Creating a Business Plan? Here Are 5 Keys to Success
These five tips will guide you to a stronger business plan that is more likely to be funded by investors or lenders.
Research Before Writing
Before putting pen to paper on the business plan itself, there is a significant amount of research needed. The research into the opportunity may uncover challenges you will have to face, in which case your plan must address those. You may find opportunities for additional customer segments you were unaware of. You may also find that the challenges will be very difficult to overcome and your idea must be drastically altered or discarded. Now is the time to make that decision, before you have poured weeks and weeks into a business plan.
Clear Market Opportunity
Showing a clear market opportunity in your plan requires both a description of customers who need your product or service and competitors against whom you can build a competitive advantage. You must prove the size of the market is large enough to sustain growth, even if new competitors arise. You must show that your strengths will take advantage of the weaknesses of your competitors, allowing you to compete on qualities beyond price whenever possible.
Filling Logical Holes
The business plan is a logical argument, showing an opportunity, the resources you have or will have to take advantage of that opportunity (management team, intellectual property, cash, location, etc), the methods you will use to do so (your marketing and operations plans), and the results you expect to see (your financials and growth) which funders can take part in. Each of these four pieces must be tailored for each other other, and holes in the logic must be filled and not ignored. For example, the results or rewards must be appropriate for the inherent risk you face in taking on the opportunity.
Explaining Financial Assumptions
Financial assumptions which drive the revenues and costs of your financial plan must be explained at some point in a good business plan. What these assumptions are and their validity should not be left up to the imagination of the reader, as he or she will likely imagine that unexplained assumptions are based on nothing but the entrepreneur's extreme optimism.
Standard Format and Structure
The format and structure of the business plan must be professional, clean, and close to the standards used by business plan writers. This means referring to direction on the proper business plan format and outline and not using creativity in these areas. Creativity can certainly enter into the marketing and operations sections, but the plan should not have a distracting format or structure.
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Testimonials
Thank you very much for all of your hard work. We are very pleased with the final result of
the business plan and the PowerPoint - say congratulations on a job well done and that you can
use us a reference for any future clients. We will definitely look to utilize Growthink's
services in the future as we build our company.
Bryan Langslet
MediaCompound
Without Growthink’s professional help, we would never have been able to create an effective
business plan. Growthink not only did deep research on our business environment, but its
representatives also listened to us and refined their analysis to include what we had found
out through experience. We would recommend Growthink to any start-up business which does not
have a professional business plan developer on staff!
Thank you very much for all of your hard work. We are very pleased with the final result of
the business plan and the PowerPoint - say congratulations on a job well done and that you can
use us a reference for any future clients. We will definitely look to utilize Growthink's
services in the future as we build our company.
