Over the past few months, I have been helping a client develop the business plan for his entrepreneural dream. It has been very enjoyable on my part and sometimes enjoyable on his, largely because I already knew all of the research and data that goes into planning your business and he did not. While the end result will be a plan of about 10 pages, it has taken more than six months to compile enough data to convince investors he has a clue.
This adventure has inspired me to begin an eight week series where we will cover the components of a business plan and how to create a road map for success. The idea being to allow entrepreneurs the opportunity to see a cohesive business plan and have the ability to ask questions, tell about successes and failures or restructure your current plan. While there are many templates online, many for free, I like the simplicity of the plans found on www.bplans.com and will be using portions of their structure as we progress.
Week 1 - The Executive Summary
The Executive Summary is the synopsis of your business plan and should be written at the very end. After all, how can you summarize that which has not been written. In many financing situation your executive summary and financial statements will be the basis for the financier’s decision. The remaining pages support your contention that you have an idea that is viable, marketable and at some point, profitable. While you are not going to write the executive summary until the end, you can still research the other components of the executive summary, which include:
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Vision Statement
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Mission Statement
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Keys to Success
Vision Statement
The vision statement is where you describe where you see the company going in the future. This is more relevent to existing companies seeking expansion investing, but not a bad idea for start-up businesses to contemplate as they develop their year two and three goals.
Mission Statement
The mission statement describes why you are in business. What were the needs and circumstances that caused you to want to start your business. Here you can include graphs and charts of industry data showing trends and other indicators that make your company relevant to the consumer.
Keys to Success
This will be where you bullet point key factors that will make your business prosper. Information such liquidity, area demographics, economic factors, market conditions, and any other factor that will increase the likelihood of your business’ success.
Summary
If you have never had to do a business plan, these components may seem as though they overlap information and that is a fair summation to an extent. I want you to consider it as weaving a web designed to support your business, so there will be many points where information intersects, but as we draw closer to completion, you will better understand the necessity.