free business plan template

free business plan template

Creating a Winning Business Plan

1. Executive Summary

Your business plan will be a good deal more acceptable to probable financiers and business associates if you’ve got a precise, careful, but utterly powerful executive summary at the introduction of your plan. This could be a brief overview of your plans and the important key issues you choose to achieve. It has to be compelling and engaging and highlight the strengths of your idea and team. Endeavor to deal with who your target customers will be, how you intend to sell and what sort of sales you propose to achieve. It may also be useful to focus on the development of the company and what level of financing you are now seeking, keeping in mind the aim of the executive summary is to sell your idea and plan. Keep in mind potential investors or business partners gain hundreds of business ideas a year, so anything you can do to make your plan stand out is a bonus. It’s often helpful to write the executive summary after you’ve completed the rest of the plan as writing the main plan often necessitates clear notion and identity of your key factors. Last but not least, an executive summary should in no way exceed two pages.

2. Company Description

An entrepreneur should not assume that his/her meaning is understood when using terms such as “my company is going to be one of the best”. This is subjective and could mean a number of things. A better way to phrase what is meant by this would be in setting objectives. Records or testimonials from missions/visions and success/criteria at various business competitions or SBDC case analyses will be useful tools. At a fundamental level, this is what the stake of the company is. The entrepreneur must know what’s to be achieved and when this is achieved, must be able to effectively relay it to others. This is the magnitude of the stake and what gives clear direction to the company. According to the data, a company is 3.5 times more likely to grow if the owner has a written statement of intent. This is a very simple way to put a mission as well as having higher expectations for the business and therefore more return with demonstrative leadership.

A description of intended results is required. Results are outcomes or conditions the business should strive to bring about/be competent in achieving. What the entrepreneur is stating here is the vision of the business. The vision is the end product of his/her efforts. Next comes the plan, and following the plan results. It is recommended that the entrepreneur paint a picture of what the company will be 5-10 years from now. The vision will more than likely change, but it is an anchor point for the entrepreneur to have in reassessing where he/she wants to take the company.

Developing a company description is a vital ingredient for a winning business plan. The company description provides a meaningful direction for the business and sets the stage for how the business will be implemented and executed. A compelling company description should capture the essence of the mission and the value proposition, or the “stake” of the company. Through storytelling, the stake brings life to the “whys” of what an entrepreneur is moving to invest a significant portion of his/her life in trying to bring about. Clarity is important here. The entrepreneur should clearly relay what he/she intends to do through the business.

Kelvin J. Everett Leadership Development Institute, Inc.

3. Market Analysis

The market analysis involves looking at the market size of your business and the actual customers who will purchase your product. As a business, you need to know the type of people who will be your customer and who you will be catering to. For event store, our main customers are primarily youth ranging from middle to upper-class families. We will need to know their share in the market and whether it is increasing or decreasing. Data shows that in Australia, the rate of people attending events and festivals has increased from the year 2003 to 2008. This is a very positive indication and it shows that our market size will increase. The more the population and the rate of people attending events increases, the more are our prospects of gaining good business. Also, we plan to introduce a ticketing system for events in the future. This will primarily be targeted at New Zealand and the Australian market. So we will need to know the culture and the size of the market for this type of event. It is a long-term plan and data shows that culture in both these countries is very positive with good potential. Ticket sales have increased significantly and so it shows a very positive future for this plan. Overall, the type and the location of our potential customers will be a defining factor in the future success of this business.

Industry analysis requires hard work on the web and a little bit of research to get a solid hold about the industry. You will need to know the present situation of the industry; is it growing, stagnant, or in decline? What is the future of the industry? What are the general trends of the industry? The information you will gather will be of great importance and can be life and death to your business. If the industry is in decline or the future doesn’t look too good, then it may be a good idea to reconsider the business. After all, it’s a big risk putting in so much time and money into a business which has very little prospects of providing a future. But on a more positive note, if the industry is booming and there are high growth rates, then it is the perfect time to enter the market and will require less marketing effort.

In this section, we have to look over the market and what the prospects are for a new business like ours. This might be really tough when you are starting a new business and possess no previous experience in that field. Basically, market analysis can be divided into two main parts. The first is always the industry analysis, where you have to look over the industry at present and how it is going to perform in the near future. The second is the market analysis itself, where you have to see who actually are your prospects and who will be your customers.

4. Marketing and Sales Strategy

Ideally, after you’ve described the essentials of your business, you will move on to explain the strategy for marketing and selling your products and services. When you think about marketing and sales, describe how these activities will help you achieve your tactical and financial goals. The marketing and sales section of your plan gives you a chance to concisely explain how you’ll go about educating people about your product or service and convincing them to buy. Beyond your tactics, you’ll definitely want an overview and introduction of your product or service. This can be a very short section, as long as you think of it as a snapshot that acts as a hook to get them interested. In this case, this snapshot helps the reader understand the drastic difference between Traction Technology’s products and their competitors’ products. Some questions to consider as you develop your marketing and sales strategy: – How can you best reach your target markets? – What is your strategy for sales? – What is your mix of promotional activities? – How can you build awareness and interest in your product or service?

5. Financial Projections

The financial projections have two main purposes. The first is to provide a financial “map” for the business. The income and cash flow statements show the financial viability of the business. If the income statement suggests that the business is unprofitable, and the cash flow statement indicates negative cash flow, adjustments must be made to the plan until a profitable scenario is generated. The second purpose is to give the business a set of clear goals to work towards. If the business can stick to the projections, it will achieve the desired results laid out in the goals and objectives section of the plan.

Financial projections form the basis of a business plan. The financial projections are a series of statements that present the estimated future results of a business (e.g. income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statement). This is based on the business plan, and the business is given a set of specific assumptions (i.e. unit sales, price, costs, and so on) to see what happens if these assumptions hold true. If actual results do not match the projections, the plan allows the business to quickly identify where things went wrong and make adjustments to get back on track.