Before explaining the essential characteristics that your business plan must have to succeed, we will refresh the memory. In our miniseries, we already saw that the first step to becoming an entrepreneur is to draw up a business plan and that is very important because it depends on the success or failure of a company.
This is how we defined it in our article: “The business plan and/or the business plan is a written and detailed summary of the business idea and includes all the important and essential information that is relevant to the company. It basically contains a description of the product, an analysis of the target groups, a calculation of the potential and risks, the goals and strategies of the company, marketing and, very importantly, a financial plan. ”
Now that we have reviewed what it is, in today’s article we propose a guide to writing the best business plan for your company to help you achieve your goals. Let’s go there!
BASIC RULES FOR WRITING A GOOD BUSINESS PLAN
1.KEEP IT SHORT AND SIMPLE
Bury the obsolete idea that a business plan should be something long and formal. Your main goal is to be read by all the people who collaborate in developing your idea, so you should keep it short, concise and accessible.
Ideally, it should occupy a page and have only some key points to focus your strategy, help you achieve your goals and responsibilities and contain the basic financial projections to foresee budgetary expenses.
Do not print it if it is not necessary. Save it on your computer, review it and update it regularly. Remember: a business plan is a dynamic document, not static, that changes as you successfully achieve the goals you set for yourself.
2. ADAPT IT TO YOUR AUDIENCE
So important is to keep your business plan short and simple as adapted to your audience.
If for example most of the people who read it are investors and do not understand scientific, medical or technological terms, depending on what your company develops, use a language as understandable as possible, clear and concise so they can understand the basic idea.
3. SECTIONS THAT YOUR BUSINESS PLAN SHOULD CONTAIN
Here is a list of the sections that your business plan should contain, with a basic explanation of them.
- Executive Summary. It is a summary of the general idea of your business and your plan.
- Company structure. A quick view of the legal structure of your company and location, as well as the most relevant of its history.
- Products and services. You must highlight what you currently sell and how you are solving a problem or need in your target market.
- Target market. Write down what your target market is and if you have more than one debit it here.
- Marketing and sales plan. Write in this section how you will reach your target audience and what marketing and sales tactics you will use.
- Goals and measures of success. If you have already achieved some goals in the development of your business write them here, as well as how you measure the success of these goals.
- Executive team. In addition to looking for good ideas, investors are also looking for a good executive team. Describe here the members of your team of bosses and who else you have to hire.
- Financial plan. You can not skip this step since every business must have a financial plan. Write the projections for the first 12 months and the annual projections for the next 3 or 5 years.
- Appendix. If you need more space to include the images of the products or additional information, use the appendix at the end of your business plan.
These are the basic points that a good business plan should contain. This guide is not the only one that exists, you can follow other guides, but they will all contain these basic points. Adapt them to the needs of your company and your audience and do not lose sight of the objective of your business to improve day after day!
Do you already have a business plan? We will be happy to know how you have written it and if you have included aspects that do not appear on the list that we have proposed today.
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