13 Key Business Plan Components
We've built a comprehensive guide to the major parts of a business plan for you. from elements like the executive summary to product descriptions, traction, and financials, we'll guide you on all of the key sections you should include in your business plan..
December 14th, 2022 | By: The Startups Team | Tags: Planning
As is the case with most big projects, crafting a business plan is one of those things that takes an incredible amount of diligence and no shortage of courage. After all, your business idea is probably more than just some passionless money-making ploy — it’s your dream that you’re getting ready to lay bare for the world to scrutinize!
Never fear!
We have 4 sample business plans here to make it all less scary.
If you approach this with a firm understanding of what key information to include in each section of your business plan and know how each section works together to form a cohesive, compelling, and — above all — persuasive whole, it will make the writing process a whole lot less daunting.
We’re about to help you do exactly that by deconstructing each of the core components of your business plan one at a time and showing you exactly what information you should present to your readers so when all is said you done, you can walk away confidently knowing you’ve penned the most effective business plan possible.
As we learned in the “ What is a Business Plan? ” article, a business plan generally consists of the following sections:
Executive Summary
Company Synopsis
Market Analysis / Overview
Product (How it Works)
Revenue Model
Operating Model
Competitive Analysis
Customer Definition
Customer Acquisition
Management Team
Financial Statements
Let’s dive in, shall we?
1. Executive Summary
In the same way that a great movie trailer gives you a basic understanding of what the film is about while also enticing you to go check out the full-length feature, your Executive Summary serves as an overview of the main aspects of your company and business plan that you will discuss in greater length in the rest of your plan.
In other words, your Executive Summary is the highlight reel of your business plan.
Remember, you’re not giving away every last little detail about your company and business opportunity right up front. Just enough of the “good parts” to both inform and intrigue your reader to dig in further.
You do this by presenting a concise, 1-sentence outline of the following information:
Mission Statement
A “big idea” statement that introduces why your company exists, what it does for your customers, and why it matters.
Product/Service Summary
A brief description of your company’s products or services, with a special emphasis on what makes them unique.
Market Opportunity Summary
A quick explanation of the one or two key problems and/or trends your product/service addresses, and how it translates to a big opportunity for your company (and investors ).
Traction Summary
Highlight a few of the biggest accomplishments that you have achieved and describe how those accomplishments lay the groundwork for what’s to come.
Outline the next objectives or milestones that you hope to meet and what it means for the growth of your company.
Vision Statement
What is the scope or “big picture vision” of the business you are trying to build? If you’re in tech, are you trying to build the next Nest? If you’re in food and beverage, are you aiming to be the next Chipotle? In other words, how big is this company going to get, and why should an investor/partner/hire be excited to be a part of it?
A word of advice:
While your Executive Summary is the first piece of content people will read in your business plan, it’s usually a good idea to write this section last so you can take a step back after you’ve written everything and have a better sense of which high-level information you want to pull from the rest of your plan to focus on here.
First impressions are everything!
2. Company Synopsis
The Company Synopsis section is where you provide readers with a more in-depth look at your company and what you have to offer.
Before your readers will ever bother caring about things like your marketing strategy or your financial assumptions, they’ll want to know two absolutely fundamental details that will set up the rest of the plan that follows:
What painful PROBLEM are you solving for your customers?
What is your elegant SOLUTION to that problem?
You might have the most revolutionary product the world has ever seen, but if you don’t take the time to carefully articulate why your product exists in the first place and how it helps your customers solve a pain point better than anything else out there, nothing else in your business plan really matters from the reader’s perspective.
If you spend the majority of your time on any one part of your business plan, take the time to really nail this part. If you can build an engaging story around the problem that your audience can relate to, it makes the payoff of your solution statement all the more powerful.
When considering how to position your problem in the context of your business plan, think to yourself: what is the single greatest problem my customers face? How do other solutions in the market fail to alleviate that problem, thus creating a major need for my product?
Once you’ve thoroughly explained the problem you’re setting out to solve, it’s time to tell investors how your product/service solves that problem beautifully.
The goal here is less about describing how your product or service actually works (you’ll get to that in the “How It Works” section later) than it is about communicating how your solution connects back directly to the problem that you just described.
Key questions to consider:
What is the product/service you’re offering?
In what way does it solve my customers’ most painful problem?
What impact does my solution have on my customers’ lives?
How does my product/service effectively address the biggest shortcomings of other solutions currently in the market?
3. Market Overview
While your problem and solution statements help set the stage and provide readers with insight into why you’re starting this company in the first place, clearly defining your market will allow you to call attention to the trends and industry conditions that demonstrate why now is the time for your company to succeed.
You’re going to want to supplement your own expertise with plenty of evidence in the form of market statistics and research to show readers that you’re not only an expert when it comes to your product, but your industry as well. Your goal here is to help illustrate:
The SIZE of the market opportunity your company is positioned to address
The amount of GROWTH occurring in your market
The TRENDS driving the demand for your solution
The SUCCESS STORIES happening with similar companies in your industry
Market Size & Growth
Indicating to your readers that your problem addresses a big enough market will play a huge role in how excited they’ll be about getting involved in helping your company. This is where you’ll want to put your research cap on and start uncovering some numbers that help your reader better understand:
How big the market is (locally/nationally/internationally)
Approximately how much revenue it generates every year
If it’s growing
How much it’s expected to grow over the next 5-10 years
What recent emerging trends have you developed your product/service in response to?
Are there any new technologies that have emerged recently that make your product/solution possible? Are there any specific brands or products you can point to that illustrate the demand for products/services like (but not too like) yours?
Examples of Trends
An increasing number of consumers are “cutting the cord,” replacing traditional cable subscriptions with subscriptions to services like Netflix, Amazon Prime and HBO NOW.
As the Baby Boomer generation continues to age, there is a growing demand for products that empower them to stay safe and maintain their independence for longer.
Consumers are increasingly seeking food options that feature locally-sourced ingredients.
The emergence of image recognition technology for smartphones.
Industry Success Stories
Are there any examples of similar companies that investors have supported that you could point to? Are there any recent acquisitions (examples of larger companies buying up companies similar to yours) that could bolster the case for your own exit strategy ? Are there any similar companies that have recently IPO’d (gone public)?
4. Product (How it Works)
You used your Company Synopsis section to cover why your new product delivers crazy value to your customers by breaking down the ways that it benefits your customers and meets a highly specific need for them.
Now it’s time to use your Product or How it Works section to get into the finer details around the mechanics of how it does so.
This might sound like they’re one and the same. Not exactly. And here’s a good way to distinguish this.
Let’s say you were building a subscription box service for pet flea treatment. In your Company Synopsis section, you’d probably spend your time talking about how your solution conveniently spares pet owners the hassle of remembering to make a vet appointment, traveling to the clinic, and waiting to talk with the vet just to pick up Scrambles’ medication.
In your How it Works section, on the other hand, you’d shift your focus to describing how your customers have the ability to choose from a variety of brand name medications, set their own delivery schedule, enjoy 2-day delivery, and gain real-time support 24/7 from a team of industry experts.
What are some of your product’s key features ?
How will customers actually use your product or service?
Is there any technology underlying your solution you will need to explain in order for readers to fully understand what your company does and how it works?
If your product or service has some sort of proprietary element or patent at the core of what makes it work, you might be a bit hesitant to show your hand for fear that someone might run off with your idea. While this is a completely understandable concern, know that this pretty much never happens.
That being said, you can still give your readers a clear idea of how your product or service works by explaining it through the lens of how it relates to the problems that your customers face without giving up your secret sauce.
Put another way, you don’t have to explicitly tell your readers the precise source code to your new app, but you will want to call attention to all of the great things it makes possible for your customers.
5. Revenue Model
It’s the age-old question that every business owner has had to answer: how will your company make money?
If you’re just starting out , clearly defining your framework for generating revenue might seem like somewhat of a shot in the dark. But showing investors you have even a cursory idea of how you will convert your product or service into sales is absolutely fundamental in lending credibility to your business plan.
You’ll want to determine the following:
Revenue Channels
Are you leveraging transaction-based revenue by collecting one-time payments from your customers? Are you generating service revenue based on the time spent providing service to your customers? Are you following a recurring revenue model selling advertising and monthly subscriptions for your mobile app?
What are your price points and why have you set them that way? How does your pricing compare with similar products or services in the market?
Cost of goods sold, otherwise known as COGS, refers to the business expenses associated with selling your product or service, including any materials and labor costs that went into producing your product.
Your margin refers to the profit percentage you end up with after you subtract out the costs for the goods or services being sold. If you purchase your inventory for $8 per item from a supplier and sell them for $10, for example, your margin on sales is 20%.
Why is this revenue model the right fit for this product/market/stage of development?
Are there any additional revenue sources that you expect to add down the line?
Have you generated any revenue to date? If so, how much?
What have you learned from your early revenue efforts?
If you haven’t started generating revenue, when will you “flip the switch”?
6. Operating Model
Where your Revenue Model refers to how you’re going to make money, your Operating Model is about how you’re going to manage the costs and efficiencies to earn it.
Basically, it’s how your business will actually run. For this component, you’ll want to focus on the following:
Critical Costs
Your Critical Costs are the costs that make or break your business if you can’t manage them appropriately. These essentially determine your ability to grow the business or achieve profitability.
Cost Maturation & Milestones
Often your Critical Costs mature over time, growing or shrinking. For example, it might only cost you $10 to acquire your first 1,000 users, but $20 to acquire the next 10,000. It’s important to show investors exactly where costs might improve or worsen over time.
Investment Costs
Investment costs are strategic uses of capital that will have a big Return on Investment (ROI) later. The first step is to isolate what those investment costs are. The second step is to explain how you expect those investments to pay off.
Operating Efficiencies
What can you do from an efficiency standpoint that no one else can? It could be the way you recruit new talent, how you manage customer support costs, or the increasing value your product provides as more users sign up.
7. Competitive Analysis
Now that you’ve introduced readers to your industry and your product, it’s time to give them a glimpse into the other companies that are working in your same space and how your company stacks up.
It’s important to research both your direct competitors (businesses that offer products or services that are virtually the same as yours) and your indirect competitors (businesses that offer slightly different products or services but that could satisfy the same consumer need).
A skimpy Competitor Analysis section doesn’t tell investors that your solution is unrivaled. It tells them that you’re not looking hard enough.
Pro tip: avoid saying that you have “no competitors” at all costs.
Why? Because while there may not be anyone exactly like you out there, if you say this, the investor is more than likely thinking one of two things: Either, “They don’t know what they’re talking about,” or, “If there’s truly no competition, is there even a market worth pursuing here at all?”
When you set out to identify your fiercest competitors, ask yourself this:
What products/services are my target customers using to solve this problem now?
What products/services could they potentially use to solve this problem now?
Identify at least three sources of competition and answer the following questions about each one:
Basic Information
Where is your competitor based? When was the company founded? What stage of growth is your competitor in? Are they a startup? A more established company?
How much revenue does your competitor generate each year? Approximately how many users/customers do they have? Have they received venture funding? How much? From whom?
Similarities & Differences
What are the points of similarity between your competitor and you in terms of the offering, price point, branding, etc? What are the points of difference, both for the better and for the worse?
Strengths & Weaknesses
What are your competitors’ biggest strengths? What do you plan to do to neutralize those strengths? What are your competitors’ biggest weaknesses? How do they translate into an advantage for your company?
8. Customer Definition
The name of the game here is to know your audience !
This is where you show readers that you know who your audience is (who’s most likely to buy and use your product), where they are, and what’s most important to them. Are they price-conscious? Do they value convenience? Are they concerned about environmental impact? Do they tend to be early adopters of new technologies?
Once you have a good idea of your customer personas and demographics, you’ll want to explain how you’re designing your products/services, branding, customer service, etc. to appeal to your target audience and meet their needs.
Who are the people that your product/service is designed to appeal to?
What do you know about customers in this demographic?
Does your target audience skew more male or more female?
What age range do your target customers fall in?
Around how many people are there in this target demographic?
Where do your target customers live? Are they mostly city dwellers? Suburbanites?
How much money do they make?
Do they have any particular priorities or concerns when it comes to the products/services they buy?
9. Customer Acquisition
Now that we know who your customers are, the next question is — how do you plan on getting them ? This essentially refers to your marketing plan where you’ll go into detail about how you intend on raising awareness for your brand to expand your customer base .
Which channels will you use to acquire your customers? Direct sales? Online acquisition (paid ads, organic SEO, social, email)? Offline acquisition (newspaper, TV, radio, direct mail)? Channel partners (retailers, resellers)? Word-of-mouth? Affiliates?
Channel Cost Assumptions
There are hard costs associated with every customer acquisition channel. Yes, even social media. It’s your job here to forecast and compile all of the associated costs with a particular channel so that you can arrive at a preliminary budget for what it would cost to use this channel.
Are there specific subcategories of customers that you plan to target first?
Will you introduce your product in certain key geographic locations?
Are there specific components of your product offering that you will introduce to the market first?
Are there any existing brands that you are planning to partner with to increase brand awareness / expedite market penetration?
10. Traction
Many investors see hundreds of deals every year.
If you want to stand a chance of making any sort of meaningful impression, it’s important to show them that your business is more than just an idea and that you’ve already got some irons in the fire.
Traction is a huge part of making that case.
When investors see that Founders are already making things happen, they think to themselves, “Wow, look at everything they’ve already accomplished! If they can do that much by themselves, just think what they can do with my money behind them!”
Here are some common categories of traction that can help emphasize your business is gaining momentum:
Product Development
Where are you in the product development process? Do you have a working prototype? Is your product already in the market and gaining customers?
Manufacturing/Distribution
Do you already have an established partner for production/manufacturing? How about distribution? Tell us about your relationships and what they can handle.
Early Customers & Revenue
Do you have any existing customers? If so, how many, and how fast is your customer base growing? Have you started generating revenue? If so, how much?
Testimonials & Social Proof
Do you have any client reviews or comments that can illustrate positive customer responses to your product/service? Has your product/service been reviewed/endorsed by any industry experts? Do you have any high-profile customers (celebrities or industry experts if it’s a B2C product, well-known brands if it’s a B2B product)
Partnerships
Have you secured partnerships with any established or notable companies or brands?
Intellectual Property
Do you have any patents for the technology or ideas behind your company?
Is your company name trademarked?
Press Mentions
Has your company been featured by any media outlets? Which ones?
11. Management Team
Your Management Team section is where you introduce your team and, if possible, explain how each team member’s background is highly relevant to the success of your company.
You may have gotten a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon, but if you’re building the next hot dating app, that doesn’t really lend much credence to why you’re uniquely qualified for this particular product.
An ideal Management Team section shows investors that your team’s combination of skills, experience, relationships, and expertise make you the best group of people on the planet to drive the success of your company.
Each team bio should cover:
The team member’s name
Their title and position at the company
Their professional background
Any special skills they’ve developed as a result of their past experience
Their role and responsibilities at your company
It’s important to keep team bios focused and to the point: readers don’t need to know where you were born or what your favorite hobbies were growing up. They don’t even necessarily need to know what you studied in undergrad (unless what you studied in undergrad is super-relevant to what they’re doing at your company.)
Aim for around 3-5 sentences of good information on each team member.
12. Funding
Chances are you’re shopping your business plan around to secure capital for your project. If that’s the case , don’t forget to actually ask for the one thing you set out to achieve!
In fact, you’ll want to devote an entire section to your request for funding. This is your opportunity to tell investors:
What your funding goals are
How they can help you achieve those goals
What they have to gain from getting involved in your company
Funding Goal
How much funding do you need to move forward with your goals? How did you arrive at this figure?
What will investors get in exchange for their investment in your company?
Use of Funds
How will you use the funding that you secure from investors? Provide a very basic breakdown, either by amounts or by percentages, of how you plan to allocate the funds you receive. For example:
25%: R&D
25%: Marketing
25%: Product Development
25%: Key Hires
What key milestones will you and your company be able to achieve with the help of this funding?
Why Invest? / Conclusion
Wrap up your Funding section with by driving home why investors should get involved with your company. Is it the experience of your team? The originality of your product? The size of the market? Identify a few key factors that make your company a great opportunity from an investment perspective.
13. Financials
At last, we’ve arrived at everybody’s least favorite section of the business plan: Financials !
Your Financials section comes last after what we’ll call the more “narrative”-driven content that makes up the vast majority of your business plan.
It’s here where you’ll present your various spreadsheets, charts, tables, and graphs that communicate to investors your projections for the company in dollars and cents over the next few years. And while this is a numbers-dominant section, you’ll still want to back-up all of your figures with either a quick intro or summary explaining how you got there.
Because despite the fact that some people underplay financials as merely a guessing game, it’s crucial to remember that investors are looking for estimates, not guesses.
Simply put, you want to build your financial forecasts on a series of assumptions that incorporate as many known parameters as possible. Indicate how you arrived at these assumptions (maybe you compared them against similar products in the market, for example).
Some common elements included in your Financials section are:
Income Statement
A financial statement that showcases your revenues, expenses, and profit for a particular period and whether or not your business is profitable at that point in time.
Balance Sheet
A summary of your business’s net worth at a particular point, breaking it into assets, liabilities, and capital.
Cash Flow Projection
An estimate of the amount of cash that is expected to flow in and out of your business. Your cash flow projection will give you a good idea of how much capital investment you need to secure.
Break-Even Analysis
Just like it sounds, your break-even analysis helps you determine when your total revenue equals your total expenses. In other words, your break-even point. The total profit here equals 0.
If this sounds intimidating, it’s because it kind of is. On the plus side, there are some great online tools available designed to help you create super sleek financials and still maintain your sanity.
We’ve spent time picking apart each core component of a business plan, and as it has probably become abundantly clear, each section is essentially its own in-depth presentation within the overarching plan itself.
While no two business plans will ever be exactly the same, the key takeaway here is that every great plan incorporates the same basic elements that give investors the information they need when determining whether your business idea has legs or not.
Now that you’re ready to roll up your sleeves and finally launch into the writing process , you can refer back to this as you start tailoring these elements to your specific business. If you find yourself getting hung up along the way, check out one of our many other resources on business planning to help you tackle this project head-on!
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The startups team.
Startups is the world's largest startup platform, helping over 1 million startup companies find customers , funding , mentors , and world-class education .
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Top 10 Components of a Business Plan
Whether you’re planning to open a shop that makes the best coffee or you want to sell eco-friendly office supplies, you’ll need to explain why your business is necessary and how it’ll differ from its competitors. That’s where your business plan comes in. It provides investors, lenders and potential partners with an understanding of your company’s structure and goals. If you want to gain the financial autonomy to run a business or become an entrepreneur, a financial advisor can help align your finances.
1. Executive Summary
Your executive summary should appear first in your business plan. It should summarize what you expect your business to accomplish. Since it’s meant to highlight what you intend to discuss in the rest of the plan, the Small Business Administration suggests that you write this section last.
A good executive summary is compelling. It reveals the company’s mission statement, along with a short description of its products and services. It might also be a good idea to briefly explain why you’re starting your company and include details about your experience in the industry that you’re entering.
2. Company Description
A company description includes key information about your business, goals and the target customers that you want to serve. This is where you explain why your company stands out from other competitors in the industry and break down its strengths, including how it offers solutions for customers, and the competitive advantages that will give your business an edge to succeed.
3. Market Analysis
This is where you show that you have a key understanding of the ins and outs of the industry and the specific market you plan to enter. Here you will substantiate the strengths that you highlighted in your company description with data and statistics that break down industry trends and themes. Show what other businesses are doing and how they are succeeding or failing. Your market analysis should also help visualize your target customers. This includes how much money they make, what their buying habits are, which services they want and need, among other target customer preferences. Above all, the numbers should help answer why your business can do it better.
4. Competitive Analysis
A good business plan will present a clear comparison of your business vs your direct and indirect competitors. This is where you prove your knowledge of the industry by breaking down their strengths and weaknesses. Your end goal is show how your business will stack up. And if there are any issues that could prevent you from jumping into the market, like high upfront costs, this is where you will need to be forthcoming. Your competitive analysis will go in your market analysis section.
5. Description of Management and Organization
Your business must also outline how your organization is set up. Introduce your company managers here and summarize their skills and primary job responsibilities. An effective way could be to create a diagram that maps out your chain of command.
Don’t forget to indicate whether your business will operate as a partnership, a sole proprietorship or a business with a different ownership structure. If you have a board of directors, you’ll need to identify the members.
6. Breakdown of Your Products and Services
While your company description is an overview, a detailed breakdown of your products and services is intended to give a complementary but fuller description about the products that you are creating and selling, how long they could last and how they will meet existing demand.
This is where you should mention your suppliers, as well as other key information about how much it will cost to make your products and how much money you are hoping to bring in. You should also list here all relevant information pertaining to patents and copyright concerns as well.
7. Marketing Plan
This is where you describe how you intend to get your products and services in front of your target customers. Break down here the steps that you will take to promote your products and the budget that you will need to implement your strategies.
8. Sales Strategy
This section should answer how you will sell the products that you are building or carry out the services that you intend to offer. Your sales strategy must be specific. Break down how many sales reps you will need to hire and how you will recruit them and bring them on board. Make sure to include your sales targets as well.
9. Request for Funding
If you need funding, this section focuses on the amount of money that you need to set up your business and how you plan to use the capital that you are raising. You might want to include a timeline here for additional funding that you may require to complete other important projects.
10. Financial Projections
This final section breaks down the financial goals and expectations that you’ve set based on market research. You’ll report your anticipated revenue for the first 12 months and your annual projected earnings for the second, third, fourth and fifth years of business.
If you’re trying to apply for a personal loan or a small business loan, you can always add an appendix or another section that provides additional financial or background information.
Bottom Line
Every company is different so your business plan might look nothing like another entrepreneur’s. But there are key components that every good plan needs to have, and it’s always a good idea to provide a clear and accurate summary of your business goals in your business plan.
Tips for Business Owners
- A financial advisor can help you align your personal finances to give you an edge as a business owner or an entrepreneur. SmartAsset’s free tool matches you with up to three financial advisors who serve your area, and you can interview your advisor matches at no cost to decide which one is right for you. If you’re ready to find an advisor who can help you achieve your financial goals, get started now .
- If you are thinking of buying real estate, equipment, developing new products and other big-ticket activities for your business, you should consider using a capital asset pricing model to determine whether an investment is worth your risk.
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The 10 Key Components of a Business Plan
Written by Dave Lavinsky
Over the past 20+ years, we have helped over 1 million entrepreneurs and business owners write business plans. These plans have been used to raise funding and grow countless businesses.
Download our Ultimate Business Plan Template here >
From working with all these businesses, we know there are 10 elements in any great business plan. Providing a comprehensive assessment of each of these components is critical in attracting lenders, angel investors , venture capitalists or other equity investors.
Get started with a title page that includes your company name, logo and contact information, since interested readers must have a simple way to find and reach out to you. After that be sure to include the 10 parts of a business plan documented below.
The 10 Key Business Plan Components
The 10 components or sections of a business plan that you must include are as follows:
1. Executive Summary
The executive summary provides a succinct synopsis of the business plan, and highlights the key points raised within. It often includes the company’s mission statement and description of the products and services. It’s recommended by me and many experts including the Small Business Administration to write the executive summary last.
The executive summary must communicate to the prospective investor the size and scope of the market opportunity, the venture’s business and profitability model, and how the resources/skills/strategic positioning of the company’s management team make it uniquely qualified to execute the business plan. The executive summary must be compelling, easy-to-read, and no longer than 2-4 pages.
2. Company Analysis
This business plan section provides a strategic overview of the business and describes how the company is organized, what products and services it offers/will offer, and goes into further detail on the business’ unique qualifications in serving its target markets. As any good business plan template will point out, your company analysis should also give a snapshot of the company’s achievements to date, since the best indicator of future success are past accomplishments.
3. Industry or Market Analysis
This section evaluates the playing field in which the company will be competing, and includes well-structured answers to key market research questions such as the following:
- What are the sizes of the target market segments?
- What are the trends for the industry as a whole?
- With what other industries do your services compete?
To conduct this market research, do research online and leverage trade associations that often have the information you need.
4. Analysis of Customers
The customer analysis business plan section assesses the customer segment(s) that the company serves. In this section, the company must convey the needs of its target customers. It must then show how its products and services satisfy these needs to an extent that the customer will pay for them.
The following are examples of customer segments: moms, engaged couples, schools, online retailers, teens, baby boomers, business owners, etc.
As you can imagine, the customer segment(s) you choose will have a great impact on the type of business you operate as different segments often have different needs. 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 customers you seek to serve. With regards to psychographic variables, discuss whether your customers have any unique lifestyles, interests, opinions, attitudes and/or values that will help you market to them more effectively.
5. Analysis of Competition
All capable business plan writers discuss the competitive landscape of your business. This element of your plan must identify your direct and indirect competitors, assesses their strengths and weaknesses and delineate your company’s competitive advantages. It’s a crucial business plan section.
Direct competitors are those that provide the same product or service to the same customer. Indirect competitors are those who provide similar products or services. For example, the direct competitors to a pizza shop are other local pizza shops. Indirect competitors are other food options like supermarkets, delis, other restaurants, etc.
The first five components of your business plan provide an overview of the business opportunity and market research to support it. The remaining five business plan sections focus mainly on strategy, primarily the marketing, operational, financial and management strategies that your firm will employ.
6. Marketing, Sales & Product Plan
The marketing and sales plan component of your business plan details your strategy for penetrating the target markets. Key elements include the following:
- A description of the company’s desired strategic positioning
- Detailed descriptions of the company’s product and service offerings and potential product extensions
- Descriptions of the company’s desired image and branding strategy
- Descriptions of the company’s promotional strategies
- An overview of the company’s pricing strategies
- A description of current and potential strategic marketing partnerships/ alliances
7. Operations Strategy, Design and Development Plans
These sections detail the internal strategies for building the venture from concept to reality, and include answers to the following questions:
- What functions will be required to run the business?
- What milestones must be reached before the venture can be launched?
- How will quality be controlled?
8. Management Team
The management team section demonstrates that the company has the required human resources to be successful. The business plan must answer questions including:
- Who are the key management personnel and what are their backgrounds?
- What management additions will be required to make the business a success?
- Who are the other investors and/or shareholders, if any?
- Who comprises the Board of Directors and/or Board of Advisors?
- Who are the professional advisors (e.g., lawyer, accounting firm)?
9. Financial Plan
The financial plan involves the development of the company’s revenue and profitability model. These financial statements detail how you generate income and get paid from customers,. The financial plan includes detailed explanations of the key assumptions used in building the business plan model , sensitivity analysis on key revenue and cost variables, and description of comparable valuations for existing companies with similar business models.
One of the key purposes of your business plan is to determine the amount of capital the firm needs. The financial plan does this along with assessing the proposed use of these funds (e.g., equipment, working capital, labor expenses, insurance costs, etc.) and the expected future earnings. It includes Projected Income Statements, Balance Sheets (showing assets, liabilities and equity) and Cash Flow Statements, broken out quarterly for the first two years, and annually for years 1-5.
Importantly, all of the assumptions and projections in the financial plan must flow from and be supported by the descriptions and explanations offered in the other sections of the plan. The financial plan is where the entrepreneur communicates how he/she plans to “monetize” the overall vision for the new venture. Note that in addition to traditional debt and equity sources of startup and growth funding that require a business plan (bank loans, angel investors, venture capitalists, friends and family), you will probably also use other capital sources, such as credit cards and business credit, in growing your company.
10. Appendix
The appendix is used to support the rest of the business plan. Every business plan should have a full set of financial projections in the appendix, with the summary of these financials in the executive summary and the financial plan. Other documentation that could appear in the appendix includes technical drawings, partnership and/or customer letters, expanded competitor reviews and/or customer lists.
Find additional business plan help articles here.
Expertly and comprehensively discussing these components in their business plan helps entrepreneurs to better understand their business opportunity and assists them in convincing investors that the opportunity may be right for them too.
In addition to ensuring you included the proper elements of a business plan when developing your plan always think about why you are uniquely qualified to succeed in your business. For example, is your team’s expertise something that’s unique and can ensure your success? Or is it marketing partnerships you have executed? Importantly, if you don’t have any unique success factors, think about what you can add to make your company unique. Doing so can dramatically improve your success. Also, whether you write it on a word processor or use business plan software , remember to update your plan at least annually. After several years, you should have several business plans you can review to see what worked and what didn’t. This should prove helpful as you create future plans for your company’s growth.
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Learn how to create a business plan
What is a Business Plan?
A business plan is a document that contains the operational and financial plan of a business, and details how its objectives will be achieved. It serves as a road map for the business and can be used when pitching investors or financial institutions for debt or equity financing .
A business plan should follow a standard format and contain all the important business plan elements. Typically, it should present whatever information an investor or financial institution expects to see before providing financing to a business.
Contents of a Business Plan
A business plan should be structured in a way that it contains all the important information that investors are looking for. Here are the main sections of a business plan:
1. Title Page
The title page captures the legal information of the business, which includes the registered business name, physical address, phone number, email address, date, and the company logo.
2. Executive Summary
The executive summary is the most important section because it is the first section that investors and bankers see when they open the business plan. It provides a summary of the entire business plan. It should be written last to ensure that you don’t leave any details out. It must be short and to the point, and it should capture the reader’s attention. The executive summary should not exceed two pages.
3. Industry Overview
The industry overview section provides information about the specific industry that the business operates in. Some of the information provided in this section includes major competitors, industry trends, and estimated revenues. It also shows the company’s position in the industry and how it will compete in the market against other major players.
4. Market Analysis and Competition
The market analysis section details the target market for the company’s product offerings. This section confirms that the company understands the market and that it has already analyzed the existing market to determine that there is adequate demand to support its proposed business model.
Market analysis includes information about the target market’s demographics , geographical location, consumer behavior, and market needs. The company can present numbers and sources to give an overview of the target market size.
A business can choose to consolidate the market analysis and competition analysis into one section or present them as two separate sections.
5. Sales and Marketing Plan
The sales and marketing plan details how the company plans to sell its products to the target market. It attempts to present the business’s unique selling proposition and the channels it will use to sell its goods and services. It details the company’s advertising and promotion activities, pricing strategy, sales and distribution methods, and after-sales support.
6. Management Plan
The management plan provides an outline of the company’s legal structure, its management team, and internal and external human resource requirements. It should list the number of employees that will be needed and the remuneration to be paid to each of the employees.
Any external professionals, such as lawyers, valuers, architects, and consultants, that the company will need should also be included. If the company intends to use the business plan to source funding from investors, it should list the members of the executive team, as well as the members of the advisory board.
7. Operating Plan
The operating plan provides an overview of the company’s physical requirements, such as office space, machinery, labor, supplies, and inventory . For a business that requires custom warehouses and specialized equipment, the operating plan will be more detailed, as compared to, say, a home-based consulting business. If the business plan is for a manufacturing company, it will include information on raw material requirements and the supply chain.
8. Financial Plan
The financial plan is an important section that will often determine whether the business will obtain required financing from financial institutions, investors, or venture capitalists. It should demonstrate that the proposed business is viable and will return enough revenues to be able to meet its financial obligations. Some of the information contained in the financial plan includes a projected income statement , balance sheet, and cash flow.
9. Appendices and Exhibits
The appendices and exhibits part is the last section of a business plan. It includes any additional information that banks and investors may be interested in or that adds credibility to the business. Some of the information that may be included in the appendices section includes office/building plans, detailed market research , products/services offering information, marketing brochures, and credit histories of the promoters.
Business Plan Template
Here is a basic template that any business can use when developing its business plan:
Section 1: Executive Summary
- Present the company’s mission.
- Describe the company’s product and/or service offerings.
- Give a summary of the target market and its demographics.
- Summarize the industry competition and how the company will capture a share of the available market.
- Give a summary of the operational plan, such as inventory, office and labor, and equipment requirements.
Section 2: Industry Overview
- Describe the company’s position in the industry.
- Describe the existing competition and the major players in the industry.
- Provide information about the industry that the business will operate in, estimated revenues, industry trends, government influences, as well as the demographics of the target market.
Section 3: Market Analysis and Competition
- Define your target market, their needs, and their geographical location.
- Describe the size of the market, the units of the company’s products that potential customers may buy, and the market changes that may occur due to overall economic changes.
- Give an overview of the estimated sales volume vis-à-vis what competitors sell.
- Give a plan on how the company plans to combat the existing competition to gain and retain market share.
Section 4: Sales and Marketing Plan
- Describe the products that the company will offer for sale and its unique selling proposition.
- List the different advertising platforms that the business will use to get its message to customers.
- Describe how the business plans to price its products in a way that allows it to make a profit.
- Give details on how the company’s products will be distributed to the target market and the shipping method.
Section 5: Management Plan
- Describe the organizational structure of the company.
- List the owners of the company and their ownership percentages.
- List the key executives, their roles, and remuneration.
- List any internal and external professionals that the company plans to hire, and how they will be compensated.
- Include a list of the members of the advisory board, if available.
Section 6: Operating Plan
- Describe the location of the business, including office and warehouse requirements.
- Describe the labor requirement of the company. Outline the number of staff that the company needs, their roles, skills training needed, and employee tenures (full-time or part-time).
- Describe the manufacturing process, and the time it will take to produce one unit of a product.
- Describe the equipment and machinery requirements, and if the company will lease or purchase equipment and machinery, and the related costs that the company estimates it will incur.
- Provide a list of raw material requirements, how they will be sourced, and the main suppliers that will supply the required inputs.
Section 7: Financial Plan
- Describe the financial projections of the company, by including the projected income statement, projected cash flow statement, and the balance sheet projection.
Section 8: Appendices and Exhibits
- Quotes of building and machinery leases
- Proposed office and warehouse plan
- Market research and a summary of the target market
- Credit information of the owners
- List of product and/or services
Related Readings
Thank you for reading CFI’s guide to Business Plans. To keep learning and advancing your career, the following CFI resources will be helpful:
- Corporate Structure
- Three Financial Statements
- NEW CFI Template Marketplace
- See all management & strategy resources
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9 essential components of a business plan.
Maybe you’re a small business owner that has been in business for years. Or, you could be going through the process of starting a business. Regardless of where you’re at with your career, tasks and responsibilities will come at you quickly.
You need to worry about to-do lists, scheduled meetings, accounting processes and everything in between. When are you supposed to find the time to put your business plan together? It can be an intimidating process to go through, but having a well-thought-out business plan is incredibly important.
There’s no perfect recipe for a business plan, but one of the best things that you can do is write it before you start your business. It can act as a roadmap for where your business is going in the future and how you’re going to get there. So, where do you start?
Let’s take a look at everything that you need to know for writing a business plan that can get you ahead.
Here’s What We’ll Cover:
What Is a Business Plan?
Tips to make your business plan stand out, 9 components of a business plan, key takeaways.
Think about the last time you needed to get somewhere you hadn’t been before. You might drive, ride your bike or take the train. But no matter the way you get there, you first need to know how to get there. You might put the directions into a GPS, follow a bike path or look up the train schedules.
A business plan works in the exact same way, only it’s a roadmap for your business. It’s a comprehensive document that outlines how your small business is going to grow and develop.
Throughout a business plan, you’re going to communicate who your business is, what you plan on doing and how you plan on doing it. This can give valuable insights into your business for potential investors or hiring new talent.
That all said, a business plan is completely different from a general business concept or business idea. A business plan acts as a blueprint for your business and will highlight who you are. Most banking institutions and venture capitalists won’t invest in a small business unless they have a good business plan.
Potential investors are going to want to know that you have a product or service that fits in the market with a good team in place. Plus, it can show the scalability of your business and how you will grow sales volume.
When Do You Need a Business Plan?
First and foremost, a business plan is important to have regardless of the industry you’re in or the products you offer your customers. It will not only keep you focused and efficient, but a well-written business plan can have other benefits.
A business plan can be helpful when:
- You need new investments, funding or loans
- You are searching for a new partner for your business
- You are attracting and retaining top talent
- You are experiencing slower growth than expected and want a change
Every business plan is going to be a little different compared to others. This is since your business is unique and your business plan is going to reflect that. But, if your plan is badly written or missing key bits of information then it won’t be as attractive to potential investors.
Here are some tips to help you get the most out of your business plan and make it stand out.
- Make it as easy to read as possible. Investors want something that’s easily scannable and is divided into distinct sections. This way, they can quickly look through the plan and spot the key information.
- Keep it brief. Most business plans are going to range anywhere from 10 – 20 pages. But, as long as you cover the essentials and highlight the key points, less can often be more.
- Make sure you proofread and edit. Always double-check for grammatical errors and that it’s formatted properly. Typos and mistakes are not going to reflect positively for your business.
- Have a quality design. Make sure you have the proper layout, formatting and brand messaging throughout. Bookbinding your business plan can make it look more professional.
- Know all your business margins. Include each and every cost that your business incurs. You can make sure that you’re organizing and assigning those costs to the right product or service you offer.
One of the best things that you can do before writing your business plan is to determine who your audience is going to be. Are you pitching to a room full of potential investors? Do you have a meeting with your local financial institution’s venture funding department? Or, do you just want to create an internal document to help guide your business forward?
Being able to define who your audience is going to be will help you figure out how to write your business plan. For example, the language in your business plan might be different depending on who you want to highlight your business to.
Here are the 9 essential components of a business plan.
1. Executive Summary
Your executive summary is going to be at the front of your plan and be one of the first things that someone reads. But, writing the executive summary should be the last thing that you do, even though it’s first on the list. For now, you can leave your executive summary blank.
Why? Because it lays out every piece of vital information that’s included in your business plan, usually in one page or less. It’s basically a high-level summary of each of the sections in the plan. This means you can’t really write the executive summary first.
2. Company Description
This is where you’re going to highlight your business and what you do. Your company description will include three different things: a mission statement, company history and business objectives.
First, let’s look at your mission statement .
A mission statement is basically the main reason why you’re in business. It’s not necessarily about what you do or the products or services that you sell. Rather, it’s all about why your business does what it does.
Try and make your mission statement inspirational, motivational and even emotional. It’s going to be the foundation on which your business is built. Put some thought into the things that motivate you and the reasons why you started your business in the first place. What do you want to get out of it? Why are you doing it?
You can also think about the causes or different experiences which led you to start your business and the problems it can solve for your customers.
Next, let’s look at your company history .
This doesn’t need to be a long or in-depth section, but more of a highlight of what your business has done in the past and where you stand today. To help make things easier, you can even write about your company history in the form of a profile. Here’s some of the important information you can include in your company history.
- The date you founded or started your business
- Any major milestones worth highlighting
- Your business location, or locations
- How many employees you have
- Your executive leadership and the roles that they have within your company
- The flagship services or products that you offer your customers
Finally, let’s look at your business objectives .
Your business objectives are your guiding lights. They’re the goals that you plan on achieving and they will outline how you plan on getting there. When developing your business objectives, base them on the process of SMART goals.
These are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound. Basically, each objective gets tied to the key results you want to achieve. If you don’t clearly define your business objectives, it can make it more difficult for your employees to work efficiently towards a common goal.
3. Market Research and Business Potential
This is the section of your business plan where you outline your target demographic and ideal customer base. You’re also going to do research into the potential and actual size of the market you’re going to enter into. Target markets are going to identify specific information about your customers.
Usually, you can research and find the following information for your target customers:
- Location and average income
- Age and gender
- Education level and profession
- Any activities or hobbies that are relevant
Getting as specific as possible will allow you to illustrate your expertise and get a sense of confidence when it comes to your business. For example, if your target market is extremely broad, it will show investors that it might be more difficult to generate revenue.
4. Competitive Analysis
What is your competition doing? Competitor research is going to start by identifying any companies that are currently in the market you want to enter into. Understanding everything you can about your competition can seem overwhelming and intimidating.
But having this information is extremely useful and will help you make more informed business decisions in the future. Here are a few common questions that you can ask yourself when you’re doing competitive research.
- Where are they investing most in marketing and advertising?
- Do they get any press coverage? If they do, how are they getting it?
- What is their customer service like? Does your customer service stack up against theirs?
- What are their pricing strategies and what are their sales?
- Do they have good reviews on third-party rating platforms?
One of the best ways to do competitive research is to check out your competition’s website. Read through their About Us page or their value and mission statements. This will give you a better understanding of who they are, what they’re doing and how they’re doing it.
Being able to distinguish your business from your competition is a critical element of any business plan. Take some time to think about what sets your business apart and how you’re going to provide a solution to a problem.
5. Describe You Products or Services
What do you offer your customers? What product or service is your business built on? This section of your business plan is going to detail everything about your product or service. Plus, it’s going to highlight why what your business offers is better than the competition.
Touch on the benefits that your product or service offers, the production process and the product life cycle.
When you’re describing the benefits, try and focus on things like unique features and how they translate into benefits. You can also highlight intellectual property rights or patents that differentiate your products.
For the production process, you can explain how you create your existing or new products or services and how you source the raw materials. Other things such as quality control, quality assurance and supply chain logistics can get included.
With your product life cycle, you can highlight any cross-sells, down-sells or upsells. As well as your future plans for research and development.
6. Marketing and Sales Strategy
You could spend weeks putting together an in-depth business plan that highlights your company and what you do. But, if you don’t have a solid marketing and sales strategy in place then it won’t matter how good your business plan is. You still need to know how you’re going to generate sales.
This part of your plan is entirely dependant on the type of products or services that you offer. You can include your company’s value proposition, ideal target market and your existing customer segments. Then, you can start with some more specifics.
What’s the launch plan that you have in place to help attract new business? What are your growth tactics to help your business expand in the future? Do you have any retention strategies in place, such as customer loyalty or referral programs? What about advertising across print, social media, search engines or television?
These are all good questions to ask yourself when putting together your sales and marketing strategy. You can use this part of the business plan to highlight your business strengths and how you differentiate from the competition.
7. Business Financials
If you are just starting your business then you aren’t going to have much financial data. You won’t have things like financial statements or an income statement. But, you still need to put together some type of financial plan and budget. If you have been operating for a while, you will have some important information to include, such as:
- Profit and loss statements
- Income statements
- Cash flow statement
- Balance sheets
- Revenue vs net income
- The ratio of liquidity to debt repayment
Make sure that the data and figures that you include are accurate. For example, things like costs, profit margins and sale prices can be closely linked together. If you don’t have access to historical data, you can put together financial projections.
8. Management and Organization
The people that you have working for your business are the driving force behind your overall success. Without the right people in place, your business won’t likely be successful. This is the part of your business plan where you’re going to highlight your team.
Identify the members of your team and explain how they are going to help turn your business idea into a reality. Plus, you can highlight the qualifications and expertise of each team member. This will position your business as one that’s worth potentially investing in.
9. Include an Appendix
This is where you’re going to compile and include everything that both investors and your team will need access to. Include everything that’s useful for an investor to conduct due diligence.
Here are some of the most common official documents you can include in a well-organized appendix.
- Any legal documents, local permits or deeds
- Professional licenses or business registries
- Any patents or intellectual property
- Any industry memberships or associations
- Your business identification numbers or codes
- Any key purchase orders or customer contracts that you have in place
It can also be helpful to include a table of contents in your appendix. This can make it easier to find the right information or allow you to highlight the most important documents.
It’s worth noting that a business plan doesn’t just have to be a way to attract potential investors. There are several other reasons why having a business plan is important.
You can better clarify the goals and objections that you want your business to accomplish and you can gain insights into your target market. Team members can have a much better sense as to the direction the business is going and how they can contribute to its success and growth. Plus, you can establish and define the roles of each team member, all while setting achievable benchmarks.
Creating a business plan will act as a roadmap for your business. It’s going to highlight the goals and objectives you have. As well as touch on things like marketing, advertising, your management team and financials. Here’s a quick review of the 9 essential components of a business plan.
- Executive summary, which you will write after you have completed steps 2 – 9
- Company description, including a mission statement, company history and business objectives
- Competitive analysis
- Market research and business potential
- Your products or services
- Marketing and sales strategy
- Business financials
- Management and organization
Follow the 9 components outlined in this article to help you develop a business plan. You can clearly define your business goals and have a roadmap to help your business be successful.
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Parts of a Business Plan
Whether you are starting a pizza shop or a plumbing business, a flower shop or a factory, you need a solid plan. In fact, your Business Plan will be an essential tool throughout the life of your business – from starting out to cashing in. It will help you to start out on the right foot, stay focused, get financing, manage your growth, and more.
Not every Business Plan will be the exactly same, but every Plan should incorporate several key elements.
The Parts of the Plan
Here are the key pieces to a solid Business Plan.
- The title, or heading, of the plan, and very brief description of the business.
- The name of the owner
- The company name and location
- A copyright or confidentiality notice
Table of Contents
- A list of the individual sections and their page numbers, starting with the Title Page and ending with a section for Special Materials (references, etc.).
Summary/Overview
- A brief, but focused statement (a few sentences or paragraphs) stating why the business will be successful. This is the most important piece of a Business Plan because it brings everything together.
Market Analysis
- Identifies specific knowledge about the business and its industry, and the market (or customers) it serves.
- An analysis that identifies and assesses the competition.
Description of the Company
- Information about the nature of the business and the factors that should make it successful .
- Special business skills and talents that provide the business with a competitive advantage, such as a unique ability to satisfy specific customer needs, special methods of delivering a product or service, and so on.
Organization & Management
- The company’s organizational and legal structure, Is it a sole proprietorship? A partnership? A corporation? (See: “ Ownership Structures “)
- Profiles of the ownership and management team: What is their background, experience and responsibilities?
Marketing & Sales
- The company’s process of identifying and creating a customer base. (See: “ Market Research “)
Description of Product or Service
- How they will benefit from the product or service?
- Specific needs or problems that the business can satisfy or solve, focusing especially on areas where the business has the strongest skills or advantages.
- The amount of current and future funding needed to start or expand the business. Includes the time period that each amount will cover, the type of funding for each (i.e., equity, debt), and the proposed or requested repayment terms.
- How the funds will be used: For equipment and materials? Everyday working capital? Paying off debt?
- Explains or projects how the company is expected to perform financially over the next several years. (Sometimes called a “pro-forma projection.”) Because investors and lenders look closely at this projection as a measure of your company’s growth potential, professional input is strongly recommended.
- Credit histories (personal & business)
- Resumes of key personnel and partners
- Letters of reference
- Details of market studies
- Copies of licenses, permits, patents, leases, contracts, etc.
- A list of business consultants, attorneys, accountants, etc.
These are just the basic essentials to creating a Business Plan. Each plan should be tailored to the specific business. (See: Business Plan Assistance )
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4 Components of a Successful Business Plan
Business plan basics to get you started.
October 07, 2019
Among experts there is a debate about the necessity for a business plan. Some say that you only need a business plan if you are seeking some sort of loan or funding from investors. Some even say that taking the time required to create a business plan can stifle the startup process and cost precious opportunities for a small business.
In my opinion, writing a business plan is necessary whether you need outside investors or not. The process of writing a winning plan forces you to invest significant time and energy into thinking about your business and doing your homework.
Plans are also written to help existing businesses grow, but that aspect of “strategic planning” is different than what I’m writing about today, which is to provide a framework to convince an investor, and yourself, that your plan possesses the necessary ingredients to become one of the 5% of new businesses that succeed. Savvy investors and lenders know the odds and unless you educate yourself on the realities of winning plans, your plan will likely make its way to the bottom of the waste basket.
If you are a start-up or you’ve been in business for decades, below are the four most important components you should include in your business plan.
The Business
Also called Business Strategy or Business Description, this section might include such subsections as Business Opportunity, Organization and Operations, Legal Structure, Business Model, Operating Procedures, Operations Description, Management, Personnel, Strengths and Weaknesses, Core Competencies and Challenges, Business Accomplishments, Location, Product Offering, Product or Service, Records and Insurance.
In the Business section, make sure you “sell” the one reason your business will be able to generate excessive cash flow. Remember that you are selling by communicating your experience and education, not by promoting your company with empty words and promises.
The Marketing
Also called Market Strategy and including subsections such as Target Markets, Customers, Competition, Distribution, Relationships, Advertising, Pricing, Industry and Market Trends, Strategy and Market Strategy. The Marketing section is a thorough discussion of the industry and your business’ place in it. It covers all the forces that come to bear on your business. From the customers to the competition, advertising to pricing, industry trends to global economics, this section gives the reader a thorough understanding of how your business will deal with getting the product to potential buyers.
The Financials
Also called Financial Data or The Deal and includes subsections such as Uses of Funds, Income Statements, Cash Flow Statement, Balance Sheet, Cash Flow Forecast, Profit and Loss Forecast, Income Projection, Sales Revenue Forecast, Income Forecast, Capital Spending Plan, Assumptions, Budget and Break-Even Analysis. The Financial section is all about the numbers. The past, present and future are all represented.
The Supporting Materials
The material used will depend upon the type of business for which you are planning as well as the contents of the rest of your plan. Common supporting documents include resumes, letters of reference, credit reports, legal documents, agreements and contracts. This is information that needs no textual introduction or explanation or that is introduced or explained in the previous sections of the plan.
Ideally, by the time the plan is complete, you will have enough information to suit anyone’s guidelines. Compiling the initial information is the real work. Rearranging it into different formats should not be difficult. No matter what outline you choose, be sure to cover all your bases. It is tempting to skip management information if you are preparing the plan for loan purposes only or to skip financials if you are preparing a plan for your own management purposes.
Great business plans come from entrepreneurs willing to delay immediate gratification. They take risks and invest the time and energy necessary to gain relevant experience and education. They are not afraid of making mistakes or failing because mistakes and failure equal experience. They start small and build, recognizing experience leads to greater ability. After paying the price, true entrepreneurs gain the knowledge to build a winning plan and winning business.
To learn more tips for writing a winning business plan get my book, Writing Winning Business Plans: How to Prepare a Business Plan that Investors will Want to Read—and Invest In .
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Main Components of a Business Plan
- Executive summary This is your five-minute elevator pitch. It may include a table of contents, company background, market opportunity, management overviews, competitive advantages, and financial highlights. It’s probably easiest to write the detailed sections first and then extract the cream to create the executive summary. Try to keep it to just a couple of pages.
- Business description and structure This is where you explain why you're in business and what you're selling. If you sell products, describe your manufacturing process, availability of materials, how you handle inventory and fulfillment, and other operational details. If you provide services, describe them and their value proposition to customers. Include other details such as strategic relationships, administrative issues, intellectual property you may own, expenses, and the legal structure of your company.
- Market research and strategies Spell out your market analysis and describe your marketing strategy, including sales forecasts, deadlines and milestones, advertising, public relations and how you stack up against your competition. If you can’t produce a lot of data analysis, you can provide testimonials from existing customers.
- Management and personnel Provide bios of your company executives and managers and explain how their expertise will help you meet business goals. Investors need to evaluate risk, and often, a management team with lots of experience may lower perceived risk.
- Financial documents This is where you provide the numbers that back up everything you described in your organizational and marketing sections. Include conservative projections of your profit and loss statements, balance sheet, and your cash flow statements for the next three years. These are forward-looking projections, not your current accounting outputs.
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The 5 Key Elements Of A Good Business Plan
22 January 2020
Although some Founders are sceptical about planning too far ahead for their businesses, preparing a solid business plan is necessary for many purposes.
As any founder knows, the only sure thing about running a growing company is change.
In fact, your business plan is perhaps the thing that will change most often throughout your entrepreneurial journey.
Although some Founders are sceptical about planning too far ahead for their businesses, preparing a solid business plan is necessary for many purposes, including, but not limited to:
- Raising finance through investment;
- Applying for a business loan;
- Budgeting for the long and short term;
- Gaining a deeper understanding of how your business works.
Perhaps even more important than preparing a business plan, is making sure that this is updated for each of the small and big changes that your company will go through as it grows and evolves.
Different companies require different types of business plan. Depending on your business model, your revenue structure and many other factors.
However, there are 5 elements of a business plan that are absolutely key to making sure that the reader understands how your company works and plans on growing.
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It includes a complete structure , detailed instructions on how to write each section and tips on how to tweak it for each specific use .
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1. Executive Summary
The Executive Summary represents the reader’s first impression of your business
The Executive Summary is the first section of your business plan, and also the last one you should write. It represents the reader’s first impression of your business . As a result, it will likely define their opinion as they continue reading the business plan.
A good Executive Summary includes key facts about your business such as:
- Business & product description;
- Current positioning & targeting;
- Financial outlook & requirements;
- Past and future achievements & goals.
However, the most important function that a great Executive Summary serves is communicating to the reader why they should read the rest of the business plan , and why you want them to.
2. Business Overview
After the Executive Summary, a business plan starts with a comprehensive explanation of what your business proposition is and how it relates to the market where your company operates.
In this section of the business plan, you should explain precisely:
- what your company does;
- what are its products or services;
- in which market it operates;
- who are its customers.
When describing your business, you should make sure to that the reader knows what kind of market environment your business operates in, but also how it can thrive in such an environment from a competitive point of view.
For some very niche or particularly innovative sectors, this may mean that you need to inform the readers about specific market dynamics .
In these cases, make sure that you clarify what is considered ‘the industry standard ‘ in your sector, the selling points that current players are competing on and how your business is positioned relative to them.
Make sure to include:
- Your mission statement;
- The philosophy, vision and goals of your company;
- Your industry and target audience;
- The structure of your business, detailing your customers, suppliers, partners and competitors;
- Your products and services and the problem they solve;
- Unique Selling Point(s).
If the company already has a well-defined product or service, this section can be divided into Company Description and Products & Services .
3. Sales & Marketing Strategy
This section of the business plan requires a deep understanding of your market space and how your business positions itself within its niche and competes with existing players .
Within your Sales & Marketing strategy, you should outline:
- A definition of your target market – include its size, existing and emerging trends and your projected market share;
- An assessment of your market – this should summarise how attractive your target market is to your company and why, Porter’s Five Forces or the more recent Six Forces Model are useful tools to define this;
- Threats & Opportunities – you can use a SWOT Analysis to present these;
- Product/Service Features – once you have thoroughly described your product/service, make sure to highlight its Unique Selling Points, as well as any complementary offerings and after-sale services;
- Target Consumers – whether you’re a B2B or B2C company, it’s a good idea to include an ideal customer profile to describe exactly what niche(s) you are going to target;
- Key Competitors – research and analyse any other players inside or outside your market whose offering might compete with you directly or indirectly;
- Positioning – explain in a short paragraph how your company differentiates from your competitors and how it presents itself to your target niche;
- Marketing Plan & Budget – outline the marketing and advertising tactics you will use to promote your business, giving an overview of your brand and of the communication elements that support it;
- Pricing – explain how your pricing strategy fits within the competition and how it relates to your positioning;
A very common mistake that should be avoided is writing that you have no competition. Instead, you should show your efforts in researching your competitors and assessing how they could threaten your business .
4. Operations & Management
This section gives you the opportunity to explain to the reader how your company does things differently .
The people and processes that are allow your business to operate on a daily basis are the key to your competitive advantage . In fact, they help you build a better product, deliver it more efficiently or at a lower costs. Your Operations & Management must be able to successfully realise what you ‘promised’ in the previous sections.
Here, you must demonstrate how much you know about your business, so don’t leave out any relevant detail. Be concise but thorough, focus on two main points:
- Production or Service Delivery;
- Quality Control;
- Credit policies;
- Legal environment;
- Organisational Structure – this is an overview of all the people involved in your business and their position in relation to each other. You should detail the experience of the existing team, as well as the roles that haven’t been filled yet. Include advisors and non-executive directors . Investors and banks will also look at this section to get an idea of salary costs. As these are normally a significant cost centre, don’t overestimate your staff needs.
5. Financial Plan
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Your Financial Plan is possibly the most important element of your business plan . This is especially true if the business plan is aimed at investors or lenders.
This section includes projections, budgets and goals that are unique to each business. In particular, you should focus on explaining the assumptions on which you based your forecasts , more than on the forecasts themselves. Every good Financial Plan will include:
- 12-month Profit & Loss Projection – A month-by-month forecast of sales, operating costs, tax and profits for the following year. Sometimes three years.
- Cash Flow Statement & Forecast – This financial statement tracks the amount of cash that leaves or enters the business at any given time.
- Breakeven Analysis – This is a cornerstone of your business plan. Here you should show what level of projected sales allows the business to cover its costs.
- Capital Requirements – This point is fundamental as it shows investors what their money will be spent on. It should contain a summary of all the expenses for big purchases and day-to-day running costs.
The Financial Plan is usually followed by the Appendices. Here you should include detailed spreadsheets and calculations used to prepare the financial statements.
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Seven components of strong business plans.
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Ralph Guzman is Vice President and Marketing Director at Guthrie-Jensen Consultants .
A quote often attributed to Benjamin Franklin said it best: “Failing to plan is planning to fail.” That is why the success of any enterprise — big or small — hinges on good business plans.
Is your organization formulating its plans for the next fiscal year? When I facilitate planning sessions for different organizations, I double-check and test plans using an acronym I call SCOPE: Seven Components of Planning and Execution.
Will your business plans pass the SCOPE test?
Component 1: Analyze The External Environment
A business intending to survive and grow must be able to acquire and retain customers.
But remember, customers do not exist in a vacuum. Customers and all businesses are affected by the external environment. As you create business plans, have you considered how changes or disruptions in the political, regulatory and legal environment affect the business? How about the economic, social and technological? Don’t forget your industry competition, too. What are the expected competitor moves in the next 12 months?
For example, in the past 25 years, globalization, the internet and the subsequent digital transformation of businesses have accelerated the evolution of customer behaviors. From how customers become aware of products and services, all the way to their purchase, consumption and the way they evaluate experience — change happened.
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What do you see in your external environment in the next one to three years? How will these positive or negative developments affect your customers and your business?
Component 2: Summarize Opportunities And Threats
In analyzing the external environment, executives can easily come up with a hundred things affecting the business. Executives must narrow down insights into the most critical opportunities and threats. Typically, the top three to five would do.
Component 3: Analyze The Internal Environment
An organization, for example, might see that there is an opportunity to achieve 30% revenue growth in the next fiscal year because of specific opportunities in the external environment. But the question is: Does the enterprise have the internal capability to fully seize the opportunity? An organization might have limitations in human capital, funding, equipment and other resources.
At this junction, organizations will need to decide on how much of the opportunity they can realistically seize. Let us say that the organization can only achieve 15% revenue growth instead of 30 because of current operational limitations. Two choices are available: Go for just 15% or formulate the necessary action plans so that the organization can hit a higher number. For the second option, organizations must plan the resources, capabilities and competencies needed to develop a realistic plan.
To ensure that organizations pursue only the priority issues, I often use the importance-performance matrix to ensure that analyses are aligned with what is relevant to customers.
Component 4: Identify Products And Markets
What drives revenue growth? The bottom line is quite simple: products and markets. A strategy is an interplay between these two.
After examining the first three components, executives must be able to identify what products will generate revenue growth and which specific target market segments would buy them.
This opens the possibility for four strategies, as outlined by the popular Ansoff Matrix, managers should always check and use:
• Retention strategy: selling existing products — or services — to existing markets
• Acquisition strategy: selling existing products to new markets
• Penetration strategy: selling new products to existing markets
• Diversification strategy: selling new products to new markets
Which of these strategies will you use?
Component 5: Integrate The Strategic With The Operational
A business plan doesn’t stop at the top management level. A business plan provides direction for the business. It is not a mere formality. Unfortunately, many organizations fall into the trap of treating planning as a formality.
True success is determined and achieved by how well plans are implemented all the way to the staff level. It boils down to target versus actual performance.
Organizational goals must be broken down into clear objectives for teams. Key result areas and the necessary key performance indicators must be identified. This is where unit-level managers must come in. They must be involved not just for alignment purposes, but also for engagement and ownership of plans. Managers know what is happening at the frontlines. Their voices are critical!
Once the organization starts implementation, project management skills at the functional level will come into play. Executives must communicate its seriousness in implementation. Monitoring mechanisms must be put into place, with executives at the forefront of monitoring progress.
Component 6: Provide The Necessary Resources
How much budget is required? What equipment and technology are needed? On the softer side of things, how many people are needed, and what skills are required of them? What training, coaching and mentoring are needed?
Many plans fail because leadership isn’t able to provide the necessary resources.
Component 7: Be Prepared To Revise The Plan — Or Even Throw It Out
Finally, a fast-evolving environment, disruptive technology and accelerated digitization are just a few reasons why the shelf life of business plans is getting much shorter. In the past, executives could comfortably create a plan that would be in place for one to three years. Now, I have more clients who are saying that business plans only have a shelf life of one or two quarters.
The lesson: Plans are dynamic, not static. Leaders must be ready to adjust plans accordingly, especially in a time now characterized as VUCA: volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous. If the disruptions merit a radical change of plans, leaders must be ready to shift gears, change plans and start the planning process again.
The assurance I can give from my experience is business plans are worth the effort. They provide much-needed direction and even inspiration for the organization. They bring you to the next level of excellence in providing customers only the best.
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Tim berry on business planning, starting and growing your business, and having a life in the meantime., 11 key elements of a good business plan.
It gives me a chance to review and revise another of the lists that I’ve done off and on for years (such as the one from yesterday, on common business plan mistakes ).
1. Measure a business plan by the decisions it causes.
I’ve written about this one in several places. Like everything else in business, business plans have business objectives.
Whether the purpose of the plan is better management, accountability, setting stepping stones to the future, convincing somebody to invest, or something else, does it accomplish that? Does it achieve its objective?
Realistically, it doesn’t matter whether your business plan is well-written, complete, well-formatted, creative, or intelligent. It only matters that it does the job it’s supposed to do. It’s a bad plan if it doesn’t.
2. Concrete specifics.
Dates, deadlines, major milestones, task responsibilities, sales forecasts, spending budgets, cash flow projections.
Ask yourself how executable it is. Ask yourself how you’ll know, on a regular basis, how much progress you’ve made, and whether or not you’re on track.
3. Cash flow .
Cash flow is the single most important concept in business. A business plan without cash flow is a marketing plan, strategic plan, summary, or something else—and those can be useful, but get your vocabulary right.
There’s a useful role for a business model, lean canvas, pitch deck and so on in some contexts, like raising investment. But those aren’t business plans.
4. Realistic .
While it is a fact that all business plans are wrong, assumptions, drivers, deadlines, milestones, and such should be realistic, not crazy.
The plan is to be executed. Impossible goals and crazy forecasts make the whole thing a waste of time.
5. Short, sweet, easy-to-read summaries of strategy and tactics .
Not all business plans need a lot of text.
Text and explanations are for outsiders, such as investors and bankers; however, a lot of companies ought to be using business planning to just run the business better. If you don’t need the extra information, leave it out.
Define strategy and tactics in short bullet point lists. And tactics, by the way, are related to the marketing plan, product plan, financial plan, and so on. Strategy without tactics is just fluff.
6. Alignment of strategy and tactics .
It’s surprising how often they don’t match.
Strategy is focus, key target markets, key product/service features, important differentiators, and so forth. Tactics are like pricing, social media, channels, financials—and the two should match.
A gourmet restaurant (strategy) should not have a drive-through option (tactics.)
7. Covers the event-specific, objective-specific bases .
A lot of components of a business plan depend on the usage.
Internal plans have no need for descriptions of company teams. Market analysis hits one level for an internal plan, but often has to be proof of market, or validation, for a plan associated with investment. Investment plans need to know something about exits; internal plans don’t.
8. Easy in, easy out .
Don’t make anybody work to find what information is where in the plan. Keep it simple.
Use bullets as much as possible, and be careful with naked bullets for people who don’t really know the background. Don’t show off.
9. As lean as possible .
Just big enough to do the job. It has to be reviewed and revised regularly to be useful. Nothing should be included that isn’t going to be used.
10. Geared for change .
A good business plan is the opposite of written in stone. It’s going to change in a few weeks.
List assumptions, because reviewing assumptions is the best way to figure out when to change the plan, and when to stick with the plan.
11. The right level of aggregation and summary .
It’s not accounting. It’s planning.
Projections look like accounting statements, but they aren’t. They are summarized. They aren’t built on elaborate financial models. They are just detailed enough to generate good information.
(This started as my answer to a Quora question: What are the key elements of a good business plan? )
Need a mission and vision statements as well.
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The 4 Types of Business Plans
Learn which of these four business plan formats best fits your needs.
By The Staff of Entrepreneur Media, Inc. • Dec 4, 2014
In their book Write Your Business Plan , the staff of Entrepreneur Media offer an in-depth understanding of what's essential to any business plan, what's appropriate for your venture, and what it takes to ensure success. In this edited excerpt, the authors describe four different types of plans you could write and what you'd use each one for.
Business plans can be divided roughly into four distinct types. There are very short plans, or miniplans, presentation plans or decks, working plans, and what-if plans. They each require very different amounts of labor and not always with proportionately different results. That is to say, a more elaborate plan isn't guaranteed to be superior to an abbreviated one. Success depends on various factors and whether the right plan is used in the right setting. For example, a new hire may not want to read the same, elaborate version of your plan that might be important to a potential investor.
The Miniplan
The miniplan is preferred by many recipients because they can read it or download it quickly to read later on their iPhone or tablet. You include most of the same ingredients that you would in a longer plan, but you cut to the highlights while telling the same story. For a small-business venture, it's typically all that you need. For a more complex business, you may need the longer version.
The Presentation Plan
The advent of PowerPoint presentations changed the way many, if not most, plans are presented. And while the plan is shorter than its predecessors, it's not necessarily easier to present. Many people lose sleep over an upcoming presentation, especially one that can play a vital role in the future of their business. But presenting your plan as a deck can be very powerful. Readers of a plan can't always capture your passion for the business nor can they ask questions when you finish. But in 20 minutes, you can cover all the key points and tell your story from concept and mission statement through financial forecasts.
Remember to keep your graphics uncluttered and to make comments to accentuate your ideas rather than simply reading what's in front of your audience.
While a presentation plan is concise, don't be fooled: It takes plenty of planning. The pertinent questions who, what, where, why, when and how all need to be answered.
The Working Plan
A working plan is a tool to be used to operate your business. It has to be long on detail but may be short on presentation. As with a miniplan, you can probably can afford a somewhat higher degree of candor and informality when preparing a working plan. In a plan you intend to present to a bank loan committee, you might describe a rival as "competing primarily on a price basis." In a working plan, your comment about the same competitor might be "When is Jones ever going to stop this insane price-cutting?"
A plan intended strictly for internal use may also omit some elements that you need not explain to yourself. Likewise, you probably don't need to include an appendix with resumes of key executives. Nor would a working plan especially benefit from product photos.
Internal policy considerations may guide the decision about whether to include or exclude certain information in a working plan. Many entrepreneurs are sensitive about employees knowing the precise salary the owner takes home from the business. To the extent such information can be left out of a working plan without compromising its utility, you can feel free to protect your privacy.
This document is like an old pair of khakis you wear to the office on Saturdays or that one ancient delivery truck that never seems to break down. It's there to be used, not admired.
The What-If Plan
When you face unusual circumstances, you need a variant on the working plan. For example, you might want to prepare a contingency plan when you're seeking bank financing. A contingency plan is a plan based on the worst-case scenario that you can imagine your business surviving—loss of market share, heavy price competition, defection of a key member of your management team. A contingency plan can soothe the fears of a banker or investor by demonstrating that you have indeed considered more than a rosy scenario.
Your business may be considering an acquisition, in which case a pro forma business plan (some call this a what-if plan) can help you understand what the acquisition is worth and how it might affect your core business. What if you raise prices, invest in staff training and reduce duplicative efforts? Such what-if planning doesn't have to be as formal as a presentation plan. Perhaps you want to mull over the chances of a major expansion. A what-if plan can help you spot the increased needs for space, equipment, personnel and other variables so you can make good decisions.
What sets these kinds of plans apart from the working and presentation plans is that they aren't necessarily describing how you'll run the business. They're essentially more like an addendum to your actual business plan. If you decide to acquire that competitor or grow dramatically, you'll want to incorporate some of the thinking already invested in these special purpose plans into your primary business plan.
Entrepreneur Staff
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8 Elements of a Successful Business Plan
Perhaps you’ve heard the old saying that failing to plan is the same as planning to fail.
It’s commonly attributed to Benjamin Franklin, the 18th century inventor and politician whose belief in the value of preparation was strong enough that he once made a list of more than 12 character traits around which he planned to structure his life.
Related: It Only Takes 6 Steps to Plan Your Success
Franklin’s preparation paid off. Today, he’s remembered not only for signing the Declaration of Independence but for researching electricity, serving as the U.S. ambassador to France and founding the University of Pennsylvania.
Accomplishments like those illustrate the importance of preparation for entrepreneurs starting or expanding their own businesses, especially since only half of all startups survive their first five years. The secret: A well-crafted business plan can help make yours one of the success stories .
Not only is having one often a prerequisite for lenders and investors, it’s a road map that helps owners identify both risks and opportunities in their markets so that they’re prepared for both.
Indeed, some of the most successful U.S. entrepreneurs were known for their careful strategy. John D. Rockefeller, the oil magnate whose name became a byword for wealth in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, often talked about “our plan” when he was developing Standard Oil Trust.
Rockefeller’s strategy was corralling what had been a haphazard oil supply that often outpaced demand and hurt producers by keeping prices low. His business expanded enough that it eventually controlled the majority of oil production in the U.S. Although it was later broken up by the U.S. government, its descendants—ExxonMobil, Chevron and ConocoPhillips—still dominate the industry today.
“Business planning helps entrepreneurs work smarter, stay alert for roadblocks, test new ideas, stay motivated, help align expectations with stakeholders and investors, and even reduce stress.”
“Business planning helps entrepreneurs work smarter, stay alert for roadblocks, test new ideas, stay motivated , help align expectations with stakeholders and investors, and even reduce stress,” wrote Robert Price, executive director of the Global Entrepreneurship Institute, in an article on the organization’s website.
“Writing a business plan forces you into disciplined thinking if you do an intellectually honest job,” he says. “An idea may sound great in your mind, but when you put down the details and numbers, it may fall apart.”
Related: Think Big, Start Small and Plan for Success
A further advantage of your roadmap is that, ideally, it changes with your business. It’s considered a living document, but despite its adaptability, there are basic elements the Small Business Administration says any plan should contain. They include:
1. Executive Summary:
A snapshot of your plan. This will be the last thing you write, but possibly the most important, since many readers will stop here if they’re unimpressed. If your company is a startup , focus on your background and experience as well as that of any partners to show the underpinnings of the company, the agency says. If you’re better established, make sure to include details such as when the business was started, the names of the founders and their roles, how many employees you have, and where your operations are situated.
2. Company Description:
Explain what your company does and how it stands out from competitors. List major customers as well as markets you plan to target in the future. You’ll want to include competitive advantages, such as expert personnel like the whiz-kid coder you just hired, or location: Perhaps your floral shop is next door to an all-night wedding chapel.
3. Market Analysis:
It’s crucial to understand the market you plan to enter. Find out who your competitors are, analyze their cash flow and profit margins, and research technological developments in the industry that might be game-changers. Part of describing your customers is a general awareness of how much they spend and when. For instance, Black Friday got its name because it kicks off the lucrative Christmas shopping season that moves many retailers into full-year profitability. If your business is grappling with a similar challenge, you’ll want to be sure you have the resources and cash flow to withstand operating at a loss for 11 months out of the year.
4. Organization and Management:
Spell out the details of ownership, including investors and show your organizational chart. Specify whether your business is a sole proprietorship, partnership or corporation, and if it’s the latter, what type.
5. Service or Product Line:
What do you sell, how will it help your customers, and how often will they need to replace it? The answers to those questions can be crucial factors in business sustainability . Include any patents or copyrights you own.
6. Marketing and Sales:
The best idea in the world won’t take off if you don’t let your potential customers know what you have. Are you going to rely on word of mouth, promotional discounts or advertising? Remember, your method will have to be tailored to your market. New York businesses are famous for paying people to stand on the sidewalk promoting everything from discounted pizza slices to bargain jewelry prices, but that doesn’t work nearly as well in cities without a high volume of foot traffic.
7. Funding Request:
You’ll want to include how much you need right now as well as how much more you might need over the next five years. A critical point is how you plan to repay borrowed money to creditors (if you opt for debt financing) or, alternatively, generate returns for investors. Both will want to know how you’re spending their money and when they’ll see a payoff.
8. Financial Projections:
If you need funding, provide realistic forecasts that show how you plan to generate future cash flow. Unless you’re borrowing from your parents, your funding sources will want to know. It’s easier if you can show recent financial statements and base your projections on those, since that will give lenders an idea of how realistic your numbers are.
Related: 11 Things That Can Spark Massive Success in Your Life
Michael Jones
Michael Jones is the Director of Community Management and Content at Bond Street, a company focused on making small business loans simple, transparent and fair.
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The Different Types of Business Plans
This article is part of our Business Planning Guide —a curated list of our articles that will help you with the planning process!
Business plans go by many names: Strategic plans, operational plans, internal plans, Lean Plans, and many others.
Lately, I’ve been focusing on the Lean Plan . There are also one-page business plans , although those are really more summaries . Of course, there are traditional business plans , which can also be called formal business plans, or wow-do-I-really-have-to-do-all-that business plans.
You might need different kinds of business plans depending on what you plan to use to accomplish. Like so many other things in business, the principle of form follows function applies. Different situations call for different types of business plans. An effective business plan will match its intended use. Knowing the specific use of a particular type of plan will help you build a better roadmap for the future of your business.
Let’s take a look at the types of business plans and their differences. You can click on the link to be taken directly to the section on that specific business plan if you’d like to jump ahead.
In this article, I’ll cover these different types of business plans:
- The Lean Plan that every business ought to have
- The standard business plan for those that need to present a plan to outsiders, such as banks or investors
- One-page business plans
- Business plans for startups
- Feasibility plans, internal plans, operations plan, annual plans, and strategic plans
The Lean Plan: Track and grow
All businesses can use a Lean Plan to manage strategy, tactics, dates, milestones , activities, and cash flow .
The Lean Plan is faster, easier, and more efficient than a formal business plan because it doesn’t include summaries, descriptions, and background details that you and your partners or employees already know.
It’s most useful if you’re trying to grow your business and want to use it as a tool to track your financials and milestones against what you projected so you can respond to opportunity and react to challenges quickly.
A Lean Plan includes specific deadlines and milestones, and the budgets allotted for meeting them, so your team is up to speed.
A Lean Plan includes four essential elements—all of them functions of general business management:
1. Your guiding strategy
Use simple bullet points to define your target market , business offering, underlying business identity, and long-term goals. No additional text is needed. These serve as a reminder for owners and managers.
2. Tactics you’ll use to execute strategy
Use bullet points again. These include marketing decisions such as pricing, channels, website, social media, promotion, and advertising.
Product or service tactics also apply here, including pricing, launch dates, bundles, configuration, new versions, and delivery or packaging. Other tactics might define positions to recruit, training required, and so forth.
3. Concrete specifics to measure your progress
List of assumptions, milestones, objective measurements of performance, task responsibilities, and what numbers to track.
4. Essential numbers
This is your company’s basic financial plan , including your sales forecast , spending budget, and cash flow .
You can monitor each of these areas using basic excel spreadsheets, but a business dashboard that quickly and easily shows you the difference between your forecast and your actuals can save you time. Ideally, you have software that compares your plan to actual results automatically.
The value of the Lean Plan starts with the plan, but that’s just the beginning. Real management is steering your business with a Lean Plan that you review and revise regularly , tracking progress and performance, and making regular course correction.
You can download our free Lean Plan Template for a jump start on the Lean Planning process.
The standard business plan: Get funding
These days, the standard business plan is shorter than ever before, and it’s also just as likely to be an online document as it is to be printed. You’ll need to put together a stand business plan if you have a business plan event, which is what we call it when a business needs to present a business plan to a bank, prospective investor, vendor, ally, partner, or employee.
The most standard business plan starts with an executive summary and includes sections or chapters covering the company , the product or service it sells, the target market , strategy and implementation milestones and goals , management team, and financial forecasting , and analysis. The exact order of topics is not important, but most people expect to see all of these topics covered as part of the standard plan.
Think of your Lean Plan as a good first draft of a standard plan. Those complete projections include the three essential financial projections (also called pro-forma statements): profit and loss , balance sheet , and cash flow . Every standard business plan needs sales plus these three essentials.
The projected cash flow is an essential part of a standard business plan. Businesses need cash to stay open, period. Even if a business can survive temporarily without profits, it still needs the cash to pay its bills. And since profits alone don’t guarantee cash in the bank, projected cash flow is essential.
Many standard plans also include a table for personnel spending. Some standard plans will need additional projections to meet the needs of the specific business plan event. For example, plans for seeking outside investment should include a discussion of an eventual exit for investors , and of course the planned use of the invested funds. Plans supporting a bank loan application might include projected ratios the bank wants to see, such as debt to equity, quick, or current ratios.
You can download our free business plan template to complete your standard business plan. Bplans also offers a library of free, downloadable sample plans to give you a better sense of what the finished product will look like.
One-page business plan: A quick summary
Some people refer to what they call a one-page business plan. This is a one-page summary that includes highlights only, used to offer a very quick overview of a business.
It is possible to summarize the target market, business offering, main milestones, and essential sales forecast in a single page. Such a summary can be useful as a summary for banks, potential investors, vendors, allies, and employees. A one-page business plan can also be called a business pitch . Download a one-page business plan template here .
What kind of business plan does a startup need?
Every startup deserves a business plan to break out the steps and requirements with educated guesses for important lists and numbers.
The business plan for a startup is sometimes called a startup plan, but some people think all business plans are for startups, and that only startups use business plans. That’s not the case, as planning should be part of business management.
In most cases, the best kind of business plan for a startup is a Lean Plan that, includes projected startup costs, startup steps, and milestones. Startup costs include expenses incurred before launch, such as legal expenses , branding costs , like logo and graphics, websites, signage, and fixing up the office or store; plus assets required, such as starting inventory, vehicles, equipment, office furniture, and—the hardest to estimate and most important—starting money in the bank.
While the Lean Plan with extra startup information is fine for most startups, when a startup requires funding from banks or investors , then its business plan looks more like the standard business plan, including a discussion of exit strategies for investors, and almost always stating the planned use of the funds required.
You can use this startup plan to discuss your options with potential partners and associates. This kind of no-frills plan is good for deciding whether or not to proceed with an idea, to help gauge whether this is a business worth pursuing. If you do decide to go into business, over time you can always go back to your business plan and make necessary edits and additions. As your business grows, you can flesh sections out and add details.
When the startup plan will be read by outsiders, it’s common courtesy to add an executive summary, a company overview, management team, and descriptions of the market, marketing plan, and product plan. Even if you don’t have the exact numbers yet, it’s always a smart idea to include a preliminary analysis of costs, pricing, and probable expenses.
Is a startup plan the same as a feasibility plan?
Some experts use the phrase “feasibility plan” to mean the same thing as a startup plan. Others use it to refer to specific steps taken to validate a technology, product, or market. For example, the feasibility plan for a new kind of brick kiln might include the steps to establish a working version in a laboratory, then a small prototype in the field, and then a first working product.
A feasibility plan for a product solution for a new market might involve getting early users and validating the idea with people willing to pay money for it. In some cases a feasibility plan involves getting a product or service posted onto a site like Kickstarter or its competitors, offering the product in advance of availability to people willing to commit to buying it later.
Feasibility plans rarely include the full range of topics one would expect in a standard business plan or even a Lean Plan. They tend to be focused on whether or not a product will work or a market exists, without the additional strategy, tactics, and financial projections. However, the term is used differently by different people, so if you hear this term from someone or plan to use it yourself, it’s best to get clarification.
How is an internal plan different from a standard business plan?
Internal plans are for the most part another name for what we call a Lean Plan.
Like the Lean Plan, they will reflect the needs of the members of your company. Since the purpose of an internal plan is specific to the people directly involved with the company, it will most likely be shorter and more concise than a fully detailed standard plan that you’d take to the bank.
Internal plans are not intended for banks, outside investors, or other third parties.
Operations plan or annual plan: Track goals and monitor progress
Operations plans or annual plans tend to be a lot like a Lean Plan with another name. Like the Lean Plan, an operations plan includes specific implementation milestones, project deadlines, and responsibilities of team members and managers.
This is the plan used for staying on track to meet your goals as a business. Planning for your goals as a business allows your company to assign priorities, focus on results, and track your progress. Your operations plan covers the inner workings of your business. It outlines the specifics of who should be doing what, and when they should be doing it.
Of course, cash flow figures prominently here as well. For example, your milestones will need to have sufficient funding for their implementation, and you’ll need to track your progress so you know how much you’re spending.
A growth or expansion plan
These could be Lean Plans or even standard business plans, but focusing on a specific area of a business, or a subset of the business.
For example, a plan for the creation of a new product is a growth plan. These plans could be internal plans or not, depending on whether they are being linked to loan applications or new investment. An expansion plan requiring new outside investment would probably need to include full company descriptions and background on the product, market, and management team, just the same as a standard plan for investors would. Loan applications would require this much detail as well.
However, an internal growth plan used to set up the steps for growth or expansion that is funded internally could skip these descriptions, just like a Lean Plan. It might not be necessary to include detailed financial projections for the company overall, but it should at least include detailed forecasts of sales and expenses for the new venture or product.
Strategic plan
The strategic plan is yet another phrase that people use differently, depending on the exact context.
Usually, a strategic plan is an internal plan, but without much detail about specifics and financial projections. It generally goes into more detail on strategy and tactics than the Lean Plan does, so it has more description and explanation. However, strategy is useless without execution , so a good strategic plan has to take implementation into account, which means some consideration for resources and time.
As you build the strategy for your company and decide how to implement it, you will want to examine your strengths and weaknesses as a business—you should include a SWOT analysis in your strategic plan. Here are some SWOT examples .
What does your company do well? As your company grows, you want to play to your strengths. Strategy is often a matter of selecting the right opportunities. Resources should be funneled strategically to the areas where they will provide the biggest overall benefits.
Strategy plans are much more likely to be something for the larger enterprise, in which teams of high-level management and sometimes expensive consultants develop a broad-brush, high-level strategy.
In businesses that don’t have thousands of employees, strategy rarely exists in a vacuum and is almost always developed as part of a business plan, lean or standard. Once you have an idea of your strategy, you must have a plan for implementing it. This is where the milestones portion of the plan becomes key.
To effectively execute your strategies, it’s critical to assign responsibilities and have a schedule for following through. The implementation tactics you use will actively move you in the right direction toward achieving your goals. And that is essentially the function of a business plan.
Resources for moving forward
Reading about the different types of business plans is a good jumping-off point in the process of creating a business plan.
If you’re looking for more information about business plans and how to write them, you’ll find our sample business plan library and our guide to writing a detailed business plan to be helpful resources.
You might also want to check out our business plan template available through our software, LivePlan . Or, if you’d rather leave it up to the pros, you can always have an MBA write your business plan for you in five business days with LivePlan’s business plan consulting.
Tim Berry is the founder and chairman of Palo Alto Software and Bplans.com. Follow him on Twitter @Timberry .
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Don’t waste your precious time browsing other services. We provide you with everything you need while you are enjoying yourself by doing things you really enjoy. ‘Write my paper then! Do my paper for me right now!’ If you are ready to exclaim these words with delight, we welcome you to our haven, a place where students spend their time serenely and never worry about papers! It’s your turn to have fun, whereas our mission is to provide you with the best papers delivered on time!
Questions our customers ask
Can someone write my paper for me.
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6 essential elements of a good business plan
Entrepreneurs, executives and venture capitalists discuss how to craft a business plan that will impress investors and be a good road map for your company.
Whether you are just starting out and need startup investment or are looking to expand your business and raise capital, a business plan is a must. Indeed, a business plan is not only essential if you want to get people to invest in your idea, it can help you articulate what it is you hope to accomplish with your business – your mission, goal(s) and values – and plot the company’s growth trajectory.
However, to be successful, a business plan cannot just be a bulleted list of an entrepreneur’s thoughts and musings, hopes and dreams. It needs to be a serious business document with the following six elements.
1. Executive summary
“An executive summary is the ‘elevator pitch’ of your business plan,” explains David Mercer, founder, SME Pals , a blog dedicated to helping entrepreneurs. “More often than not, landing a new investor relies on hooking them with a great elevator pitch. Without grabbing their attention, your business plan, no matter how well researched and presented, may not stand out enough.”
The executive summary should, in brief, describe the “problem you are going to solve, and why that problem needs to be solved right now,” by you, says Peter Arvai, CEO, Prezi presentation software. “If you aren’t able to communicate that deeper purpose to others, you will have a very hard time convincing investors to fund your idea and people to join your team.”
Tip: Write the Executive Summary last, after you’ve done all your research and put everything down on paper.
[ Related: 12 tips for creating a must-read business blog ]
2. Description and bios of your leadership/executive team
“The entrepreneur should clearly demonstrate what they are bringing to this venture – the idea, the technical ability or the passion,” says Hossein Rahnama, founder & CEO, Flybits . “Investors want to understand how you will execute using your personal strength.”
You should also “talk about the leadership team,” says Andrew Witkin, CEO, StickerYou . “If the leadership team has a previous track record of building and delivering businesses, this should be highlighted. Business plans serve multiple purposes, but one of them is to build trust, and the team is as important as the product to potential investors and partners.”
“Investors bet on jockeys, not horses, and knowing about who will execute on an idea is key to an investor making an investment decision,” says Richard J. Foster, president, Foster Management & Holdings . “Very frequently I’ll see multiple companies with the same idea, but the one to invest in is the one with the team who has the experience and the credentials to succeed. Having the best idea with the wrong team is a recipe for failure, but proving that your team is the [right] one to execute [your idea] can make all of the difference.”
3. Description of your product(s) or service(s)
“When developing a business plan, it’s crucial to clearly [explain] the need your product or service is trying to address,” says Elena Filimonova, senior vice president, global marketing and strategy, CGS . “Your business plan should highlight how the product or service will address the need, what is unique about your offering and why it would be difficult to replicate. To do this, you should outline key differentiators, features and why the product or service is something that stands out in the market.”
[ Related: 11 ways to build your online brand ]
4. Market/competitive analysis
“Every business plan should have a section that defines the target sales market – who you are selling to,” says Victor Clarke, owner, Clarke Inc. “This is the part that requires considerable research into areas such as industry sales data related to the service or product you are selling and trends within the industry. You should look at competitors and see who they are targeting, look at your current customer base and create a profile of an ideal customer or client for your product.”
“For a business plan to be effective and attractive to investors and partners, you must be able to provide tangible data and information that supports the notion that your demographic is strong and growing, and that market trends support the continued need for your service or product offering,” says Brock Murray, cofounder & COO, seoplus+ .
[ Related: 7 attributes of a successful CMO in the digital age ]
“Sequoia Capital has a great framework that every business plan should use: separate your Total Addressable Market (everyone who conceivably needs your product category), Serviceable Addressable Market (everyone who needs your specific product or service, limited by factors like where you can do business) and Serviceable Obtainable Market (the portion of the market you can realistically capture),” says Christopher S. Penn, vice president, Marketing Technology, SHIFT Communications . “For example, lots of companies say everyone is a customer, and while that may be a TAM, if the company has only one salesperson, their SOM is significantly smaller. VCs and investors especially want to understand what’s realistically obtainable, and splitting out your addressable markets… shows them you’re not just presenting pipe dreams.”
Also be sure to “include a competitive analysis section,” says Bryan Robertson, founder & chief revenue officer, Mindyra . “Every business has competition, so it’s a good idea to research companies in your industry who are fighting for the same customers. You should include specific details about their strengths and weaknesses. This forces you to become very familiar with your market. It also encourages you to think of ways to differentiate your business [from] the competition.”
5. Financials (how much cash you need and when you’ll pay it back)
“Make sure that the plan goes into exacting detail about how much startup capital will be needed, where it will come from and how it will be paid back,” says Bruce Stetar, executive director, Graduate Business Programs, SNHU . “Equal importance should be given to how you [plan to] pay back capital as how you acquire it. Investors want to know when they will see a return. Failing to plan adequately for capital acquisition and payback is one of the chief reasons that new businesses fail.”
“Whether you’re hoping to receive funding to build a brick-and-mortar shop or a technology venture, you must have your numbers straight,” says Erica Swallow, founder & CEO, Southern Swallow . “For tech entrepreneurs, I’m a big fan of the startup financial model template developed by startup investor David Teten, in collaboration with a couple of colleagues. Based in a nearly fully-automated Excel worksheet, it enables early-stage entrepreneurs to map out their financial plan, without being too overwhelming. It’s the best startup financial model I’ve encountered over the past five years.”
6. Marketing plan
“It is critical to have a plan [for] how you are going to spend your marketing budget,” says Deborah Sweeney, CEO, MyCorporation . “Assess different options (paid search, salespeople, flyers, [social media], etc.) and the associated ROI with each.”
“The plan should cover both sales and advertising strategies and costs,” says Stetar, as well as customer acquisition costs. “Be conservative here since you will look good if your over achieve but it will cost you investor confidence if you under achieve.”
A successful business plan is one is easy to read and follow
You need to make your business plan easy to read and follow. “There’s nothing more daunting than to receive an all-text business plan, 30 pages in length,” says Swallow. “Keep your potential investors engaged by including product and user photos, team headshots, colorful headings, financial graphs, charts, tables, anything to make reading more of a pleasure. Even bullet points help.”
Indeed, “don’t underestimate the importance of visuals,” says Arvai. “Researchers have found that presentations using visual aids are, on average, 43 percent more persuasive than those without.”
Finally, before you go public with your plan, “have trusted mentors and expert peers look over it [and give you] their feedback,” says Sam Lundin, CEO, Vimbly . “Having [someone] review your business plan [before you present it to investors] is crucial.”
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Who will write my paper when I order it?
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Every applicant passes a complex procedure of tests to become one of our permanent writers. First of all, they should provide their credentials. We need to make sure that any prospective writers we hire have the proper experience.. The next step resides in passing a series of tests related to grammar, in addition to subject and/or discipline. Every paper-writer must pass them to prove their competency and their selected field of expertise.
One more step includes writing a sample to prove the ability to research and write consistently. Moreover, we always set our heart on hiring only devoted writers. When you ask us to write your essay or other academic works, you can be sure that they always do their best to provide you with well-structured and properly-written papers of high quality.
The final chord is related to special aspects of academic paper-writing. It means that every writer is prepared to cite properly, use different styles, and so on, so you don’t have to be worried about formatting at all.
‘So, can they write an ideal paper for me?’ We answer in the affirmative because we select only the best writers for our customers. Approximately 11% of all applicants can pass the whole set of tests and are ready to help you. All writers are fully compensated for their work and are highly motivated to provide you with the best results.
We are online 24/7 so that you could monitor the process of paper-writing and contact us whenever necessary. Don’t forget that your satisfaction is our priority. Our writers fully focus on your order when it comes to the ‘write my paper’ procedure. Our managers will immediately send all the information to your writer if any corrections are required.
It’s time to write my paper! What should I do?
‘I am ready to pay to have a paper written! Where do I start?’ Our team hears these words every day. We really believe that every student should be happy. That’s why we offer you to look at the simple steps to make the process even more convenient.
- Fill in the comprehensible order form located on the main page of our website. If you need some help with it, feel free to contact our support team.
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- Pay the total price. Submit a preferred payment method. The full sum will be deposited into your account on our website. The money will be transferred to your writer in case you approve the paper.
- If you have additional materials provided by your professor or may simply assist in writing your paper, please attach them too. They will help the assigned writer meet your professor’s expectations.
Every paper we can write for you is expertly-researched, well-structured, and consistent. Take a look at some types of papers we can help you with:
- Dissertations
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Questions like ‘I would like you to write a paper for me without destroying my reputation. Can you promise to do so?’ or ‘Can you write my paper for me cheap and fast?’ often arise, and we take pride that these options are included in the list. Your safety and anonymity are parts of our common priority, which is to make you fully satisfied with all offered services.
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Don’t hesitate and hire a writer to work on your paper now!
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‘When you write my paper for me? Can I monitor the process?’ Naturally, you can. We understand that you may want to ensure that everything is going well. Furthermore, there may be situations when some corrections are needed. We believe that a tool like this can come in handy. The assigned writer will strictly follow your and your professor’s requirements to make sure that your paper is perfect.
‘Is it possible to write my essay from scratch?’ We don’t do just proofreading or editing. Our goal is to fully carry your burden of writing. When this or similar questions appear, we always assure our customers that our writers can do whatever they need. Apart from writing from scratch or editing and proofreading, our experts can effortlessly cope with problem-solving of all kinds;even sophisticated software assignments!
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As we learned in the " What is a Business Plan? " article, a business plan generally consists of the following sections: Executive Summary Company Synopsis Market Analysis / Overview Product (How it Works) Revenue Model Operating Model Competitive Analysis Customer Definition Customer Acquisition Traction Management Team Funding
The most important parts of a business plan include: 1. Executive summary The executive summary is the first and one of the most critical parts of a business plan. This summary provides an overview of the business plan as a whole and highlights what the business plan will cover.
Above all, the numbers should help answer why your business can do it better. 4. Competitive Analysis. A good business plan will present a clear comparison of your business vs your direct and indirect competitors. This is where you prove your knowledge of the industry by breaking down their strengths and weaknesses.
The 4 must-have elements of a business plan 1. Executive summary 2. Marketing plan 3. Key management bios 4. Financial plan Key lessons on the 4 key components of a business plan Next steps for creating your own business plan A quick look at all the sections of a full-length business plan
The remaining five business plan sections focus mainly on strategy, primarily the marketing, operational, financial and management strategies that your firm will employ. 6. Marketing, Sales & Product Plan The marketing and sales plan component of your business plan details your strategy for penetrating the target markets.
Here are the main sections of a business plan: 1. Title Page The title page captures the legal information of the business, which includes the registered business name, physical address, phone number, email address, date, and the company logo. 2. Executive Summary
For example, the language in your business plan might be different depending on who you want to highlight your business to. Here are the 9 essential components of a business plan. 1. Executive Summary. Your executive summary is going to be at the front of your plan and be one of the first things that someone reads.
Not every Business Plan will be the exactly same, but every Plan should incorporate several key elements. The Parts of the Plan. Here are the key pieces to a solid Business Plan. Title page. The title, or heading, of the plan, and very brief description of the business. The date; The name of the owner; The company name and location
Also called Financial Data or The Deal and includes subsections such as Uses of Funds, Income Statements, Cash Flow Statement, Balance Sheet, Cash Flow Forecast, Profit and Loss Forecast, Income Projection, Sales Revenue Forecast, Income Forecast, Capital Spending Plan, Assumptions, Budget and Break-Even Analysis.
Most strategic plans include five main components: Company mission statement Company vision Key factors for company success Strategies to meet goals Implementation deadline Strategic plans are usually for internal purposes only as a foundational plan for an entire organization.
A business plan can take many forms, depending on the venture. A four-person management consulting firm may produce a leaner plan focused on service expertise and industry experience compared to a 20-employee widget maker, which would also have to describe products, manufacturing techniques, competitive forces and marketing needs, among other details.
However, the most important function that a great Executive Summary serves is communicating to the reader why they should read the rest of the business plan, and why you want them to. 2. Business Overview. After the Executive Summary, a business plan starts with a comprehensive explanation of what your business proposition is and how it relates ...
This opens the possibility for four strategies, as outlined by the popular Ansoff Matrix, managers should always check and use: • Retention strategy: selling existing products — or services ...
4. Realistic. While it is a fact that all business plans are wrong, assumptions, drivers, deadlines, milestones, and such should be realistic, not crazy. The plan is to be executed. Impossible goals and crazy forecasts make the whole thing a waste of time. 5. Short, sweet, easy-to-read summaries of strategy and tactics.
Business plans can be divided roughly into four distinct types. There are very short plans, or miniplans, presentation plans or decks, working plans, and what-if plans. They each require very ...
4. Organization and Management: Spell out the details of ownership, including investors and show your organizational chart. Specify whether your business is a sole proprietorship, partnership or ...
In this article, I'll cover these different types of business plans: The Lean Plan that every business ought to have. The standard business plan for those that need to present a plan to outsiders, such as banks or investors. One-page business plans. Business plans for startups. Feasibility plans, internal plans, operations plan, annual plans ...
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Here are 10 sections of a business plan that you may wish to include: 1. Executive summary This is an essential part of a successful business plan that often takes the most time to complete. It's also one that you may consider completing last, even though it's usually the first thing that the reader sees.
2. Description and bios of your leadership/executive team "The entrepreneur should clearly demonstrate what they are bringing to this venture - the idea, the technical ability or the passion ...
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