Everything You Need to Know About Writing a Business Plan

Preparing a business plan is one of the most important actions in order for companies to achieve sustainable growth. There are certain topics that are globally accepted and proved to be effective when it comes to business plans that serve as action plans for companies and as strong reference points both for potential customers and for investors. So, what is a business plan and how to write it?

What is a Business Plan?

A “business plan” is a document that contains your company’s goals, methods which will be used in reaching these goals and a timesheet. It contains your company’s objectives, business model, financial plans and much more. 

What are the Benefits of Preparing a Business Plan?

A business plan plays a crucial role both for your potential customers and your investors. Your business plan is a tool that will help you to see the data you collect much more clearly, to analyze them and to better manage your growth goals. When this plan is prepared well, it functions as a road map to make your business grow. 

What Information Should be on Your Business Plan? 

A business plan is much more than a document that contains your professional goals and methods. It is also a document that is, in the light of main topics to be followed, much easier to write than what it appears to be and quite plain. In this sense, here are the most important topic that you should have on your business plan: 

1) A Brief Summary of Your Business

One of the first and most important steps to follow while preparing a business plan is to identify and explain your business and what you do, what kind of products and services you offer briefly and clearly. In this step, the trick is to not go into too much detail and not skipping on spots that will allow the summary to be understandable. 

2) Your Business Model

This is the part where you outline the structure of the business model your company adopts legally and in business phylosophy with broad strokes. For instance, if you are adopting the employee stock ownership plan (ESOP), you must explain this and identify your partnership rates in light of today’s conditions and future predictions. At the same time, you should clearly and briefly explain the position of the employees and managers, who play a key role in your company under “business model”. 

3) Your Products

There are globally accepted standards when it comes to “products” topic in business plans: How the product or the service functions, the pricing strategy, potential customer personas, what kind of advantages your product or service has over your competitors etc. You must explain your products or services comprehensively but clearly make use of these topics. 

4) Financial Goals

One of the most important topics you should include in your business plan is financial goals, especially if you are a startup, looking to collect investments. This topic will be providing your investors ideas over how you will be making profit within the general frame of your company.  Meanwhile, it is crucially important to be realistic and open when it comes to future planning prepared in light of data based on the financial past of your company. In addition, it will be beneficial to present your goals with past sales, spending and profit rates. 

5) Marketing

Your marketing strategy is another topic that you must include in your business plan. The plan you will create in order to understand how you will attract potential customers to your product or service, must be created taking the following elements into account: How to make your company more appealing for your potential audience, how to create customer loyalty, how to create a sustainable brand value etc. 

BTM is an establishment that supports startups during their growth process and in the process of commercializing new business ideas by offering various services. In this article we talked about important topics of the business world, elements of preparing a business plan and some valuable key points. You can check out BTM’s content for more elements and more information which you can adapt to your company.