If you are thinking of undertaking and starting a business adventure, you will have to organize many ideas; about your product or service and the type of organization and its operation. When you start, you will value requesting private financing, public aid or, for example, entering business incubators to facilitate the start of the activity. In all these cases, you must present a document that the people involved from whom you request these facilities can evaluate your future company.
This article summarizes how to make a business plan that you can put in writing and present your project and document your entrepreneurial process. We recently published a set of ebooks and templates, but you may need a summary to understand what this plan entails. Here it is.
Table of Contents
How To Make a Business Plan
To decide how your business project will be, I recommend that you go through three phases, which will help you organize. These will go from simpler to more complex to end up with a complete document, which will be your business plan.
Three Basic Questions Before Creating a Business Plan
You should ask yourself three questions that will define your subsequent actions:
- What will be the source of income? In other words, what business model are you going to choose? We refer to whether the marketing will be direct sales, a subscription, licensing your product, etc.
- What will be the professional activity and sector? Aim for sectors that you know well and in which you accumulate experience.
- How do I differentiate myself? What value will my company bring to the market, and how will I differentiate myself from the competition.
Business Model Canvas: Thinking About How To Make a Business Plan
You can use this approach to analyze all the factors that will affect the business and later develop the business plan.
Try to organize all your ideas by raising these factors according to the scheme of the image of the business canvas that I present to you and that you can download in excel. Ideally, it would help if you worked directly on it, either in print or electronic format. Give all the turns you need to the ideas that you are pointing. This process will help you shape the skeleton of the business plan. It will help you avoid mistakes and anticipate situations that you are going to experience later. So that you understand it better, we are going to provide an example of each section thinking about a specific project: A food delivery company and companies.
Also Read: Phases Of A Business Continuity Plan
Customer Segments
In this section, you must state the type of client that will make up your market niche. Think about who you direct your product or service to and represent that group of consumers. In our example: Young workers with little time to cook and eat away from home.
Business Idea
We also call it a value proposition because every business is based on adding value to the consumer. When creating your company, you must be clear about how you help your client; this aspect will be the key to your business. If you do not align your idea well with the target audience defined in the previous section, you will start badly. Our business idea is to solve time and food at a competitive price for people who take care of themselves and cannot eat in a restaurant daily.
Sales Channels
It is about defining how you will provide your service or how you will get your product to your customer segment. In the example company, we could implement a reservation website.
Diffusion
It will be the way you relate to the market, both thinking about advertising and sales as well as possible after-sales service. Define how you will carry out the communications inherent to each part of the business that needs to be related to the client. A telephone attention service complemented with several daily communications through social networks could be the answer in the example we are handling.
Profits
Try to think about how you are going to get your income. It seems the simplest, but innovating in this sense can give you a competitive advantage. We can establish a monthly subscription in our food service that makes it very easy to charge for the service.
Means
What does your company need to operate? Especially at the beginning, narrow it down to key resources without which it would be impossible to work. They are not just physical investments. Think about the necessary personnel and intellectually shaping the product that you will market. Developing the gastronomic idea: a kitchen and warehouse, kitchen staff and a menu of dishes to work on.
Organization of Activities
It’s actually about differentiating between the key activities that provide differential value and those that you can outsource. Following the development of cooking for workers, purchasing, menu design, and cooking can be key, and the cast could be outsourced.
Alliances And Collaborators
Running a business depends on many people and interactions. Decide who you trust with the first list of suppliers and partners in the processes that you outsource.
Cost Structure
In the business canvas, you are not going to enter items or amounts yet, but you must reflect on the costs you will incur to provide the service or manufacture your product. In our gastro company, think about the fixed assets that having a kitchen supposes, in the quality of the purchases and the delivery service.
With all this, you would already have the outline of what the business plan can be. If once done, you see it, go ahead, write a complete business plan and analyze all the conditions providing real data and budgets.
Business Plan Index
When you present your business to an investor, you should have a summarized model of the entire plan that captivates them and arouses their interest. When he evaluates it, you have to go into detail and show him that you will perfectly handle all the situations of the operation of your company.
To this end, you will prepare a complete document, which must be included in the plan.
Executive Summary
It is a one or two-page document that you can present quickly and efficiently, and that will help you capture the attention of potential investors. Relying on it, you should be able to give a clear vision of your business idea in a short time.
Introduction of The Idea.
This would be the first point in question in the business plan. In it, you must detail the previous executive summary. To put it in some way, the first point would be a brochure to be delivered, and in the other, all the whys are developed, and the data is presented more broadly.
Market Study And Analysis.
A good market study will provide you with a minimum of security to jump into the void with your idea. With this analysis, you should have identified the sector, the segment and the performance indicators that will give you how you will decide with the company in operation if you are meeting your expectations.
To complete this point, you can use various techniques:
- SWOT analysis
- The 5 forces of porter
- PEST analysis (study of political, economic, social and technological factors)
Company Portfolio.
You must define perfectly what you are going to manufacture or the service you are going to provide. To do this, make the necessary product sheets for this, including all the essential details.
Business Model.
It is the most important part of a business plan. The business model you choose will be the main element that can make you fail or succeed. The key is in how you obtain your income and in that this is consistent with the cost structure.
Managers and Administrators.
One of the fundamental aspects of the new company’s success to be created goes through the people who are going to direct it. Assess whether a budding project can bear the cost of an administrator and if so, it requires preparation and experience in the activity sector. If you develop the project management yourself, you should ask yourself if you know the business you will invest in and be sure of your ability to convince potential clients and investors.
Marketing Plan.
In this plan, you should not include only communication and advertising, but the product design itself and its attributes, how it will adapt to the market in which it is going to compete and the competitive positioning that you are going to adopt. Within this, it prepares other sub-plans for communication, commercialization, and internal processes to design new products.
Operative Plan.
Do you know how to get your product or service to your customer? From design to collection, through manufacturing and distribution. In short, you must answer certain questions:
- How are you going to work?
- Do you make it?
- Do you outsource?
- Do you sell directly, or do you have distributors?
- Is your product digital or physical?
- What storage implications does it have?
Financial Plan.
Simply, you must specify the capital requirements to start your activity and maintain the company while its income is not stable.
Human Resources Plan.
Create an organization chart with positions and functions. He designs each job position based on the tasks and the technical and aptitude requirements that the people to be selected must cover. It also defines the remuneration, social benefits, hiring policy, necessary internal training, and responsibilities assigned to each position.
Legality.
Decide which social form is best for you, not only for tax issues or relationships with potential partners, analyze if the sector has entry barriers by type of company or minimum capital.
Contingency Plan.
Since we have come this far, we are sure that we will succeed, but what if problems arise and our planning does not correspond to reality? This is why you should come up with a realistic plan B. Try to identify potential risks and shape a solution for each of them.
As you can see, what it is about is to define the operation of the idea in general, detailing each operational plan separately, deciding how the product or service will be offered, how it is marketed, the estimated human team, and above all, the financial resources necessary for the start-up of the company.
Also Read: Pros And Cons Of Human Resources Career
