The Business Plan

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What is a Business Plan?

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The primary value of your business plan will be to create a written outline that evaluates all aspects of the economic viability of your business venture including a description and analysis of your business prospects.

Since this course is broken down into twelve of the most important aspects to consider in starting a business, your business plan can follow this same format. Included in this session and in each of the following sessions there is a sample business plan outline covering each subject. When you put these all together, you will have a starting model for your overall plan.

A business plan is an essential step for any prudent entrepreneur to take, regardless of the size of the business. This step is too often skipped, but we make it easy for you by providing a format to build your plan as you progress through this course.

Business plans can vary enormously. Libraries and bookstores have books devoted to business plan formats. But this course is a place to start. You can then go on from here to design one that would be ideal for your particular enterprise.

Be aware now that most start-up entrepreneurs are reluctant to write down their business plan. It is therefore strongly recommended that you complete each segment of the plan as you progress through this course. We make it easy for you by providing sample plans for both product and service businesses and also an attractive blank form that you can download onto MS Word and customize yourself.

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Why Prepare a Business Plan?

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Your business plan is going to be useful in a number of ways. Here are some of the reasons not to skip this valuable tool.

• First and foremost, it will define and focus your objective using appropriate information and analysis.
• You can use it as a selling tool in dealing with important relationships including your lenders, investors and banks.
• You can use the plan to solicit opinions and advice from people, including those in your intended field of business, who will freely give you invaluable advice. Too often, entrepreneurs forge ahead ("My Way!") without the benefit of input from experts who could save them a great deal of wear and tear. "My Way" is a great song, but in practice can result in unnecessary hardships.
• Your business plan can uncover omissions and/or weaknesses in your planning process.

What to Avoid in Your Business Plan Place some reasonable limits on long-term, future projections. (Long-term means over one year.) Better to stick with short-term objectives and modify the plan as your business progresses. Too often, long-range planning becomes meaningless because the reality of your business can be different from your initial concept.

Avoid optimism. In fact, to offset optimism, be extremely conservative in predicting capital requirements, timelines, sales and profits. Few business plans correctly anticipate how much money and time will be required.

Do not ignore spelling out what your strategies will be in the event of business adversities.

Use simple language in explaining the issues. Make it easy to read and understand.

Don't depend entirely on the uniqueness of your business or even a patented invention. Success comes to those who start businesses with great economics and not necessarily great inventions.

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Business Plan Format: A Systematic Assessment of all the Factors Critical to Your Business Purpose and Goals

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Here are some suggested topics you can tailor into your plan:

• A vision statement: This will be a concise outline of what your business purpose and goals will be.
• The people: By far the most important ingredient for your success will be yourself. Focus on how your prior experiences will be applicable to your new business. Prepare a resume of yourself and one for each person who will be involved with you in starting the business. Be factual and avoid hype. This part of your business plan will be read very carefully by those with whom you will be having relationships, including lenders, investors and vendors. Templates for preparing resumes are available in your library, Kinko's, bookstores and the Internet under "resumes."

  However, you cannot be someone who you are not. If you lack the ability to perform a key function, include this in your business plan. For example, if you lack the ability to train staff, include an explanation how you will compensate for this deficiency. You could add a partner to your plan (discussed in Section 4) or plan to hire key people who will provide skills you don't have. Include biographies of all your intended management.

• Your business profile: Define and describe your intended business and exactly how you plan to go about it. Try to stay focused on the specialized market you intend to serve.
• Economic assessment: Provide a complete assessment of the economic environment in which your business will become a part. Explain how your business will be appropriate for the regulatory agencies and demographics with which you will be dealing. If appropriate, provide demographic studies and traffic flow data normally available from local planning departments.
• Cash flow assessment: Include a one-year cash flow that will incorporate your capital requirements ( covered in Lesson #7). Include your assessment of what could go wrong and how you would plan to handle problems.
• Include your marketing plan and expansion plans.
• Refer to helpful government websites such as the Small Business Administration. See "Resources" on the home page of this website.

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Six Steps to a Great Business Plan

Start-up entrepreneurs often have difficulty writing out business plans. This discipline is going to help you in many ways so don't skip this planning tool! To make it easier, here are six steps that will get you to a worthwhile plan:

1. Write out your basic business concept.
2. Gather all the data you can on the feasibility and the specifics of your business concept.
3. Focus and refine your concept based on the data you have compiled.
4. Outline the specifics of your business. Using a "What, where, why, how" approach might be useful.
5. Put your plan into a compelling form so that it will not only give you insights and focus but, at the same time, will become a valuable tool in dealing with business relationships that will be very important to you.
6. Review the sample plans we furnish and download the blank format to a MS Word document. Fill this in as you progress though the course.

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Check Out If Your Plan Includes The Following Necessary Factors Which Will Produce A Successful Business

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• A sound business concept. The single most common mistake made by entrepreneurs is not picking the right business to begin with. The best way to learn about your prospective business is to work for someone else in that business before beginning your own. There can be a huge gap between your concept of a fine business and reality.
• Understanding of your market. A good way to test your understanding is to test market your product or service before your start. You think you have a great kite that will capture the imagination of kite fliers throughout the world? Then hand-make some of them and try selling them first.
• A healthy, growing and stable industry. Remember that some of the great inventions of all time, like airplanes and cars, did not result in economic benefit for many of those who tried to exploit these great advances. For example, the cumulative earnings of all airlines since Wilber Wright flew that first plane are less than zero. (Airline losses have been greater than their profits.) Success comes to those who find businesses with great economics and not necessarily great inventions or advances to mankind.
• Capable management. Look for people who you like and admire, have good ethical values, have complementary skills and are smarter than you. Plan to hire people who have the skills that you lack. Define your unique ability and seek out others who turn your weaknesses into strengths.
• Able financial control. You will learn later the importance of becoming qualified in accounting, computer software and cash flow management. Most entrepreneurs do not come from accounting backgrounds and must go back to school to learn these skills. Would you bet your savings in a game where you don't know how to keep score? People mistakenly do it in business all the time.
• A consistent business focus. If you think of specific products or services you will find that specialists will outperform non-specialists. Zero in on something you can do so well that you will not be subject to competing with someone with a lower price.

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Business Plan for Sessions 1 and 2: The Business Profile, the Vision and the People.

Now is the time for you to review the sample plans we have provided. This will help you in formatting your own plan. For some tips on appropriate information to fill in, refer to the sample business plans:

Sample Business Plan (Product): Widget Corporation

MS Word

Sample Business Plan (Service): Smith E-Commerce Consulting

MS Word

You can now begin to assemble your business plan. If you have not yet selected a business, you can pick one out to practice on. Remember, we have provided attractive, individual business templates for each session that you can download as Microsoft Word documents or as printer friendly web pages. So start now!

Section 1: The Business Profile

MS Word

Section 2: The Vision and the People

MS Word

Instructions on filling in the business plan template:

1. Each box has a permanent title in CAPITAL LETTERS
2. Below each title is a sentence starting with an "Insert here…" sentence. This will suggest information to insert. The boxes will enlarge as you take up more room so use all the space you need.
3. After completing each box, delete the "Insert here" sentence, which will leave only the permanent title of the box and the information you have filled in.

We suggest that you fill in each section of the business plan
as you proceed through the course.

The template for all sessions 1-12 can also be downloaded into your computer as a single document:

Section 1-12: All

MS Word

Include sufficient research findings and background materials. Make it interesting up by the use of background data, your biography, charts, demographics and research data. When your business plan is completed, print off and assemble the 12 sections.

Many other business plan formats are available in libraries, bookstores and software.

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SESSION 2 Quiz: The Business Plan

Proceed to Session 3: Basic Computer and Communication Tools