A solid business plan is your first step on the road to success.

“To secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands…” Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Before you can hope for success in business, you need to know exactly what else you want: Where do you want to go? When do you want to get there? How do you want to travel? And what’s your starting point?

A business plan is used primarily to convince financial backers to invest in a business, but even if you are planning a one-person, work-from-home, low-investment, low-overhead company, the business plan can help you in a number of way.

Don’t panic: Writing a business plan is not difficult. You’ve already done most of the work in your head; now you just need to put those thoughts on paper. A business plan is just the hard copy version of your brilliant ideas.

What Can a Business Plan Do For You?

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  1. It will help you spot potential problems and ward off catastrophe
  2. It will help you organize your ideas.
  3. It will reveal gaps that exist in your mental plan.
  4. It will help you define your talents, skills, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and liabilities.
  5. It will help you determine where you are now and give you an idea of where you’ll be in the future.
  6. It will help you make decisions about the nature and future of your business.
  7. It will help you define your goals for the company.
  8. It will send a message to employees, customers, and potential investors, telling them that you are organized, business-like, and bound for success.

There is no hard-and-fast rule for writing a business plan, so take the basic elements outlined below and modify them to suit your needs. Then pretend you’re a potential investor, a potential client, or your own competition, and read over the plan you’ve devised. What questions would those people ask after seeing your plan? Do you have answers for them? If not, go back to the beginning and think through your plan one more time.

What Goes Into a Business Plan? Any or All of These:

  • Cover page
  • Table of contents
  • Executive summary
  • Market analysis
  • History and description of your company
  • Marketing strategy
  • Organization overview
  • Product or service description
  • Funding request
  • Financial data
  • Appendix

Let’s take those items one by one and see just how simple this really is.

Cover Page Contains:

  1. The name of your business.
  2. The name, address, and phone number of the contact person.