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Business Planning
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If you are going to start a business you should first develop a plan. A business plan is a written document that details your business idea. This document should contain information about what kind of business you will build, how you will start it, how it will operate and set short/long term goals.

The reason you need a business plan is to make sure you know how you will get from point A to point B. If you just dive into business without a play you wont have a clear idea of how you will become the success you dream of and will have to make many decisions quickly and without taking time to research or think them through.

Your business plan is the roadmap to success, without it you can easily take a wrong turn and get lost on the way. This plan is also a roadmap you can show to potential investors, clients, suppliers and others you will form relationships with in building your business.

What a business plan should have.

A business plan that follows the accepted guidelines for their content and form will have three main sections; concept, marketplace and financial. The three sections will together describe the goals, strategies, how to deal with possible problems, organization and financial information about how to fund the startup and pay for continued operations.

The three sections are further broken down into 7 components; executive summary, business description, market strategies, competitive analysis, development, management and operations and financial.

The concept section.

In the concept section you will describe the basic idea behind your business, the industry and how your business fits in, particulars about your product or service and a general plan giving an overview of how you will make the business a success.

This part of the business plan is where you get to define all of the concepts and ideas that are at the heart of your goals. Here you get to dream on paper, you will need to describe what services or products are offered, how they will meet a need in the marketplace and what is unique about your ideas.

The marketplace section.

In this section you define what you believe your potential clients or customers will be. You will study and report how your product or services will be received and how you will reach and sell to that marketplace.

You will need to do extensive market research to be sure you can make money from this idea. No matter how great you think your business is going to be you need customers to make it happen. You need to identify where your market is or how to reach them with your offering. Should you focus on online advertising? Newspaper ads? Billboards on 5th and Main?

Who is the competition? This is a question you need to answer in this part of your business plan. You not only need to accurately identify your competition but you also need to map out how you will beat the competition and take a share of the market.

You may discover issues as you make this part of your plan that sends you back to the first section to make some alterations. You need to be flexible in your business plan and know that you may rewrite parts of it more than once.

The financial section.

In the financial section of your business proposal you need to first define how you will fund the start up of your new business. Will the money come out of your pocket? From loans? From investors?

You will probably need help from an accountant to complete this step. You need to develop cash flow and income statements, a balance sheet, break-even analyses and many other items that define the financial aspects of your business.

It is important to develop a plan in this section for how the businesses money will be spent or used. It is equally important to define how you fund your company over the first few years.

What else?

A business plan is not complete without a cover letter, title page and a table of contents. Each section and component should be clearly identified. Remember the purpose of a business plan is to define a new business (or define a new aspect to an existing business) in such a way that any one reading it will know how to start, operate and profit from you business.

The size of your plan will vary depending on its complexity and how you plan to use it. If the business concept is very simple or you plan to use the business plan as your own private guide then it can be quite short. On the other hand a complex business may require a plan that is 100s of pages long.

Conclusion.

The business plan is your road map and extremely important if you go to find financing or are looking for investors. Banks and other financial institutions will thoroughly go through your business plan when deciding if they should lend you money or invest in your idea.