants to start a small business has a research and analysis background and quite a few get cold shivers if you try to talk stats with them. So these sections are the ones that are most likely to be handled badly or skipped all together.

But quite frankly, if you decide to cut the research and analysis from your business plan because it is too hard or you don't know how to do it, you might as well not bother writing a business plan at all!

And if you don't write a small business plan, you will have more chance of earning decent money buying lotteries tickets than starting a small business!

Culd you use some help with the difficult research and math stuff?

• Small Business Market Research
• SWOT Analysis for Small Business
• Developing Financial Forecasts for Your Business Plan

Common Business Planning Mistakes

Making serious mistakes in your business plan that can damage your credibility before you even begin is far more common than you might think.

If you take a bit of time now to read about some of the more common business plan mistakes, you may be able to avoid them.

Using Your Business Plan

Okay, so you go through the difficult process of developing a business plan for your new business. It has been printed and bound and is sitting on your desk.

What should you do with it now?

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