Ice Cream Truck Business Plan Template

Ice Cream Truck Business Plan

Over the past 20+ years, we have helped over 1,000 entrepreneurs and business owners create business plans to start and grow their ice cream truck businesses. We have the experience, resources, and knowledge to help you create a great business plan.

In this article, you will learn some background information on why business planning is important. Then, you will learn how to write an ice cream truck business plan step-by-step so you can create your plan today.

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What is an Ice Cream Truck Business Plan?

A business plan provides a snapshot of your ice cream truck business as it stands today, and lays out your growth plan for the next five years. It explains your business goals and your strategies for reaching them. It also includes market research to support your plans.

Why You Need a Business Plan for an Ice Cream Truck

If you’re looking to start an ice cream truck business or grow your existing ice cream truck company, you need a business plan. A business plan will help you raise funding, if needed, and plan out the growth of your ice cream truck business to improve your chances of success. Your ice cream truck business plan is a living document that should be updated annually as your company grows and changes.

Sources of Funding for Ice Cream Truck Businesses

With regards to funding, the main sources of funding for an ice cream truck business are personal savings, credit cards, bank loans, and angel investors. When it comes to bank loans, banks will want to review your business plan and gain confidence that you will be able to repay your loan and interest. To acquire this confidence, the loan officer will not only want to ensure that your financials are reasonable, but they will also want to see a professional plan. Such a plan will give them the confidence that you can successfully and professionally operate a business. Personal savings and bank loans are the most common funding paths for ice cream truck companies.

Finish Your Business Plan Today!

If you’d like to quickly and easily complete your business plan, download Growthink’s Ultimate Business Plan Template and complete your plan and financial model in hours.

How to Write a Business Plan for an Ice Cream Truck Business

If you want to start an ice cream truck business or expand your current one, you need a business plan. The guide below details the necessary information for how to write each essential component of your ice cream truck business plan.

Executive Summary

Your executive summary provides an introduction to your business plan, but it is normally the last section you write because it provides a summary of each key section of your plan.

The goal of your executive summary is to quickly engage the reader. Explain to them the kind of ice cream truck business you are running and the status. For example, are you a startup, do you have an ice cream truck business that you would like to grow, or are you operating a chain of ice cream truck businesses?

Next, provide an overview of each of the subsequent sections of your plan.

• Give a brief overview of the ice cream truck industry.
• Discuss the type of ice cream truck business you are operating.
• Detail your direct competitors. Give an overview of your target customers.
• Provide a snapshot of your marketing strategy. Identify the key members of your team.
• Offer an overview of your financial plan.

 

Company Overview

In your company overview, you will detail the type of ice cream truck business you are operating.

For example, you might specialize in one of the following types of ice cream truck businesses:

1. Weddings & Parties: This type of ice cream truck business focuses on wedding receptions, bridal showers, birthday parties and other social events. The ice cream truck is on-site for an agreed-upon amount of time during the event and specialty ice cream flavors are often served upon request by wedding or party planners.
2. Corporate Events: With a target audience of attendees at conventions, conferences or seminars, this type of ice cream truck business typically serves favorite ice cream flavors in portable cups or cones. The corporate client sets the date, time and location(s) in a contracted agreement with the ice cream truck business.
3. On-the-Move: Based on the concept of driving through neighborhoods, city nightlife areas, or locales such as beaches, this type of ice cream truck business travels and stops where people are gathered. Stops may be made on every block or on multiple streets, assisting customers in a selection of ice cream choices. Offerings are typically pre-made, wrapped and served as ready-to-go.

In addition to explaining the type of ice cream truck business you will operate, the company overview needs to provide background on the business.

Include answers to questions such as:

• When and why did you start the business?
• What milestones have you achieved to date? Milestones could include the number of ice cream customers served, the number of parties booked in previous months, or the revenue generated during the past year of business.
• Your legal business structure. Are you incorporated as an S-Corp? An LLC? A sole proprietorship? Explain your legal structure here.

Industry Analysis

In your industry or market analysis, you need to provide an overview of the ice cream truck industry.

While this may seem unnecessary, it serves multiple purposes.

First, researching the ice cream truck industry educates you. It helps you understand the market in which you are operating.

Secondly, market research can improve your marketing strategy, particularly if your analysis identifies market trends.

The third reason is to prove to readers that you are an expert in your industry. By conducting the research and presenting it in your plan, you achieve just that.

The following questions should be answered in the industry analysis section of your ice cream truck business plan:

• How big is the ice cream truck industry (in dollars)?
• Is the market declining or increasing?
• Who are the key competitors in the market?
• Who are the key suppliers in the market?
• What trends are affecting the industry?
• What is the industry’s growth forecast over the next 5 – 10 years?
• What is the relevant market size? That is, how big is the potential target market for your ice cream truck business? You can extrapolate such a figure by assessing the size of the market in the entire country and then applying that figure to your local population.

 

Customer Analysis

The customer analysis section of your ice cream truck business plan must detail the customers you serve and/or expect to serve.

The following are examples of customer segments: individuals, wedding planners, families, restaurants, city or county event coordinators and corporations.

As you can imagine, the customer segment(s) you choose will have a great impact on the type of ice cream truck business you operate. Clearly, individuals would respond to different marketing promotions than corporations, for example.

Try to break out your target customers in terms of their demographic and psychographic profiles. With regards to demographics, including a discussion of the ages, genders, locations, and income levels of the potential customers you seek to serve.

Psychographic profiles explain the wants and needs of your target customers. The more you can recognize and define these needs, the better you will do in attracting and retaining your customers.

Competitive Analysis

Your competitive analysis should identify the indirect and direct competitors your business faces and then focus on the latter.

Direct competitors are other ice cream truck businesses.

Indirect competitors are other options that customers have to purchase from that aren’t directly competing with your product or service. This includes gourmet ice cream shops, grocery stores, convenience stores and restaurants. You need to mention direct competition, as well.

For each direct competitor, provide an overview of their business and document their strengths and weaknesses. Unless you once worked at your competitors’ businesses, it will be impossible to know everything about them. But you should be able to find out key things about them such as

• What types of customers do they serve?
• What type of ice cream truck business are they?
• What is their pricing (premium, low, etc.)?
• What are they good at?
• What are their weaknesses?

With regards to the last two questions, think about your answers from the customers’ perspective. And don’t be afraid to ask your competitors’ customers what they like most and least about them.

The final part of your competitive analysis section is to document your areas of competitive advantage. For example:

• Will you provide several flavor options or focus on only a few?
• Will you offer ice cream flavors or services that your competition doesn’t?
• Will you provide faster customer service than your competitors?
• Will you offer unique options, such as mini-cones for toddler?

Think about ways you will outperform your competition and document them in this section of your plan.

 

Marketing Plan

Traditionally, a marketing plan includes the four P’s: Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. For a ice cream truck business plan, your marketing strategy should include the following:

Product: In the product section, you should reiterate the type of ice cream truck company that you documented in your company overview. Then, detail the specific products or services you will be offering. For example, will you provide ice cream cones with multiple choices of toppings and sauces?

Price: Document the prices you will offer and how they compare to your competitors. Essentially in the product and price sub-sections of your plan, you are presenting the products and/or services you offer and their prices.

Place: Place refers to the site of your ice cream truck company. Document where your company is situated and mention how the site will impact your success. For example, is your ice cream truck business located in a busy downtown district, on a large conference site, moving throughout a neighborhood or park area, or typically parked at a wedding reception? Discuss how your site might be the ideal location for your customers.

Promotions: The final part of your ice cream truck marketing plan is where you will document how you will drive potential customers to your location(s). The following are some promotional methods you might consider:

• Advertise in local papers, radio stations and/or magazines
• Reach out to websites
• Distribute flyers
• Engage in email marketing
• Advertise on social media platforms
• Improve the SEO (search engine optimization) on your website for targeted keywords

Finish Your Business Plan Today!

If you’d like to quickly and easily complete your business plan, download Growthink’s Ultimate Business Plan Template and complete your plan and financial model in hours.

Operations Plan

While the earlier sections of your business plan explained your goals, your operations plan describes how you will meet them. Your operations plan should have two distinct sections as follows.

Everyday short-term processes include all of the tasks involved in running your ice cream truck business, including answering calls, planning and providing services at events and parties, maintaining and stocking your truck, invoicing customers, etc.

Long-term goals are the milestones you hope to achieve. These could include the dates when you expect to book your Xth event, or when you hope to reach $X in revenue. It could also be when you expect to expand your ice cream truck business to a new city.

 

Management Team

To demonstrate your ice cream truck business’ potential to succeed, a strong management team is essential. Highlight your key players’ backgrounds, emphasizing those skills and experiences that prove their ability to grow a company.

Ideally, you and/or your team members have direct experience in managing ice cream truck businesses. If so, highlight this experience and expertise. But also highlight any experience that you think will help your business succeed.

If your team is lacking, consider assembling an advisory board. An advisory board would include 2 to 8 individuals who would act as mentors to your business. They would help answer questions and provide strategic guidance. If needed, look for advisory board members with experience in managing an ice cream truck business or successfully running a small ice cream shop or restaurant.

 

Financial Plan

Your financial plan should include your 5-year financial statement broken out both monthly or quarterly for the first year and then annually. Your financial statements include your income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statements.

Income Statement

An income statement is more commonly called a Profit and Loss statement or P&L. It shows your revenue and then subtracts your costs to show whether you turned a profit or not.

In developing your income statement, you need to devise assumptions. For example, will you target 150 customers per day, and/or offer package pricing for event planners? And will sales grow by 2% or 10% per year? As you can imagine, your choice of assumptions will greatly impact the financial forecasts for your business. As much as possible, conduct research to try to root your assumptions in reality.

Balance Sheets

Balance sheets show your assets and liabilities. While balance sheets can include much information, try to simplify them to the key items you need to know about. For instance, if you spend $50,000 on building out your ice cream truck business, this will not give you immediate profits. Rather it is an asset that will hopefully help you generate profits for years to come. Likewise, if a lender writes you a check for $50,000, you don’t need to pay it back immediately. Rather, that is a liability you will pay back over time.

Cash Flow Statement

Your cash flow statement will help determine how much money you need to start or grow your business, and ensure you never run out of money. What most entrepreneurs and business owners don’t realize is that you can turn a profit but run out of money and go bankrupt.

When creating your Income Statement and Balance Sheets be sure to include several of the key costs needed in starting or growing a ice cream truck business:

• Cost of truck, equipment, fuel and inventory items
• Payroll or salaries paid to staff
• Business insurance
• Taxes
• Other start-up expenses (if you’re a new business) like legal expenses, permits, computer software, and office supplies

 

Appendix

Attach your full financial projections in the appendix of your plan along with any supporting documents that make your plan more compelling. For example, you might include your event contracts scheduled for the following six months, a reference list of prime customers or a supplier agreement for inventory at reduced pricing.

 

Summary

Writing a business plan for your ice cream truck business is a worthwhile endeavor. If you follow the template above, by the time you are done, you will truly be an expert. You will understand the ice cream truck industry, your competition, and your customers. You will develop a marketing strategy and will understand what it takes to launch and grow a successful ice cream truck business.

 

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