Business Plan

The business plan is a document that describes your business, what its objectives are, its strategies, its proposed market and its financial forecasts. It has many uses and can help you secure any funding that is available to you. It can also act as a baseline for your business to measure its success or failure.

It is an essential document and it should be a comprehensive, working plan but above all it needs to be realistic.

There are many guides on-line and available from various agencies and this is our version. Feel free to use it in part or in its entirity.

If you would like a blank Business Plan template, email us and we will send one by return.

Content

Front Page - Contains the company name, the company tagline (if you have one), the date, the document copy number and a confidentiality statement.

Contents Page - Page and paragraph titles and the page number where they can be found.

Executive Summary - Business contact details and the main points taken from the entire document.

Business Aims and Objectives - A general paragraph explaining the type of business you are setting up and a little bit about yourself. Additionally, if the business is to supplement your current income or to be your sole source of income.

A paragraph explaining your mission statement.

A bullet list outlining your goals.

Products and/or Services Page(s) - A detailed explanation of your products and/or services.

Marketing Page(s) - Split into

• Segmentation - Are you targeting specific groups of people, specific geographical areas
• Positioning - Are you providing a high cost, low volume product/service or vice versa
• Competitors - Who else is providing the same or similar products/services in your area
• Promotion - How are you going to tell your potential customers about your products/services

SWOT Analysis - SWOT stands for

• Strengths - What strengths are you bringing to the business
• Weaknesses - What are your weaknesses
• Opportunities - What opportunities are there for your company
• Threats - What are the potential threats to the company

Planning and Contingency - How you plan to run the business and what contingencies you can put in place if the business doesn’t go to plan.

Management and Organisation - How the company will be structured initially and maybe two years down the line.

Operations - Split into

• Premises - dedicated office, from home etc.
• Equipment - what equipment you already have and what you will need to source
• Staff - what staff are needed if any
• Training and Development - do you have all the skills necessary to make the business a success
• Suppliers - do you have a need for suppliers
• Control systems - do you have databases, spreadsheets, financial software etc.

Finance - Split into

• Highlights - are you eligible for any funding or financial assistance
• Break Even Analysis - a chart to show the correlation between your projected earnings and your projected overheads
• Cash Flow Forecast - a breakdown of your projected cash flow for the first year of business

As an addendum, we suggest you add a copy of your Curriculum Vitae (CV) to the business plan.