importance of business plan layout

Sign up for our newsletter for product updates, new blog posts, and the chance to be featured in our Small Business Spotlight!

The importance of a business plan

Business plans are like road maps: it’s possible to travel without one, but that will only increase the odds of getting lost along the way.

Owners with a business plan see growth 30% faster than those without one, and 71% of the fast-growing companies have business plans . Before we get into the thick of it, let’s define and go over what a business plan actually is.

What is a business plan?

A business plan is a 15-20 page document that outlines how you will achieve your business objectives and includes information about your product, marketing strategies, and finances. You should create one when you’re starting a new business and keep updating it as your business grows.

Rather than putting yourself in a position where you may have to stop and ask for directions or even circle back and start over, small business owners often use business plans to help guide them. That’s because they help them see the bigger picture, plan ahead, make important decisions, and improve the overall likelihood of success. ‍

Why is a business plan important?

A well-written business plan is an important tool because it gives entrepreneurs and small business owners, as well as their employees, the ability to lay out their goals and track their progress as their business begins to grow. Business planning should be the first thing done when starting a new business. Business plans are also important for attracting investors so they can determine if your business is on the right path and worth putting money into.

Business plans typically include detailed information that can help improve your business’s chances of success, like:

• A market analysis : gathering information about factors and conditions that affect your industry
• Competitive analysis : evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors
• Customer segmentation : divide your customers into different groups based on specific characteristics to improve your marketing
• Marketing: using your research to advertise your business
• Logistics and operations plans : planning and executing the most efficient production process
• Cash flow projection : being prepared for how much money is going into and out of your business
• An overall path to long-term growth

10 reasons why you need a business plan

I know what you’re thinking: “Do I really need a business plan? It sounds like a lot of work, plus I heard they’re outdated and I like figuring things out as I go...”.

The answer is: yes, you really do need a business plan! As entrepreneur Kevin J. Donaldson said, “Going into business without a business plan is like going on a mountain trek without a map or GPS support—you’ll eventually get lost and starve! Though it may sound tedious and time-consuming, business plans are critical to starting your business and setting yourself up for success.

To outline the importance of business plans and make the process sound less daunting, here are 10 reasons why you need one for your small business.

1. To help you with critical decisions

The primary importance of a business plan is that they help you make better decisions. Entrepreneurship is often an endless exercise in decision making and crisis management. Sitting down and considering all the ramifications of any given decision is a luxury that small businesses can’t always afford. That’s where a business plan comes in.

Building a business plan allows you to determine the answer to some of the most critical business decisions ahead of time.

Creating a robust business plan is a forcing function—you have to sit down and think about major components of your business before you get started, like your marketing strategy and what products you’ll sell. You answer many tough questions before they arise. And thinking deeply about your core strategies can also help you understand how those decisions will impact your broader strategy.

Send invoices, estimates, and other docs:

• via links or PDFs
• automatically, via Wave

*While subscribed to Wave’s Pro Plan, get 2.9% + $0 (Visa, Mastercard, Discover) and 3.4% + $0 (Amex) per transaction for the first 10 transactions of each month of your subscription, then 2.9% + $0.60 (Visa, Mastercard, Discover) and 3.4% + $0.60 (Amex) per transaction. Discover processing is only available to US customers. See full terms and conditions for the US and Canada . See Wave’s Terms of Service for more information.

Send invoices, get paid, track expenses, pay your team, and balance your books with our financial management software.

2. To iron out the kinks

Putting together a business plan requires entrepreneurs to ask themselves a lot of hard questions and take the time to come up with well-researched and insightful answers. Even if the document itself were to disappear as soon as it’s completed, the practice of writing it helps to articulate your vision in realistic terms and better determine if there are any gaps in your strategy.

3. To avoid the big mistakes

Only about half of small businesses are still around to celebrate their fifth birthday . While there are many reasons why small businesses fail, many of the most common are purposefully addressed in business plans.

According to data from CB Insights , some of the most common reasons businesses fail include:

• No market need : No one wants what you’re selling.
• Lack of capital : Cash flow issues or businesses simply run out of money.
• Inadequate team : This underscores the importance of hiring the right people to help you run your business.
• Stiff competition : It’s tough to generate a steady profit when you have a lot of competitors in your space.
• Pricing : Some entrepreneurs price their products or services too high or too low—both scenarios can be a recipe for disaster.

The exercise of creating a business plan can help you avoid these major mistakes. Whether it’s cash flow forecasts or a product-market fit analysis , every piece of a business plan can help spot some of those potentially critical mistakes before they arise. For example, don’t be afraid to scrap an idea you really loved if it turns out there’s no market need. Be honest with yourself!

Get a jumpstart on your business plan by creating your own cash flow projection .

4. To prove the viability of the business

Many businesses are created out of passion, and while passion can be a great motivator, it’s not a great proof point.

Planning out exactly how you’re going to turn that vision into a successful business is perhaps the most important step between concept and reality. Business plans can help you confirm that your grand idea makes sound business sense.

A critical component of your business plan is the market research section. Market research can offer deep insight into your customers, your competitors, and your chosen industry. Not only can it enlighten entrepreneurs who are starting up a new business, but it can also better inform existing businesses on activities like marketing, advertising, and releasing new products or services.

Want to prove there’s a market gap? Here’s how you can get started with market research.

5. To set better objectives and benchmarks

Without a business plan, objectives often become arbitrary, without much rhyme or reason behind them. Having a business plan can help make those benchmarks more intentional and consequential. They can also help keep you accountable to your long-term vision and strategy, and gain insights into how your strategy is (or isn’t) coming together over time.

6. To communicate objectives and benchmarks

Whether you’re managing a team of 100 or a team of two, you can’t always be there to make every decision yourself. Think of the business plan like a substitute teacher, ready to answer questions any time there’s an absence. Let your staff know that when in doubt, they can always consult the business plan to understand the next steps in the event that they can’t get an answer from you directly.

Sharing your business plan with team members also helps ensure that all members are aligned with what you’re doing, why, and share the same understanding of long-term objectives.

7. To provide a guide for service providers

Small businesses typically employ contractors , freelancers, and other professionals to help them with tasks like accounting , marketing, legal assistance, and as consultants. Having a business plan in place allows you to easily share relevant sections with those you rely on to support the organization, while ensuring everyone is on the same page.

8. To secure financing

Did you know you’re 2.5x more likely to get funded if you have a business plan?If you’re planning on pitching to venture capitalists, borrowing from a bank, or are considering selling your company in the future, you’re likely going to need a business plan. After all, anyone that’s interested in putting money into your company is going to want to know it’s in good hands and that it’s viable in the long run. Business plans are the most effective ways of proving that and are typically a requirement for anyone seeking outside financing.

Learn what you need to get a small business loan.

9. To better understand the broader landscape

No business is an island, and while you might have a strong handle on everything happening under your own roof, it’s equally important to understand the market terrain as well. Writing a business plan can go a long way in helping you better understand your competition and the market you’re operating in more broadly, illuminate consumer trends and preferences, potential disruptions and other insights that aren’t always plainly visible.

10. To reduce risk

Entrepreneurship is a risky business, but that risk becomes significantly more manageable once tested against a well-crafted business plan. Drawing up revenue and expense projections, devising logistics and operational plans, and understanding the market and competitive landscape can all help reduce the risk factor from an inherently precarious way to make a living. Having a business plan allows you to leave less up to chance, make better decisions, and enjoy the clearest possible view of the future of your company.

Understanding the importance of a business plan

Now that you have a solid grasp on the “why” behind business plans, you can confidently move forward with creating your own.

Remember that a business plan will grow and evolve along with your business, so it’s an important part of your whole journey—not just the beginning.

Related Posts

Now that you’ve read up on the purpose of a business plan, check out our guide to help you get started.

The information and tips shared on this blog are meant to be used as learning and personal development tools as you launch, run and grow your business. While a good place to start, these articles should not take the place of personalized advice from professionals. As our lawyers would say: “All content on Wave’s blog is intended for informational purposes only. It should not be considered legal or financial advice.” Additionally, Wave is the legal copyright holder of all materials on the blog, and others cannot re-use or publish it without our written consent.

The Perfect Business Plan Layout & Outline

Written by Dave Lavinsky

The layout of a business plan is not an area where great imagination and creativity is needed or recommended. It should be a more or less straightforward task to layout or outline your plan, using industry standard practices which funders have become familiar with through thousands of business plans. Use the following steps to implement this standard layout and save creativity for your business venture within the plan.

Download our Ultimate Business Plan Template here >

Start by getting your hands on a business plan template. This will speed your time to completing your plan. Business plans generally start with an executive summary and company overview, move through background research and market analysis, customers, and competition, describe the company’s intended methods in the marketing plan and operation plan, show who’s on the management team, and conclude with the financial plan and appendices featuring full financial statements.

Use the business plan template to guide your understanding of each section and to see how they relate to each other. Don’t assume that any one example should dominate your understanding unless it comes from an extremely trusted source with a reputation for business plan expertise and success.

Business Page Layout Tips

How to finish your business plan in 1 day.

Don’t you wish there was a faster, easier way to finish your professional business plan?

With Growthink’s Ultimate Business Plan Template you can finish your plan in just 8 hours or less!

Click here to finish your business plan today.

Sample Outline For Your Business Plan

1. executive summary.

Your executive summary is the most important part of your plan. It comes at the beginning and is the first thing potential investors or lenders will read. If they aren’t excited by what they see, they’ll unfortunately stop reading. So make sure your executive summary gives a quick overview of what your company does and explains, in an exciting tone, why your company will be successful.

In your Company Description, provide background on your company. When did you incorporate? What have you accomplished to date? Here you will let readers know the history of your business.

In the Market Analysis section of your business plan provide background on the industry in which you operate. Conduct market research to make this section concrete and compelling. Answer questions such as: how big is your industry? what trends are affecting it?

Here you will document your target market. How are they? How many are there? What are their likes and dislikes? Ideally you can provide comprehensive demographic and psychographic profiles of your target customers and show how your company’s product or service are ideally suited to their needs.

In this section of your business plan, document your key competitors. Explain their strengths and their weaknesses. Remember that investors and lenders expect you to have direct competitors. They just want to feel confident that despite them, you can still achieve lasting success.

Finish Your Business Plan in 1 Day!

Don’t you wish there was a faster, easier way to finish your business plan?

Your marketing strategy should primarily focus on the promotional methods you will use to attract new customers. Will you use search engine marketing? Will you employ radio ads? Document each of the promotional methods you will use.

This section of your plan should discuss the key roles that your company must expertly perform and your strategies for operational excellence. You must also outline the long-term milestones your company plans to accomplish and the key dates for each.

In your Management Team section, detail the key members of your team. Document their backgrounds and how their past experiences make them well suited to succeed in your organization.

Here you will layout the key assumptions used in creating your financial model and then provide topline results from your income statement, balance sheet and cash flow projections. If you are seeking funding, document the amount of funding you seek and the key uses for it.

In your Appendix, you will provide supporting information such as employee or customer agreements, store layouts, etc. You must also include your full, five-year financial projections.

By following the comprehensive business plan outline, you will ensure your plan is in the format investors and lenders expect.

OR, Let Us Write a Business Plan For You

Since 1999, Growthink has developed business plans for thousands of companies who have gone on to achieve tremendous success.

Click here to see how Growthink’s business plan consulting services can create your business plan for you.

Business Page Layout FAQs

How do i layout a business plan.

Laying out a well-crafted business plan is not, and should not, be complicated. You can lay out your business plan using our sample business plan outline discussed here . An organized business plan structure is key to a successful business plan.

What is a business plan outline?

A business plan outline allows you to organize your plan and present it in the format that’s most compelling to readers. Also, by starting with your outline, it’s easier to add the required information into the key elements of a comprehensive business plan.

Other Helpful Business Plan Articles & Templates

• Search Search Please fill out this field.

What Is a Business Plan?

Understanding business plans, how to write a business plan, common elements of a business plan, how often should a business plan be updated, the bottom line, business plan: what it is, what's included, and how to write one.

Adam Hayes, Ph.D., CFA, is a financial writer with 15+ years Wall Street experience as a derivatives trader. Besides his extensive derivative trading expertise, Adam is an expert in economics and behavioral finance. Adam received his master's in economics from The New School for Social Research and his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in sociology. He is a CFA charterholder as well as holding FINRA Series 7, 55 & 63 licenses. He currently researches and teaches economic sociology and the social studies of finance at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

A business plan is a document that details a company's goals and how it intends to achieve them. Business plans can be of benefit to both startups and well-established companies. For startups, a business plan can be essential for winning over potential lenders and investors. Established businesses can find one useful for staying on track and not losing sight of their goals. This article explains what an effective business plan needs to include and how to write one.

Key Takeaways

• A business plan is a document describing a company's business activities and how it plans to achieve its goals.
• Startup companies use business plans to get off the ground and attract outside investors.
• For established companies, a business plan can help keep the executive team focused on and working toward the company's short- and long-term objectives.
• There is no single format that a business plan must follow, but there are certain key elements that most companies will want to include.

Investopedia / Ryan Oakley

Any new business should have a business plan in place prior to beginning operations. In fact, banks and venture capital firms often want to see a business plan before they'll consider making a loan or providing capital to new businesses.

Even if a business isn't looking to raise additional money, a business plan can help it focus on its goals. A 2017 Harvard Business Review article reported that, "Entrepreneurs who write formal plans are 16% more likely to achieve viability than the otherwise identical nonplanning entrepreneurs."

Ideally, a business plan should be reviewed and updated periodically to reflect any goals that have been achieved or that may have changed. An established business that has decided to move in a new direction might create an entirely new business plan for itself.

There are numerous benefits to creating (and sticking to) a well-conceived business plan. These include being able to think through ideas before investing too much money in them and highlighting any potential obstacles to success. A company might also share its business plan with trusted outsiders to get their objective feedback. In addition, a business plan can help keep a company's executive team on the same page about strategic action items and priorities.

Business plans, even among competitors in the same industry, are rarely identical. However, they often have some of the same basic elements, as we describe below.

While it's a good idea to provide as much detail as necessary, it's also important that a business plan be concise enough to hold a reader's attention to the end.

While there are any number of templates that you can use to write a business plan, it's best to try to avoid producing a generic-looking one. Let your plan reflect the unique personality of your business.

Many business plans use some combination of the sections below, with varying levels of detail, depending on the company.

The length of a business plan can vary greatly from business to business. Regardless, it's best to fit the basic information into a 15- to 25-page document. Other crucial elements that take up a lot of space—such as applications for patents—can be referenced in the main document and attached as appendices.

These are some of the most common elements in many business plans:

• Executive summary: This section introduces the company and includes its mission statement along with relevant information about the company's leadership, employees, operations, and locations.
• Products and services: Here, the company should describe the products and services it offers or plans to introduce. That might include details on pricing, product lifespan, and unique benefits to the consumer. Other factors that could go into this section include production and manufacturing processes, any relevant patents the company may have, as well as proprietary technology . Information about research and development (R&D) can also be included here.
• Market analysis: A company needs to have a good handle on the current state of its industry and the existing competition. This section should explain where the company fits in, what types of customers it plans to target, and how easy or difficult it may be to take market share from incumbents.
• Marketing strategy: This section can describe how the company plans to attract and keep customers, including any anticipated advertising and marketing campaigns. It should also describe the distribution channel or channels it will use to get its products or services to consumers.
• Financial plans and projections: Established businesses can include financial statements, balance sheets, and other relevant financial information. New businesses can provide financial targets and estimates for the first few years. Your plan might also include any funding requests you're making.

The best business plans aren't generic ones created from easily accessed templates. A company should aim to entice readers with a plan that demonstrates its uniqueness and potential for success.

2 Types of Business Plans

Business plans can take many forms, but they are sometimes divided into two basic categories: traditional and lean startup. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) , the traditional business plan is the more common of the two.

• Traditional business plans : These plans tend to be much longer than lean startup plans and contain considerably more detail. As a result they require more work on the part of the business, but they can also be more persuasive (and reassuring) to potential investors.
• Lean startup business plans : These use an abbreviated structure that highlights key elements. These business plans are short—as short as one page—and provide only the most basic detail. If a company wants to use this kind of plan, it should be prepared to provide more detail if an investor or a lender requests it.

Why Do Business Plans Fail?

A business plan is not a surefire recipe for success. The plan may have been unrealistic in its assumptions and projections to begin with. Markets and the overall economy might change in ways that couldn't have been foreseen. A competitor might introduce a revolutionary new product or service. All of this calls for building some flexibility into your plan, so you can pivot to a new course if needed.

How frequently a business plan needs to be revised will depend on the nature of the business. A well-established business might want to review its plan once a year and make changes if necessary. A new or fast-growing business in a fiercely competitive market might want to revise it more often, such as quarterly.

What Does a Lean Startup Business Plan Include?

The lean startup business plan is an option when a company prefers to give a quick explanation of its business. For example, a brand-new company may feel that it doesn't have a lot of information to provide yet.

Sections can include: a value proposition ; the company's major activities and advantages; resources such as staff, intellectual property, and capital; a list of partnerships; customer segments; and revenue sources.

A business plan can be useful to companies of all kinds. But as a company grows and the world around it changes, so too should its business plan. So don't think of your business plan as carved in granite but as a living document designed to evolve with your business.

Harvard Business Review. " Research: Writing a Business Plan Makes Your Startup More Likely to Succeed ."

U.S. Small Business Administration. " Write Your Business Plan ."

• How to Start a Business: A Comprehensive Guide and Essential Steps 1 of 25
• How to Do Market Research, Types, and Example 2 of 25
• Marketing Strategy: What It Is, How It Works, and How to Create One 3 of 25
• Marketing in Business: Strategies and Types Explained 4 of 25
• What Is a Marketing Plan? Types and How to Write One 5 of 25
• Business Development: Definition, Strategies, Steps & Skills 6 of 25
• Business Plan: What It Is, What's Included, and How to Write One 7 of 25
• Small Business Development Center (SBDC): Meaning, Types, Impact 8 of 25
• How to Write a Business Plan for a Loan 9 of 25
• Business Startup Costs: It’s in the Details 10 of 25
• Startup Capital Definition, Types, and Risks 11 of 25
• Bootstrapping Definition, Strategies, and Pros/Cons 12 of 25
• Crowdfunding: What It Is, How It Works, and Popular Websites 13 of 25
• Starting a Business with No Money: How to Begin 14 of 25
• A Comprehensive Guide to Establishing Business Credit 15 of 25
• Equity Financing: What It Is, How It Works, Pros and Cons 16 of 25
• Best Startup Business Loans for May 2024 17 of 25
• Sole Proprietorship: What It Is, Pros and Cons, and Differences From an LLC 18 of 25
• Partnership: Definition, How It Works, Taxation, and Types 19 of 25
• What Is an LLC? Limited Liability Company Structure and Benefits Defined 20 of 25
• Corporation: What It Is and How To Form One 21 of 25
• Starting a Small Business: Your Complete How-to Guide 22 of 25
• Starting an Online Business: A Step-by-Step Guide 23 of 25
• How to Start Your Own Bookkeeping Business: Essential Tips 24 of 25
• How to Start a Successful Dropshipping Business: A Comprehensive Guide 25 of 25

• Terms of Service
• Editorial Policy
• Privacy Policy
• Your Privacy Choices

What is a Business Plan? Definition, Tips, and Templates

Published: June 07, 2023

In an era where more than 20% of small enterprises fail in their first year, having a clear, defined, and well-thought-out business plan is a crucial first step for setting up a business for long-term success.

Business plans are a required tool for all entrepreneurs, business owners, business acquirers, and even business school students. But … what exactly is a business plan?

In this post, we'll explain what a business plan is, the reasons why you'd need one, identify different types of business plans, and what you should include in yours.

What is a business plan?

A business plan is a documented strategy for a business that highlights its goals and its plans for achieving them. It outlines a company's go-to-market plan, financial projections, market research, business purpose, and mission statement. Key staff who are responsible for achieving the goals may also be included in the business plan along with a timeline.

The business plan is an undeniably critical component to getting any company off the ground. It's key to securing financing, documenting your business model, outlining your financial projections, and turning that nugget of a business idea into a reality.

What is a business plan used for?

The purpose of a business plan is three-fold: It summarizes the organization’s strategy in order to execute it long term, secures financing from investors, and helps forecast future business demands.

Business Plan Template [ Download Now ]

Working on your business plan? Try using our Business Plan Template . Pre-filled with the sections a great business plan needs, the template will give aspiring entrepreneurs a feel for what a business plan is, what should be in it, and how it can be used to establish and grow a business from the ground up.

Purposes of a Business Plan

Chances are, someone drafting a business plan will be doing so for one or more of the following reasons:

1. Securing financing from investors.

Since its contents revolve around how businesses succeed, break even, and turn a profit, a business plan is used as a tool for sourcing capital. This document is an entrepreneur's way of showing potential investors or lenders how their capital will be put to work and how it will help the business thrive.

All banks, investors, and venture capital firms will want to see a business plan before handing over their money, and investors typically expect a 10% ROI or more from the capital they invest in a business.

Therefore, these investors need to know if — and when — they'll be making their money back (and then some). Additionally, they'll want to read about the process and strategy for how the business will reach those financial goals, which is where the context provided by sales, marketing, and operations plans come into play.

2. Documenting a company's strategy and goals.

A business plan should leave no stone unturned.

Business plans can span dozens or even hundreds of pages, affording their drafters the opportunity to explain what a business' goals are and how the business will achieve them.

To show potential investors that they've addressed every question and thought through every possible scenario, entrepreneurs should thoroughly explain their marketing, sales, and operations strategies — from acquiring a physical location for the business to explaining a tactical approach for marketing penetration.

These explanations should ultimately lead to a business' break-even point supported by a sales forecast and financial projections, with the business plan writer being able to speak to the why behind anything outlined in the plan.

Free Business Plan Template

The essential document for starting a business -- custom built for your needs.

• Outline your idea.
• Pitch to investors.
• Secure funding.
• Get to work!

You're all set!

Click this link to access this resource at any time.

Free Business Plan [Template]

Fill out the form to access your free business plan., 3. legitimizing a business idea..

Everyone's got a great idea for a company — until they put pen to paper and realize that it's not exactly feasible.

A business plan is an aspiring entrepreneur's way to prove that a business idea is actually worth pursuing.

As entrepreneurs document their go-to-market process, capital needs, and expected return on investment, entrepreneurs likely come across a few hiccups that will make them second guess their strategies and metrics — and that's exactly what the business plan is for.

It ensures an entrepreneur's ducks are in a row before bringing their business idea to the world and reassures the readers that whoever wrote the plan is serious about the idea, having put hours into thinking of the business idea, fleshing out growth tactics, and calculating financial projections.

4. Getting an A in your business class.

Speaking from personal experience, there's a chance you're here to get business plan ideas for your Business 101 class project.

If that's the case, might we suggest checking out this post on How to Write a Business Plan — providing a section-by-section guide on creating your plan?

What does a business plan need to include?

• Business Plan Subtitle
• Executive Summary
• Company Description
• The Business Opportunity
• Competitive Analysis
• Target Market
• Marketing Plan
• Financial Summary
• Funding Requirements

1. Business Plan Subtitle

Every great business plan starts with a captivating title and subtitle. You’ll want to make it clear that the document is, in fact, a business plan, but the subtitle can help tell the story of your business in just a short sentence.

2. Executive Summary

Although this is the last part of the business plan that you’ll write, it’s the first section (and maybe the only section) that stakeholders will read. The executive summary of a business plan sets the stage for the rest of the document. It includes your company’s mission or vision statement, value proposition, and long-term goals.

3. Company Description

This brief part of your business plan will detail your business name, years in operation, key offerings, and positioning statement. You might even add core values or a short history of the company. The company description’s role in a business plan is to introduce your business to the reader in a compelling and concise way.

4. The Business Opportunity

The business opportunity should convince investors that your organization meets the needs of the market in a way that no other company can. This section explains the specific problem your business solves within the marketplace and how it solves them. It will include your value proposition as well as some high-level information about your target market.

5. Competitive Analysis

Just about every industry has more than one player in the market. Even if your business owns the majority of the market share in your industry or your business concept is the first of its kind, you still have competition. In the competitive analysis section, you’ll take an objective look at the industry landscape to determine where your business fits. A SWOT analysis is an organized way to format this section.

6. Target Market

Who are the core customers of your business and why? The target market portion of your business plan outlines this in detail. The target market should explain the demographics, psychographics, behavioristics, and geographics of the ideal customer.

7. Marketing Plan

Marketing is expansive, and it’ll be tempting to cover every type of marketing possible, but a brief overview of how you’ll market your unique value proposition to your target audience, followed by a tactical plan will suffice.

Think broadly and narrow down from there: Will you focus on a slow-and-steady play where you make an upfront investment in organic customer acquisition? Or will you generate lots of quick customers using a pay-to-play advertising strategy? This kind of information should guide the marketing plan section of your business plan.

8. Financial Summary

Money doesn’t grow on trees and even the most digital, sustainable businesses have expenses. Outlining a financial summary of where your business is currently and where you’d like it to be in the future will substantiate this section. Consider including any monetary information that will give potential investors a glimpse into the financial health of your business. Assets, liabilities, expenses, debt, investments, revenue, and more are all useful adds here.

So, you’ve outlined some great goals, the business opportunity is valid, and the industry is ready for what you have to offer. Who’s responsible for turning all this high-level talk into results? The "team" section of your business plan answers that question by providing an overview of the roles responsible for each goal. Don’t worry if you don’t have every team member on board yet, knowing what roles to hire for is helpful as you seek funding from investors.

10. Funding Requirements

Remember that one of the goals of a business plan is to secure funding from investors, so you’ll need to include funding requirements you’d like them to fulfill. The amount your business needs, for what reasons, and for how long will meet the requirement for this section.

Types of Business Plans

• Startup Business Plan
• Feasibility Business Plan
• Internal Business Plan
• Strategic Business Plan
• Business Acquisition Plan
• Business Repositioning Plan
• Expansion or Growth Business Plan

There’s no one size fits all business plan as there are several types of businesses in the market today. From startups with just one founder to historic household names that need to stay competitive, every type of business needs a business plan that’s tailored to its needs. Below are a few of the most common types of business plans.

For even more examples, check out these sample business plans to help you write your own .

1. Startup Business Plan

As one of the most common types of business plans, a startup business plan is for new business ideas. This plan lays the foundation for the eventual success of a business.

The biggest challenge with the startup business plan is that it’s written completely from scratch. Startup business plans often reference existing industry data. They also explain unique business strategies and go-to-market plans.

Because startup business plans expand on an original idea, the contents will vary by the top priority goals.

For example, say a startup is looking for funding. If capital is a priority, this business plan might focus more on financial projections than marketing or company culture.

2. Feasibility Business Plan

This type of business plan focuses on a single essential aspect of the business — the product or service. It may be part of a startup business plan or a standalone plan for an existing organization. This comprehensive plan may include:

• A detailed product description
• Market analysis
• Technology needs
• Production needs
• Financial sources
• Production operations

According to CBInsights research, 35% of startups fail because of a lack of market need. Another 10% fail because of mistimed products.

Some businesses will complete a feasibility study to explore ideas and narrow product plans to the best choice. They conduct these studies before completing the feasibility business plan. Then the feasibility plan centers on that one product or service.

3. Internal Business Plan

Internal business plans help leaders communicate company goals, strategy, and performance. This helps the business align and work toward objectives more effectively.

Besides the typical elements in a startup business plan, an internal business plan may also include:

• Department-specific budgets
• Target demographic analysis
• Market size and share of voice analysis
• Action plans
• Sustainability plans

Most external-facing business plans focus on raising capital and support for a business. But an internal business plan helps keep the business mission consistent in the face of change.

4. Strategic Business Plan

Strategic business plans focus on long-term objectives for your business. They usually cover the first three to five years of operations. This is different from the typical startup business plan which focuses on the first one to three years. The audience for this plan is also primarily internal stakeholders.

These types of business plans may include:

• Relevant data and analysis
• Assessments of company resources
• Vision and mission statements

It's important to remember that, while many businesses create a strategic plan before launching, some business owners just jump in. So, this business plan can add value by outlining how your business plans to reach specific goals. This type of planning can also help a business anticipate future challenges.

5. Business Acquisition Plan

Investors use business plans to acquire existing businesses, too — not just new businesses.

A business acquisition plan may include costs, schedules, or management requirements. This data will come from an acquisition strategy.

A business plan for an existing company will explain:

• How an acquisition will change its operating model
• What will stay the same under new ownership
• Why things will change or stay the same
• Acquisition planning documentation
• Timelines for acquisition

Additionally, the business plan should speak to the current state of the business and why it's up for sale.

For example, if someone is purchasing a failing business, the business plan should explain why the business is being purchased. It should also include:

• What the new owner will do to turn the business around
• Historic business metrics
• Sales projections after the acquisition
• Justification for those projections

6. Business Repositioning Plan

When a business wants to avoid acquisition, reposition its brand, or try something new, CEOs or owners will develop a business repositioning plan.

This plan will:

• Acknowledge the current state of the company.
• State a vision for the future of the company.
• Explain why the business needs to reposition itself.
• Outline a process for how the company will adjust.

Companies planning for a business reposition often do so — proactively or retroactively — due to a shift in market trends and customer needs.

For example, shoe brand AllBirds plans to refocus its brand on core customers and shift its go-to-market strategy. These decisions are a reaction to lackluster sales following product changes and other missteps.

7. Expansion or Growth Business Plan

When your business is ready to expand, a growth business plan creates a useful structure for reaching specific targets.

For example, a successful business expanding into another location can use a growth business plan. This is because it may also mean the business needs to focus on a new target market or generate more capital.

This type of plan usually covers the next year or two of growth. It often references current sales, revenue, and successes. It may also include:

• SWOT analysis
• Growth opportunity studies
• Financial goals and plans
• Marketing plans
• Capability planning

These types of business plans will vary by business, but they can help businesses quickly rally around new priorities to drive growth.

Getting Started With Your Business Plan

At the end of the day, a business plan is simply an explanation of a business idea and why it will be successful. The more detail and thought you put into it, the more successful your plan — and the business it outlines — will be.

When writing your business plan, you’ll benefit from extensive research, feedback from your team or board of directors, and a solid template to organize your thoughts. If you need one of these, download HubSpot's Free Business Plan Template below to get started.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in August 2020 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Don't forget to share this post!

Related articles.

24 of My Favorite Sample Business Plans & Examples For Your Inspiration

How to Write a Powerful Executive Summary [+4 Top Examples]

Maximizing Your Social Media Strategy: The Top Aggregator Tools to Use

The Content Aggregator Guide for 2023

7 Gantt Chart Examples You'll Want to Copy [+ 5 Steps to Make One]

The 8 Best Free Flowchart Templates [+ Examples]

16 Best Screen Recorders to Use for Collaboration

The 25 Best Google Chrome Extensions for SEO

Professional Invoice Design: 28 Samples & Templates to Inspire You

Customers’ Top HubSpot Integrations to Streamline Your Business in 2022

2 Essential Templates For Starting Your Business

Marketing software that helps you drive revenue, save time and resources, and measure and optimize your investments — all on one easy-to-use platform

• Credit cards
• View all credit cards
• Banking guide
• Loans guide
• Insurance guide
• Personal finance
• View all personal finance
• Small business
• Small business guide
• View all taxes

You’re our first priority. Every time.

We believe everyone should be able to make financial decisions with confidence. And while our site doesn’t feature every company or financial product available on the market, we’re proud that the guidance we offer, the information we provide and the tools we create are objective, independent, straightforward — and free.

So how do we make money? Our partners compensate us. This may influence which products we review and write about (and where those products appear on the site), but it in no way affects our recommendations or advice, which are grounded in thousands of hours of research. Our partners cannot pay us to guarantee favorable reviews of their products or services. Here is a list of our partners .

How to Write a Business Plan, Step by Step

Many or all of the products featured here are from our partners who compensate us. This influences which products we write about and where and how the product appears on a page. However, this does not influence our evaluations. Our opinions are our own. Here is a list of our partners and here's how we make money .

What is a business plan?

1. write an executive summary, 2. describe your company, 3. state your business goals, 4. describe your products and services, 5. do your market research, 6. outline your marketing and sales plan, 7. perform a business financial analysis, 8. make financial projections, 9. summarize how your company operates, 10. add any additional information to an appendix, business plan tips and resources.

A business plan outlines your business’s financial goals and explains how you’ll achieve them over the next three to five years. Here’s a step-by-step guide to writing a business plan that will offer a strong, detailed road map for your business.

ZenBusiness

A business plan is a document that explains what your business does, how it makes money and who its customers are. Internally, writing a business plan should help you clarify your vision and organize your operations. Externally, you can share it with potential lenders and investors to show them you’re on the right track.

Business plans are living documents; it’s OK for them to change over time. Startups may update their business plans often as they figure out who their customers are and what products and services fit them best. Mature companies might only revisit their business plan every few years. Regardless of your business’s age, brush up this document before you apply for a business loan .

» Need help writing? Learn about the best business plan software .

This is your elevator pitch. It should include a mission statement, a brief description of the products or services your business offers and a broad summary of your financial growth plans.

Though the executive summary is the first thing your investors will read, it can be easier to write it last. That way, you can highlight information you’ve identified while writing other sections that go into more detail.

» MORE: How to write an executive summary in 6 steps

Next up is your company description. This should contain basic information like:

Your business’s registered name.

Address of your business location .

Names of key people in the business. Make sure to highlight unique skills or technical expertise among members of your team.

Your company description should also define your business structure — such as a sole proprietorship, partnership or corporation — and include the percent ownership that each owner has and the extent of each owner’s involvement in the company.

Lastly, write a little about the history of your company and the nature of your business now. This prepares the reader to learn about your goals in the next section.

» MORE: How to write a company overview for a business plan

The third part of a business plan is an objective statement. This section spells out what you’d like to accomplish, both in the near term and over the coming years.

If you’re looking for a business loan or outside investment, you can use this section to explain how the financing will help your business grow and how you plan to achieve those growth targets. The key is to provide a clear explanation of the opportunity your business presents to the lender.

For example, if your business is launching a second product line, you might explain how the loan will help your company launch that new product and how much you think sales will increase over the next three years as a result.

» MORE: How to write a successful business plan for a loan

In this section, go into detail about the products or services you offer or plan to offer.

You should include the following:

An explanation of how your product or service works.

The pricing model for your product or service.

The typical customers you serve.

Your supply chain and order fulfillment strategy.

You can also discuss current or pending trademarks and patents associated with your product or service.

Lenders and investors will want to know what sets your product apart from your competition. In your market analysis section , explain who your competitors are. Discuss what they do well, and point out what you can do better. If you’re serving a different or underserved market, explain that.

Here, you can address how you plan to persuade customers to buy your products or services, or how you will develop customer loyalty that will lead to repeat business.

Include details about your sales and distribution strategies, including the costs involved in selling each product .

» MORE: R e a d our complete guide to small business marketing

If you’re a startup, you may not have much information on your business financials yet. However, if you’re an existing business, you’ll want to include income or profit-and-loss statements, a balance sheet that lists your assets and debts, and a cash flow statement that shows how cash comes into and goes out of the company.

Accounting software may be able to generate these reports for you. It may also help you calculate metrics such as:

Net profit margin: the percentage of revenue you keep as net income.

Current ratio: the measurement of your liquidity and ability to repay debts.

Accounts receivable turnover ratio: a measurement of how frequently you collect on receivables per year.

This is a great place to include charts and graphs that make it easy for those reading your plan to understand the financial health of your business.

This is a critical part of your business plan if you’re seeking financing or investors. It outlines how your business will generate enough profit to repay the loan or how you will earn a decent return for investors.

Here, you’ll provide your business’s monthly or quarterly sales, expenses and profit estimates over at least a three-year period — with the future numbers assuming you’ve obtained a new loan.

Accuracy is key, so carefully analyze your past financial statements before giving projections. Your goals may be aggressive, but they should also be realistic.

NerdWallet’s picks for setting up your business finances:

The best business checking accounts .

The best business credit cards .

The best accounting software .

Before the end of your business plan, summarize how your business is structured and outline each team’s responsibilities. This will help your readers understand who performs each of the functions you’ve described above — making and selling your products or services — and how much each of those functions cost.

If any of your employees have exceptional skills, you may want to include their resumes to help explain the competitive advantage they give you.

Finally, attach any supporting information or additional materials that you couldn’t fit in elsewhere. That might include:

Licenses and permits.

Equipment leases.

Bank statements.

Details of your personal and business credit history, if you’re seeking financing.

If the appendix is long, you may want to consider adding a table of contents at the beginning of this section.

How much do you need?

with Fundera by NerdWallet

We’ll start with a brief questionnaire to better understand the unique needs of your business.

Once we uncover your personalized matches, our team will consult you on the process moving forward.

Here are some tips to write a detailed, convincing business plan:

Avoid over-optimism: If you’re applying for a business bank loan or professional investment, someone will be reading your business plan closely. Providing unreasonable sales estimates can hurt your chances of approval.

Proofread: Spelling, punctuation and grammatical errors can jump off the page and turn off lenders and prospective investors. If writing and editing aren't your strong suit, you may want to hire a professional business plan writer, copy editor or proofreader.

Use free resources: SCORE is a nonprofit association that offers a large network of volunteer business mentors and experts who can help you write or edit your business plan. The U.S. Small Business Administration’s Small Business Development Centers , which provide free business consulting and help with business plan development, can also be a resource.

On a similar note...

Find small-business financing

Compare multiple lenders that fit your business

START YOUR ECOMMERCE BUSINESS FOR JUST $1

• Skip to primary navigation
• Skip to main content

A magazine for young entrepreneurs

The best advice in entrepreneurship

Subscribe for exclusive access, how to write a business plan (tips, templates, examples).

Written by Jesse Sumrak | May 14, 2023

Comments -->

Get real-time frameworks, tools, and inspiration to start and build your business. Subscribe here

Business plans might seem like an old-school stiff-collared practice, but they deserve a place in the startup realm, too. It’s probably not going to be the frame-worthy document you hang in the office—yet, it may one day be deserving of the privilege.

Whether you’re looking to win the heart of an angel investor or convince a bank to lend you money, you’ll need a business plan. And not just any ol’ notes and scribble on the back of a pizza box or napkin—you’ll need a professional, standardized report.

Bah. Sounds like homework, right?

Yes. Yes, it does.

However, just like bookkeeping, loan applications, and 404 redirects, business plans are an essential step in cementing your business foundation.

Don’t worry. We’ll show you how to write a business plan without boring you to tears. We’ve jam-packed this article with all the business plan examples, templates, and tips you need to take your non-existent proposal from concept to completion.

Table of Contents

What Is a Business Plan?

Tips to Make Your Small Business Plan Ironclad

How to Write a Business Plan in 6 Steps

Startup Business Plan Template

Business Plan Examples

Work on Making Your Business Plan

How to Write a Business Plan FAQs

What is a business plan why do you desperately need one.

A business plan is a roadmap that outlines:

• Who your business is, what it does, and who it serves
• Where your business is now
• Where you want it to go
• How you’re going to make it happen
• What might stop you from taking your business from Point A to Point B
• How you’ll overcome the predicted obstacles

While it’s not required when starting a business, having a business plan is helpful for a few reasons:

• Secure a Bank Loan: Before approving you for a business loan, banks will want to see that your business is legitimate and can repay the loan. They want to know how you’re going to use the loan and how you’ll make monthly payments on your debt. Lenders want to see a sound business strategy that doesn’t end in loan default.
• Win Over Investors: Like lenders, investors want to know they’re going to make a return on their investment. They need to see your business plan to have the confidence to hand you money.
• Stay Focused: It’s easy to get lost chasing the next big thing. Your business plan keeps you on track and focused on the big picture. Your business plan can prevent you from wasting time and resources on something that isn’t aligned with your business goals.

Beyond the reasoning, let’s look at what the data says:

• Simply writing a business plan can boost your average annual growth by 30%
• Entrepreneurs who create a formal business plan are 16% more likely to succeed than those who don’t
• A study looking at 65 fast-growth companies found that 71% had small business plans
• The process and output of creating a business plan have shown to improve business performance

Convinced yet? If those numbers and reasons don’t have you scrambling for pen and paper, who knows what will.

Don’t Skip: Business Startup Costs Checklist

Before we get into the nitty-gritty steps of how to write a business plan, let’s look at some high-level tips to get you started in the right direction:

Be Professional and Legit

You might be tempted to get cutesy or revolutionary with your business plan—resist the urge. While you should let your brand and creativity shine with everything you produce, business plans fall more into the realm of professional documents.

Think of your business plan the same way as your terms and conditions, employee contracts, or financial statements. You want your plan to be as uniform as possible so investors, lenders, partners, and prospective employees can find the information they need to make important decisions.

If you want to create a fun summary business plan for internal consumption, then, by all means, go right ahead. However, for the purpose of writing this external-facing document, keep it legit.

Know Your Audience

Your official business plan document is for lenders, investors, partners, and big-time prospective employees. Keep these names and faces in your mind as you draft your plan.

Think about what they might be interested in seeing, what questions they’ll ask, and what might convince (or scare) them. Cut the jargon and tailor your language so these individuals can understand.

Remember, these are busy people. They’re likely looking at hundreds of applicants and startup investments every month. Keep your business plan succinct and to the point. Include the most pertinent information and omit the sections that won’t impact their decision-making.

Invest Time Researching

You might not have answers to all the sections you should include in your business plan. Don’t skip over these!

Your audience will want:

• Detailed information about your customers
• Numbers and solid math to back up your financial claims and estimates
• Deep insights about your competitors and potential threats
• Data to support market opportunities and strategy

Your answers can’t be hypothetical or opinionated. You need research to back up your claims. If you don’t have that data yet, then invest time and money in collecting it. That information isn’t just critical for your business plan—it’s essential for owning, operating, and growing your company.

Stay Realistic

Your business may be ambitious, but reign in the enthusiasm just a teeny-tiny bit. The last thing you want to do is have an angel investor call BS and say “I’m out” before even giving you a chance.

The folks looking at your business and evaluating your plan have been around the block—they know a thing or two about fact and fiction. Your plan should be a blueprint for success. It should be the step-by-step roadmap for how you’re going from Point A to Point B.

How to Write a Business Plan—6 Essential Elements

Not every business plan looks the same, but most share a few common elements. Here’s what they typically include:

• Executive Summary
• Business Overview
• Products and Services
• Market Analysis
• Competitive Analysis
• Financial Strategy

Below, we’ll break down each of these sections in more detail.

1. Executive Summary

While your executive summary is the first page of your business plan, it’s the section you’ll write last. That’s because it summarizes your entire business plan into a succinct one-pager.

Begin with an executive summary that introduces the reader to your business and gives them an overview of what’s inside the business plan.

Your executive summary highlights key points of your plan. Consider this your elevator pitch. You want to put all your juiciest strengths and opportunities strategically in this section.

2. Business Overview

In this section, you can dive deeper into the elements of your business, including answering:

• What’s your business structure? Sole proprietorship, LLC, corporation, etc.
• Where is it located?
• Who owns the business? Does it have employees?
• What problem does it solve, and how?
• What’s your mission statement? Your mission statement briefly describes why you are in business. To write a proper mission statement, brainstorm your business’s core values and who you serve.

Don’t overlook your mission statement. This powerful sentence or paragraph could be the inspiration that drives an investor to take an interest in your business. Here are a few examples of powerful mission statements that just might give you the goosebumps:

• Patagonia: Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.
• Tesla: To accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy.
• InvisionApp : Question Assumptions. Think Deeply. Iterate as a Lifestyle. Details, Details. Design is Everywhere. Integrity.
• TED : Spread ideas.
• Warby Parker : To offer designer eyewear at a revolutionary price while leading the way for socially conscious businesses.

3. Products and Services

As the owner, you know your business and the industry inside and out. However, whoever’s reading your document might not. You’re going to need to break down your products and services in minute detail.

For example, if you own a SaaS business, you’re going to need to explain how this business model works and what you’re selling.

You’ll need to include:

• What services you sell: Describe the services you provide and how these will help your target audience.
• What products you sell: Describe your products (and types if applicable) and how they will solve a need for your target and provide value.
• How much you charge: If you’re selling services, will you charge hourly, per project, retainer, or a mixture of all of these? If you’re selling products, what are the price ranges?

4. Market Analysis

Your market analysis essentially explains how your products and services address customer concerns and pain points. This section will include research and data on the state and direction of your industry and target market.

This research should reveal lucrative opportunities and how your business is uniquely positioned to seize the advantage. You’ll also want to touch on your marketing strategy and how it will (or does) work for your audience.

Include a detailed analysis of your target customers. This describes the people you serve and sell your product to. Be careful not to go too broad here—you don’t want to fall into the common entrepreneurial trap of trying to sell to everyone and thereby not differentiating yourself enough to survive the competition.

The market analysis section will include your unique value proposition. Your unique value proposition (UVP) is the thing that makes you stand out from your competitors. This is your key to success.

If you don’t have a UVP, you don’t have a way to take on competitors who are already in this space. Here’s an example of an ecommerce internet business plan outlining their competitive edge:

FireStarters’ competitive advantage is offering product lines that make a statement but won’t leave you broke. The major brands are expensive and not distinctive enough to satisfy the changing taste of our target customers. FireStarters offers products that are just ahead of the curve and so affordable that our customers will return to the website often to check out what’s new.

5. Competitive Analysis

Your competitive analysis examines the strengths and weaknesses of competing businesses in your market or industry. This will include direct and indirect competitors. It can also include threats and opportunities, like economic concerns or legal restraints.

The best way to sum up this section is with a classic SWOT analysis. This will explain your company’s position in relation to your competitors.

6. Financial Strategy

Your financial strategy will sum up your revenue, expenses, profit (or loss), and financial plan for the future. It’ll explain how you make money, where your cash flow goes, and how you’ll become profitable or stay profitable.

This is one of the most important sections for lenders and investors. Have you ever watched Shark Tank? They always ask about the company’s financial situation. How has it performed in the past? What’s the ongoing outlook moving forward? How does the business plan to make it happen?

Answer all of these questions in your financial strategy so that your audience doesn’t have to ask. Go ahead and include forecasts and graphs in your plan, too:

• Balance sheet: This includes your assets, liabilities, and equity.
• Profit & Loss (P&L) statement: This details your income and expenses over a given period.
• Cash flow statement: Similar to the P&L, this one will show all cash flowing into and out of the business each month.

It takes cash to change the world—lenders and investors get it. If you’re short on funding, explain how much money you’ll need and how you’ll use the capital. Where are you looking for financing? Are you looking to take out a business loan, or would you rather trade equity for capital instead?

Read More: 16 Financial Concepts Every Entrepreneur Needs to Know

Startup Business Plan Template (Copy/Paste Outline)

Ready to write your own business plan? Copy/paste the startup business plan template below and fill in the blanks.

Executive Summary Remember, do this last. Summarize who you are and your business plan in one page.

Business Overview Describe your business. What’s it do? Who owns it? How’s it structured? What’s the mission statement?

Products and Services Detail the products and services you offer. How do they work? What do you charge?

Market Analysis Write about the state of the market and opportunities. Use date. Describe your customers. Include your UVP.

Competitive Analysis Outline the competitors in your market and industry. Include threats and opportunities. Add a SWOT analysis of your business.

Financial Strategy Sum up your revenue, expenses, profit (or loss), and financial plan for the future. If you’re applying for a loan, include how you’ll use the funding to progress the business.

5 Frame-Worthy Business Plan Examples

Want to explore other templates and examples? We got you covered. Check out these 5 business plan examples you can use as inspiration when writing your plan:

• SBA Wooden Grain Toy Company
• SBA We Can Do It Consulting
• OrcaSmart Business Plan Sample
• Plum Business Plan Template
• PandaDoc Free Business Plan Templates

Get to Work on Making Your Business Plan

If you find you’re getting stuck on perfecting your document, opt for a simple one-page business plan —and then get to work. You can always polish up your official plan later as you learn more about your business and the industry.

Remember, business plans are not a requirement for starting a business—they’re only truly essential if a bank or investor is asking for it.

Ask others to review your business plan. Get feedback from other startups and successful business owners. They’ll likely be able to see holes in your planning or undetected opportunities—just make sure these individuals aren’t your competitors (or potential competitors).

Your business plan isn’t a one-and-done report—it’s a living, breathing document. You’ll make changes to it as you grow and evolve. When the market or your customers change, your plan will need to change to adapt.

That means when you’re finished with this exercise, it’s not time to print your plan out and stuff it in a file cabinet somewhere. No, it should sit on your desk as a day-to-day reference. Use it (and update it) as you make decisions about your product, customers, and financial plan.

Review your business plan frequently, update it routinely, and follow the path you’ve developed to the future you’re building.

Keep Learning: New Product Development Process in 8 Easy Steps

What financial information should be included in a business plan?

Be as detailed as you can without assuming too much. For example, include your expected revenue, expenses, profit, and growth for the future.

What are some common mistakes to avoid when writing a business plan?

The most common mistake is turning your business plan into a textbook. A business plan is an internal guide and an external pitching tool. Cut the fat and only include the most relevant information to start and run your business.

Who should review my business plan before I submit it?

Co-founders, investors, or a board of advisors. Otherwise, reach out to a trusted mentor, your local chamber of commerce, or someone you know that runs a business.

Ready to Write Your Business Plan?

Don’t let creating a business plan hold you back from starting your business. Writing documents might not be your thing—that doesn’t mean your business is a bad idea.

Let us help you get started.

Join our free training to learn how to start an online side hustle in 30 days or less. We’ll provide you with a proven roadmap for how to find, validate, and pursue a profitable business idea (even if you have zero entrepreneurial experience).

Stuck on the ideas part? No problem. When you attend the masterclass, we’ll send you a free ebook with 100 of the hottest side hustle trends right now. It’s chock full of brilliant business ideas to get you up and running in the right direction.

About Jesse Sumrak

Jesse Sumrak is a writing zealot focused on creating killer content. He’s spent almost a decade writing about startup, marketing, and entrepreneurship topics, having built and sold his own post-apocalyptic fitness bootstrapped business. A writer by day and a peak bagger by night (and early early morning), you can usually find Jesse preparing for the apocalypse on a precipitous peak somewhere in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado.

Related Posts

When to Quit Your Job and Go All-in on Your Side Hustle

How to Choose the Right Color for Your Logo: The Ultimate Cheat Sheet

How becx’s Becky Verma Gained the Confidence to Become an Entrepreneur

How the D’Amelios Built an Empire Using TikTok

Almost Failed Startups: What You Can Learn from 8 Startups That Made It Big

How to Implement AI in Your Business from Consultant Nat Choprasert

Self-Made Mogul Emma Grede on Building SKIMS and Good American – Exclusive

20 Reasons to Start Your Own Business Today

The Horror Stories and Surprises from Nathan Chan’s 500 Founder Interviews

Dany Garcia on Building Her Business Empire with Dwayne Johnson

The 12 Best Business Startup Books Every Entrepreneur Needs

Business Ideas for Teens: Start Your Side Hustle Early

What to Sell in 2024: Unearth Profitable Products

How Reid Hoffman Became a Silicon Valley Icon

Shopping Cart Abandonment: Why It Matters and What to Do for Recovery

FREE TRAINING FROM LEGIT FOUNDERS

Actionable Strategies for Starting & Growing Any Business.

Don't Miss Out! Get Instant Access to foundr+ for Just $1!

1000+ lessons. customized learning. 30,000+ strong community..

How to make a business plan

Table of Contents

How to make a good business plan: step-by-step guide.

A business plan is a strategic roadmap used to navigate the challenging journey of entrepreneurship. It's the foundation upon which you build a successful business.

A well-crafted business plan can help you define your vision, clarify your goals, and identify potential problems before they arise.

But where do you start? How do you create a business plan that sets you up for success?

This article will explore the step-by-step process of creating a comprehensive business plan.

What is a business plan?

A business plan is a formal document that outlines a business's objectives, strategies, and operational procedures. It typically includes the following information about a company:

Products or services

Target market

Competitors

Marketing and sales strategies

Financial plan

Management team

A business plan serves as a roadmap for a company's success and provides a blueprint for its growth and development. It helps entrepreneurs and business owners organize their ideas, evaluate the feasibility, and identify potential challenges and opportunities.

As well as serving as a guide for business owners, a business plan can attract investors and secure funding. It demonstrates the company's understanding of the market, its ability to generate revenue and profits, and its strategy for managing risks and achieving success.

Business plan vs. business model canvas

A business plan may seem similar to a business model canvas, but each document serves a different purpose.

A business model canvas is a high-level overview that helps entrepreneurs and business owners quickly test and iterate their ideas. It is often a one-page document that briefly outlines the following:

Key partnerships

Key activities

Key propositions

Customer relationships

Customer segments

Key resources

Cost structure

Revenue streams

On the other hand, a Business Plan Template provides a more in-depth analysis of a company's strategy and operations. It is typically a lengthy document and requires significant time and effort to develop.

A business model shouldn’t replace a business plan, and vice versa. Business owners should lay the foundations and visually capture the most important information with a Business Model Canvas Template . Because this is a fast and efficient way to communicate a business idea, a business model canvas is a good starting point before developing a more comprehensive business plan.

A business plan can aim to secure funding from investors or lenders, while a business model canvas communicates a business idea to potential customers or partners.

Why is a business plan important?

A business plan is crucial for any entrepreneur or business owner wanting to increase their chances of success.

Here are some of the many benefits of having a thorough business plan.

Helps to define the business goals and objectives

A business plan encourages you to think critically about your goals and objectives. Doing so lets you clearly understand what you want to achieve and how you plan to get there.

A well-defined set of goals, objectives, and key results also provides a sense of direction and purpose, which helps keep business owners focused and motivated.

Guides decision-making

A business plan requires you to consider different scenarios and potential problems that may arise in your business. This awareness allows you to devise strategies to deal with these issues and avoid pitfalls.

With a clear plan, entrepreneurs can make informed decisions aligning with their overall business goals and objectives. This helps reduce the risk of making costly mistakes and ensures they make decisions with long-term success in mind.

Attracts investors and secures funding

Investors and lenders often require a business plan before considering investing in your business. A document that outlines the company's goals, objectives, and financial forecasts can help instill confidence in potential investors and lenders.

A well-written business plan demonstrates that you have thoroughly thought through your business idea and have a solid plan for success.

Identifies potential challenges and risks

A business plan requires entrepreneurs to consider potential challenges and risks that could impact their business. For example:

Is there enough demand for my product or service?

Will I have enough capital to start my business?

Is the market oversaturated with too many competitors?

What will happen if my marketing strategy is ineffective?

By identifying these potential challenges, entrepreneurs can develop strategies to mitigate risks and overcome challenges. This can reduce the likelihood of costly mistakes and ensure the business is well-positioned to take on any challenges.

Provides a basis for measuring success

A business plan serves as a framework for measuring success by providing clear goals and financial projections . Entrepreneurs can regularly refer to the original business plan as a benchmark to measure progress. By comparing the current business position to initial forecasts, business owners can answer questions such as:

Are we where we want to be at this point?

Did we achieve our goals?

If not, why not, and what do we need to do?

After assessing whether the business is meeting its objectives or falling short, business owners can adjust their strategies as needed.

How to make a business plan step by step

The steps below will guide you through the process of creating a business plan and what key components you need to include.

1. Create an executive summary

Start with a brief overview of your entire plan. The executive summary should cover your business plan's main points and key takeaways.

Keep your executive summary concise and clear with the Executive Summary Template . The simple design helps readers understand the crux of your business plan without reading the entire document.

2. Write your company description

Provide a detailed explanation of your company. Include information on what your company does, the mission statement, and your vision for the future.

Provide additional background information on the history of your company, the founders, and any notable achievements or milestones.

3. Conduct a market analysis

Conduct an in-depth analysis of your industry, competitors, and target market. This is best done with a SWOT analysis to identify your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Next, identify your target market's needs, demographics, and behaviors.

Use the Competitive Analysis Template to brainstorm answers to simple questions like:

What does the current market look like?

Who are your competitors?

What are they offering?

What will give you a competitive advantage?

Who is your target market?

What are they looking for and why?

How will your product or service satisfy a need?

These questions should give you valuable insights into the current market and where your business stands.

4. Describe your products and services

Provide detailed information about your products and services. This includes pricing information, product features, and any unique selling points.

Use the Product/Market Fit Template to explain how your products meet the needs of your target market. Describe what sets them apart from the competition.

5. Design a marketing and sales strategy

Outline how you plan to promote and sell your products. Your marketing strategy and sales strategy should include information about your:

Pricing strategy

Advertising and promotional tactics

Sales channels

The Go to Market Strategy Template is a great way to visually map how you plan to launch your product or service in a new or existing market.

6. Determine budget and financial projections

Document detailed information on your business’ finances. Describe the current financial position of the company and how you expect the finances to play out.

Some details to include in this section are:

Startup costs

Revenue projections

Profit and loss statement

Funding you have received or plan to receive

Strategy for raising funds

7. Set the organization and management structure

Define how your company is structured and who will be responsible for each aspect of the business. Use the Business Organizational Chart Template to visually map the company’s teams, roles, and hierarchy.

As well as the organization and management structure, discuss the legal structure of your business. Clarify whether your business is a corporation, partnership, sole proprietorship, or LLC.

8. Make an action plan

At this point in your business plan, you’ve described what you’re aiming for. But how are you going to get there? The Action Plan Template describes the following steps to move your business plan forward. Outline the next steps you plan to take to bring your business plan to fruition.

Types of business plans

Several types of business plans cater to different purposes and stages of a company's lifecycle. Here are some of the most common types of business plans.

Startup business plan

A startup business plan is typically an entrepreneur's first business plan. This document helps entrepreneurs articulate their business idea when starting a new business.

Not sure how to make a business plan for a startup? It’s pretty similar to a regular business plan, except the primary purpose of a startup business plan is to convince investors to provide funding for the business. A startup business plan also outlines the potential target market, product/service offering, marketing plan, and financial projections.

Strategic business plan

A strategic business plan is a long-term plan that outlines a company's overall strategy, objectives, and tactics. This type of strategic plan focuses on the big picture and helps business owners set goals and priorities and measure progress.

The primary purpose of a strategic business plan is to provide direction and guidance to the company's management team and stakeholders. The plan typically covers a period of three to five years.

Operational business plan

An operational business plan is a detailed document that outlines the day-to-day operations of a business. It focuses on the specific activities and processes required to run the business, such as:

Organizational structure

Staffing plan

Production plan

Quality control

Inventory management

Supply chain

The primary purpose of an operational business plan is to ensure that the business runs efficiently and effectively. It helps business owners manage their resources, track their performance, and identify areas for improvement.

Growth-business plan

A growth-business plan is a strategic plan that outlines how a company plans to expand its business. It helps business owners identify new market opportunities and increase revenue and profitability. The primary purpose of a growth-business plan is to provide a roadmap for the company's expansion and growth.

The 3 Horizons of Growth Template is a great tool to identify new areas of growth. This framework categorizes growth opportunities into three categories: Horizon 1 (core business), Horizon 2 (emerging business), and Horizon 3 (potential business).

One-page business plan

A one-page business plan is a condensed version of a full business plan that focuses on the most critical aspects of a business. It’s a great tool for entrepreneurs who want to quickly communicate their business idea to potential investors, partners, or employees.

A one-page business plan typically includes sections such as business concept, value proposition, revenue streams, and cost structure.

Best practices for how to make a good business plan

Here are some additional tips for creating a business plan:

Use a template

A template can help you organize your thoughts and effectively communicate your business ideas and strategies. Starting with a template can also save you time and effort when formatting your plan.

Miro’s extensive library of customizable templates includes all the necessary sections for a comprehensive business plan. With our templates, you can confidently present your business plans to stakeholders and investors.

Be practical

Avoid overestimating revenue projections or underestimating expenses. Your business plan should be grounded in practical realities like your budget, resources, and capabilities.

Be specific

Provide as much detail as possible in your business plan. A specific plan is easier to execute because it provides clear guidance on what needs to be done and how. Without specific details, your plan may be too broad or vague, making it difficult to know where to start or how to measure success.

Be thorough with your research

Conduct thorough research to fully understand the market, your competitors, and your target audience . By conducting thorough research, you can identify potential risks and challenges your business may face and develop strategies to mitigate them.

Get input from others

It can be easy to become overly focused on your vision and ideas, leading to tunnel vision and a lack of objectivity. By seeking input from others, you can identify potential opportunities you may have overlooked.

Review and revise regularly

A business plan is a living document. You should update it regularly to reflect market, industry, and business changes. Set aside time for regular reviews and revisions to ensure your plan remains relevant and effective.

Create a winning business plan to chart your path to success

Starting or growing a business can be challenging, but it doesn't have to be. Whether you're a seasoned entrepreneur or just starting, a well-written business plan can make or break your business’ success.

The purpose of a business plan is more than just to secure funding and attract investors. It also serves as a roadmap for achieving your business goals and realizing your vision. With the right mindset, tools, and strategies, you can develop a visually appealing, persuasive business plan.

Ready to make an effective business plan that works for you? Check out our library of ready-made strategy and planning templates and chart your path to success.

Get on board in seconds

Join thousands of teams using Miro to do their best work yet.

14 Reasons Why You Need a Business Plan

10 min. read

Updated May 10, 2024

There’s no question that starting and running a business is hard work. But it’s also incredibly rewarding. And, one of the most important things you can do to increase your chances of success is to have a business plan.

A business plan is a foundational document that is essential for any company, no matter the size or age. From attracting potential investors to keeping your business on track—a business plan helps you achieve important milestones and grow in the right direction.

A business plan isn’t just a document you put together once when starting your business. It’s a living, breathing guide for existing businesses – one that business owners should revisit and update regularly.

Unfortunately, writing a business plan is often a daunting task for potential entrepreneurs. So, do you really need a business plan? Is it really worth the investment of time and resources? Can’t you just wing it and skip the whole planning process?

Good questions. Here’s every reason why you need a business plan.

• 1. Business planning is proven to help you grow 30 percent faster

Writing a business plan isn’t about producing a document that accurately predicts the future of your company. The  process  of writing your plan is what’s important. Writing your plan and reviewing it regularly gives you a better window into what you need to do to achieve your goals and succeed. 

You don’t have to just take our word for it. Studies have  proven that companies that plan  and review their results regularly grow 30 percent faster. Beyond faster growth, research also shows that companies that plan actually perform better. They’re less likely to become one of those woeful failure statistics, or experience  cash flow crises  that threaten to close them down. 

• 2. Planning is a necessary part of the fundraising process

One of the top reasons to have a business plan is to make it easier to raise money for your business. Without a business plan, it’s difficult to know how much money you need to raise, how you will spend the money once you raise it, and what your budget should be.

Investors want to know that you have a solid plan in place – that your business is headed in the right direction and that there is long-term potential in your venture. 

A business plan shows that your business is serious and that there are clearly defined steps on how it aims to become successful. It also demonstrates that you have the necessary competence to make that vision a reality. 

Investors, partners, and creditors will want to see detailed financial forecasts for your business that shows how you plan to grow and how you plan on spending their money. 

• 3. Having a business plan minimizes your risk

When you’re just starting out, there’s so much you don’t know—about your customers, your competition, and even about operations. 

As a business owner, you signed up for some of that uncertainty when you started your business, but there’s a lot you can  do to reduce your risk . Creating and reviewing your business plan regularly is a great way to uncover your weak spots—the flaws, gaps, and assumptions you’ve made—and develop contingency plans. 

Your business plan will also help you define budgets and revenue goals. And, if you’re not meeting your goals, you can quickly adjust spending plans and create more realistic budgets to keep your business healthy.

Brought to you by

Create a professional business plan

Using ai and step-by-step instructions.

Secure funding

Validate ideas

Build a strategy

• 4. Crafts a roadmap to achieve important milestones

A business plan is like a roadmap for your business. It helps you set, track and reach business milestones. 

For your plan to function in this way, your business plan should first outline your company’s short- and long-term goals. You can then fill in the specific steps necessary to reach those goals. This ensures that you measure your progress (or lack thereof) and make necessary adjustments along the way to stay on track while avoiding costly detours.

In fact, one of the top reasons why new businesses fail is due to bad business planning. Combine this with inflexibility and you have a recipe for disaster.

And planning is not just for startups. Established businesses benefit greatly from revisiting their business plan. It keeps them on track, even when the global market rapidly shifts as we’ve seen in recent years.

• 5. A plan helps you figure out if your idea can become a business

To turn your idea into reality, you need to accurately assess the feasibility of your business idea.

You need to verify:

• If there is a market for your product or service
• Who your target audience is
• How you will gain an edge over the current competition
• If your business can run profitably

A business plan forces you to take a step back and look at your business objectively, which makes it far easier to make tough decisions down the road. Additionally, a business plan helps you to identify risks and opportunities early on, providing you with the necessary time to come up with strategies to address them properly.

Finally, a business plan helps you work through the nuts and bolts of how your business will work financially and if it can become sustainable over time.

6. You’ll make big spending decisions with confidence

As your business grows, you’ll have to figure out when to hire new employees, when to expand to a new location, or whether you can afford a major purchase. 

These are always major spending decisions, and if you’re regularly reviewing the forecasts you mapped out in your business plan, you’re going to have better information to use to make your decisions.

7. You’re more likely to catch critical cash flow challenges early

The other side of those major spending decisions is understanding and monitoring your business’s cash flow. Your  cash flow statement  is one of the three key financial statements you’ll put together for your business plan. (The other two are your  balance sheet  and your  income statement  (P&L). 

Reviewing your cash flow statement regularly as part of your regular business plan review will help you see potential cash flow challenges earlier so you can take action to avoid a cash crisis where you can’t pay your bills. 

• 8. Position your brand against the competition

Competitors are one of the factors that you need to take into account when starting a business. Luckily, competitive research is an integral part of writing a business plan. It encourages you to ask questions like:

• What is your competition doing well? What are they doing poorly?
• What can you do to set yourself apart?
• What can you learn from them?
• How can you make your business stand out?
• What key business areas can you outcompete?
• How can you identify your target market?

Finding answers to these questions helps you solidify a strategic market position and identify ways to differentiate yourself. It also proves to potential investors that you’ve done your homework and understand how to compete. 

• 9. Determines financial needs and revenue models

A vital part of starting a business is understanding what your expenses will be and how you will generate revenue to cover those expenses. Creating a business plan helps you do just that while also defining ongoing financial needs to keep in mind. 

Without a business model, it’s difficult to know whether your business idea will generate revenue. By detailing how you plan to make money, you can effectively assess the viability and scalability of your business. 

Understanding this early on can help you avoid unnecessary risks and start with the confidence that your business is set up to succeed.

• 10. Helps you think through your marketing strategy

A business plan is a great way to document your marketing plan. This will ensure that all of your marketing activities are aligned with your overall goals. After all, a business can’t grow without customers and you’ll need a strategy for acquiring those customers. 

Your business plan should include information about your target market, your marketing strategy, and your marketing budget. Detail things like how you plan to attract and retain customers, acquire new leads, how the digital marketing funnel will work, etc. 

Having a documented marketing plan will help you to automate business operations, stay on track and ensure that you’re making the most of your marketing dollars.

• 11. Clarifies your vision and ensures everyone is on the same page

In order to create a successful business, you need a clear vision and a plan for how you’re going to achieve it. This is all detailed with your mission statement, which defines the purpose of your business, and your personnel plan, which outlines the roles and responsibilities of current and future employees. Together, they establish the long-term vision you have in mind and who will need to be involved to get there. 

Additionally, your business plan is a great tool for getting your team in sync. Through consistent plan reviews, you can easily get everyone in your company on the same page and direct your workforce toward tasks that truly move the needle.

• 12. Future-proof your business

A business plan helps you to evaluate your current situation and make realistic projections for the future.

This is an essential step in growing your business, and it’s one that’s often overlooked. When you have a business plan in place, it’s easier to identify opportunities and make informed decisions based on data.

Therefore, it requires you to outline goals, strategies, and tactics to help the organization stay focused on what’s important.

By regularly revisiting your business plan, especially when the global market changes, you’ll be better equipped to handle whatever challenges come your way, and pivot faster.

You’ll also be in a better position to seize opportunities as they arise.

Further Reading: 5 fundamental principles of business planning

• 13. Tracks your progress and measures success

An often overlooked purpose of a business plan is as a tool to define success metrics. A key part of writing your plan involves pulling together a viable financial plan. This includes financial statements such as your profit and loss, cash flow, balance sheet, and sales forecast.

By housing these financial metrics within your business plan, you suddenly have an easy way to relate your strategy to actual performance. You can track progress, measure results, and follow up on how the company is progressing. Without a plan, it’s almost impossible to gauge whether you’re on track or not.  

Additionally, by evaluating your successes and failures, you learn what works and what doesn’t and you can make necessary changes to your plan. In short, having a business plan gives you a framework for measuring your success. It also helps with building up a “lessons learned” knowledge database to avoid costly mistakes in the future.

• 14. Your business plan is an asset if you ever want to sell

Down the road, you might decide that you want to sell your business or position yourself for acquisition. Having a solid business plan is going to help you make the case for a higher valuation. Your business is likely to be worth more to a buyer if it’s easy for them to understand your business model, your target market, and your overall potential to grow and scale. 

Free business plan template

Join over 1-million businesses and make planning easy with our simple, modern, investor-approved business plan template.

Download Template

• Writing your business plan

By taking the time to create a business plan, you ensure that your business is heading in the right direction and that you have a roadmap to get there. We hope that this post has shown you just how important and valuable a business plan can be. While it may still seem daunting, the benefits far outweigh the time investment and learning curve for writing one. 

Luckily, you can write a plan in as little as 30 minutes. And there are plenty of excellent planning tools and business plan templates out there if you’re looking for more step-by-step guidance. Whatever it takes, write your plan and you’ll quickly see how useful it can be.

See why 1.2 million entrepreneurs have written their business plans with LivePlan

Tim Berry is the founder and chairman of Palo Alto Software , a co-founder of Borland International, and a recognized expert in business planning. He has an MBA from Stanford and degrees with honors from the University of Oregon and the University of Notre Dame. Today, Tim dedicates most of his time to blogging, teaching and evangelizing for business planning.

Table of Contents

• 6. You’ll make big spending decisions with confidence
• 7. You’re more likely to catch critical cash flow challenges early

Related Articles

7 Min. Read

5 Consequences of Skipping a Business Plan

5 Min. Read

How to Run a Productive Monthly Business Plan Review Meeting

8 Business Plan Templates You Can Get for Free

10 Min. Read

Use This Simple Business Plan Outline to Organize Your Plan

The Bplans Newsletter

The Bplans Weekly

Subscribe now for weekly advice and free downloadable resources to help start and grow your business.

We care about your privacy. See our privacy policy .

The quickest way to turn a business idea into a business plan

Fill-in-the-blanks and automatic financials make it easy.

No thanks, I prefer writing 40-page documents.

Discover the world’s #1 plan building software

SMALL BUSINESS MONTH. 50% Off for 6 Months. BUY NOW & SAVE

50% Off for 6 Months Buy Now & Save

Wow clients with professional invoices that take seconds to create

Quick and easy online, recurring, and invoice-free payment options

Automated, to accurately track time and easily log billable hours

Reports and tools to track money in and out, so you know where you stand

Easily log expenses and receipts to ensure your books are always tax-time ready

Tax time and business health reports keep you informed and tax-time ready

Automatically track your mileage and never miss a mileage deduction again

Time-saving all-in-one bookkeeping that your business can count on

Track project status and collaborate with clients and team members

Organized and professional, helping you stand out and win new clients

Set clear expectations with clients and organize your plans for each project

Client management made easy, with client info all in one place

Pay your employees and keep accurate books with Payroll software integrations

• Team Management

FreshBooks integrates with over 100 partners to help you simplify your workflows

Send invoices, track time, manage payments, and more…from anywhere.

• Freelancers
• Self-Employed Professionals
• Businesses With Employees
• Businesses With Contractors
• Marketing & Agencies
• Construction & Trades
• IT & Technology
• Business & Prof. Services
• Accounting Partner Program
• Collaborative Accounting™
• Accountant Hub
• Reports Library
• FreshBooks vs QuickBooks
• FreshBooks vs HoneyBook
• FreshBooks vs Harvest
• FreshBooks vs Wave
• FreshBooks vs Xero
• Free Invoice Generator
• Invoice Templates
• Accounting Templates
• Business Name Generator
• Estimate Templates
• Help Center
• Business Loan Calculator
• Mark Up Calculator

Call Toll Free: 1.866.303.6061

1-888-674-3175

• All Articles
• Productivity
• Project Management
• Bookkeeping

Resources for Your Growing Business

The importance of business plan: 5 key reasons.

A key part of any business is its business plan. They can help define the goals of your business and help it reach success. A good business plan can also help you develop an adequate marketing strategy. There are a number of reasons all business owners need business plans, keep reading to learn more!

Here’s What We’ll Cover:

What Is a Business Plan?

5 reasons you need a well-written business plan, how do i make a business plan, key takeaways.

A business plan contains detailed information that can help determine its success. Some of this information can include the following:

• Market analysis
• Cash flow projection
• Competitive analysis
• Financial statements and financial projections
• An operating plan

A solid business plan is a good way to attract potential investors. It can also help you display to business partners that you have a successful business growing. In a competitive landscape, a formal business plan is your key to success.

Check out all of the biggest reasons you need a good business plan below.

1. To Secure Funding

Whether you’re seeking funding from a venture capitalist or a bank, you’ll need a business plan. Business plans are the foundation of a business. They tell the parties that you’re seeking funding from whether or not you’re worth investing in. If you need any sort of outside financing, you’ll need a good business plan to secure it.

2. Set and Communicate Goals

A business plan gives you a tangible way of reviewing your business goals. Business plans revolve around the present and the future. When you establish your goals and put them in writing, you’re more likely to reach them. A strong business plan includes these goals, and allows you to communicate them to investors and employees alike.

3. Prove Viability in the Market

While many businesses are born from passion, not many will last without an effective business plan. While a business concept may seem sound, things may change once the specifics are written down. Often, people who attempt to start a business without a plan will fail. This is because they don’t take into account all of the planning and funds needed to get a business off of the ground.

Market research is a large part of the business planning process. It lets you review your potential customers, as well as the competition, in your field. By understanding both you can set price points for products or services. Sometimes, it may not make sense to start a business based on the existing competition. Other times, market research can guide you to effective marketing strategies that others lack. To have a successful business, it has to be viable. A business plan will help you determine that.

4. They Help Owners Avoid Failure

Far too often, small businesses fail. Many times, this is due to the lack of a strong business plan. There are many reasons that small businesses fail, most of which can be avoided by developing a business plan. Some of them are listed below, which can be avoided by having a business plan:

• The market doesn’t need the business’s product or service
• The business didn’t take into account the amount of capital needed
• The market is oversaturated
• The prices set by the business are too high, pushing potential customers away

Any good business plan includes information to help business owners avoid these issues.

5. Business Plans Reduce Risk

Related to the last reason, business plans help reduce risk. A well-thought-out business plan helps reduce risky decisions. They help business owners make informed decisions based on the research they conduct. Any business owner can tell you that the most important part of their job is making critical decisions. A business plan that factors in all possible situations helps make those decisions.

Luckily, there are plenty of tools available to help you create a business plan. A simple search can lead you to helpful tools, like a business plan template . These are helpful, as they let you fill in the information as you go. Many of them provide basic instructions on how to create the business plan, as well.

If you plan on starting a business, you’ll need a business plan. They’re good for a vast number of things. Business plans help owners make informed decisions, as well as set goals and secure funding. Don’t put off putting together your business plan!

If you’re in the planning stages of your business, be sure to check out our resource hub . We have plenty of valuable resources and articles for you when you’re just getting started. Check it out today!

RELATED ARTICLES

Save Time Billing and Get Paid 2x Faster With FreshBooks

Want More Helpful Articles About Running a Business?

Get more great content in your Inbox.

By subscribing, you agree to receive communications from FreshBooks and acknowledge and agree to FreshBook’s Privacy Policy . You can unsubscribe at any time by contacting us at [email protected].

👋 Welcome to FreshBooks

To see our product designed specifically for your country, please visit the United States site.

• 212 best farm names

How to Write a Business Plan (Plus Examples & Templates)

May 24, 2021

Have you ever wondered how to write a business plan step by step? Mike Andes, told us: 

This guide will help you write a business plan to impress investors.

Throughout this process, we’ll get information from Mike Andes, who started Augusta Lawn Care Services when he was 12 and turned it into a franchise with over 90 locations. He has gone on to help others learn how to write business plans and start businesses.  He knows a thing or two about writing  business plans!

We’ll start by discussing the definition of a business plan. Then we’ll discuss how to come up with the idea, how to do the market research, and then the important elements in the business plan format. Keep reading to start your journey!

What Is a Business Plan?

A business plan is simply a road map of what you are trying to achieve with your business and how you will go about achieving it. It should cover all elements of your business including: 

• Finding customers
• Plans for developing a team
•  Competition
• Legal structures
• Key milestones you are pursuing

If you aren’t quite ready to create a business plan, consider starting by reading our business startup guide .

Get a Business Idea

Before you can write a business plan, you have to have a business idea. You may see a problem that needs to be solved and have an idea how to solve it, or you might start by evaluating your interests and skills. 

Mike told us, “The three things I suggest asking yourself when thinking about starting a business are:

• What am I good at?
• What would I enjoy doing?
• What can I get paid for?”

If all three of these questions don’t lead to at least one common answer, it will probably be a much harder road to success. Either there is not much market for it, you won’t be good at it, or you won’t enjoy doing it. 

As Mike told us, “There’s enough stress starting and running a business that if you don’t like it or aren’t good at it, it’s hard to succeed.”

If you’d like to hear more about Mike’s approach to starting a business, check out our YouTube video

Conduct Market Analysis

Market analysis is focused on establishing if there is a target market for your products and services, how large the target market is, and identifying the demographics of people or businesses that would be interested in the product or service. The goal here is to establish how much money your business concept can make.

Product and Service Demand

A search engine is your best friend when trying to figure out if there is demand for your products and services. Personally, I love using presearch.org because it lets you directly search on a ton of different platforms including Google, Youtube, Twitter, and more. Check out the screenshot for the full list of search options.

With quick web searches, you can find out how many competitors you have, look through their reviews, and see if there are common complaints about the competitors. Bad reviews are a great place to find opportunities to offer better products or services. 

If there are no similar products or services, you may have stumbled upon something new, or there may just be no demand for it. To find out, go talk to your most honest friend about the idea and see what they think. If they tell you it’s dumb or stare at you vacantly, there’s probably no market for it.

You can also conduct a survey through social media to get public opinion on your idea. Using Facebook Business Manager , you could get a feel for who would be interested in your product or service.

 I ran a quick test of how many people between 18-65  you could reach in the U.S. during a week. It returned an estimated 700-2,000 for the total number of leads, which is enough to do a fairly accurate statistical analysis.

Identify Demographics of Target Market

Depending on what type of business you want to run, your target market will be different. The narrower the demographic, the fewer potential customers you’ll have. If you did a survey, you’ll be able to use that data to help define your target audience. Some considerations you’ll want to consider are:

• Other Interests
• Marital Status
• Do they have kids?

Once you have this information, it can help you narrow down your options for location and help define your marketing further. One resource that Mike recommended using is the Census Bureau’s Quick Facts Map . He told us,  

“It helps you quickly evaluate what the best areas are for your business to be located.”

How to Write a Business Plan

Now that you’ve developed your idea a little and established there is a market for it, you can begin writing a business plan. Getting started is easier with the business plan template we created for you to download. I strongly recommend using it as it is updated to make it easier to create an action plan. 

Each of the following should be a section of your business plan:

• Business Plan Cover Page
• Table of Contents
• Executive Summary
• Company Description
• Description of Products and Services

SWOT Analysis

• Competitor Data
• Competitive Analysis
• Marketing Expenses Strategy 
• Pricing Strategy
• Distribution Channel Assessment
• Operational Plan
• Management and Organizational Strategy
• Financial Statements and/or Financial Projections

We’ll look into each of these. Don’t forget to download our free business plan template (mentioned just above) so you can follow along as we go. 

How to Write a Business Plan Step 1. Create a Cover Page

The first thing investors will see is the cover page for your business plan. Make sure it looks professional. A great cover page shows that you think about first impressions.

A good business plan should have the following elements on a cover page:

• Professionally designed logo
• Company name
• Mission or Vision Statement
• Contact Info

Basically, think of a cover page for your business plan like a giant business card. It is meant to capture people’s attention but be quickly processed.

How to Write a Business Plan Step 2. Create a Table of Contents

Most people are busy enough that they don’t have a lot of time. Providing a table of contents makes it easy for them to find the pages of your plan that are meaningful to them.

A table of contents will be immediately after the cover page, but you can include it after the executive summary. Including the table of contents immediately after the executive summary will help investors know what section of your business plan they want to review more thoroughly.

Check out Canva’s article about creating a  table of contents . It has a ton of great information about creating easy access to each section of your business plan. Just remember that you’ll want to use different strategies for digital and hard copy business plans.

How to Write a Business Plan Step 3. Write an Executive Summary

An executive summary is where your business plan should catch the readers interest.  It doesn’t need to be long, but should be quick and easy to read.

Mike told us,

How long should an executive summary bein an informal business plan?

For casual use, an executive summary should be similar to an elevator pitch, no more than 150-160 words, just enough to get them interested and wanting more. Indeed has a great article on elevator pitches .  This can also be used for the content of emails to get readers’ attention.

It consists of three basic parts:

• An introduction to you and your business.
• What your business is about.
• A call to action

Example of an informal executive summary 

One of the best elevator pitches I’ve used is:

So far that pitch has achieved a 100% success rate in getting partnerships for the business.

What should I include in an executive summary for investors?

Investors are going to need a more detailed executive summary if you want to secure financing or sell equity. The executive summary should be a brief overview of your entire business plan and include:

• Introduction of yourself and company.
• An origin story (Recognition of a problem and how you came to solution)
• An introduction to your products or services.
• Your unique value proposition. Make sure to include intellectual property.
• Where you are in the business life cycle
• Request and why you need it.

Successful business plan examples

The owner of Urbanity told us he spent 2 months writing a 75-page business plan and received a $250,000 loan from the bank when he was 23. Make your business plan as detailed as possible when looking for financing. We’ve provided a template to help you prepare the portions of a business plan that banks expect.

Here’s the interview with the owner of Urbanity:

When to write an executive summary?

Even though the summary is near the beginning of a business plan, you should write it after you complete the rest of a business plan. You can’t talk about revenue, profits, and expected expenditures if you haven’t done the market research and created a financial plan.

What mistakes do people make when writing an executive summary?

Business owners commonly go into too much detail about the following items in an executive summary:

• Marketing and sales processes
• Financial statements
• Organizational structure
• Market analysis

These are things that people will want to know later, but they don’t hook the reader. They won’t spark interest in your small business, but they’ll close the deal.

How to Write a Business Plan Step 4. Company Description

Every business plan should include a company description. A great business plan will include the following elements while describing the company:

• Mission statement
• Philosophy and vision
• Company goals

Target market

• Legal structure

Let’s take a look at what each section includes in a good business plan.

Mission Statement

A mission statement is a brief explanation of why you started the company and what the company’s main focus is. It should be no more than one or two sentences. Check out HubSpot’s article 27 Inspiring Mission Statement for a great read on informative and inspiring mission and vision statements. 

Company Philosophy and Vision

The company philosophy is what drives your company. You’ll normally hear them called core values.  These are the building blocks that make your company different. You want to communicate your values to customers, business owners, and investors as often as possible to build a company culture, but make sure to back them up.

What makes your company different?

Each company is different. Your new business should rise above the standard company lines of honesty, integrity, fun, innovation, and community when communicating your business values. The standard answers are corporate jargon and lack authenticity. 

Examples of core values

One of my clients decided to add a core values page to their website. As a tech company they emphasized the values:

•  Prioritize communication.
•  Never stop learning.
•  Be transparent.
•  Start small and grow incrementally.

These values communicate how the owner and the rest of the company operate. They also show a value proposition and competitive advantage because they specifically focus on delivering business value from the start. These values also genuinely show what the company is about and customers recognize the sincerity. Indeed has a great blog about how to identify your core values .

What is a vision statement?

A vision statement communicate the long lasting change a business pursues. The vision helps investors and customers understand what your company is trying to accomplish. The vision statement goes beyond a mission statement to provide something meaningful to the community, customer’s lives, or even the world.

Example vision statements

The Alzheimer’s Association is a great example of a vision statement:

A world without Alzheimer’s Disease and other dementia.

It clearly tells how they want to change the world. A world without Alzheimers might be unachievable, but that means they always have room for improvement.

Business Goals

You have to measure success against goals for a business plan to be meaningful. A business plan helps guide a company similar to how your GPS provides a road map to your favorite travel destination. A goal to make as much money as possible is not inspirational and sounds greedy.

Sure, business owners want to increase their profits and improve customer service, but they need to present an overview of what they consider success. The goals should help everyone prioritize their work.

How far in advance should a business plan?

Business planning should be done at least one year in advance, but many banks and investors prefer three to five year business plans. Longer plans show investors that the management team  understands the market and knows the business is operating in a constantly shifting market. In addition, a plan helps businesses to adjust to changes because they have already considered how to handle them.

Example of great business goals

My all time-favorite long-term company goals are included in Tesla’s Master Plan, Part Deux . These goals were written in 2016 and drive the company’s decisions through 2026. They are the reason that investors are so forgiving when Elon Musk continually fails to meet his quarterly and annual goals.

If the progress aligns with the business plan investors are likely to continue to believe in the company. Just make sure the goals are reasonable or you’ll be discredited (unless you’re Elon Musk).

You did target market research before creating a business plan. Now it’s time to add it to the plan so others understand what your ideal customer looks like. As a new business owner, you may not be considered an expert in your field yet, so document everything. Make sure the references you use are from respectable sources. 

Use information from the specific lender when you are applying for lending. Most lenders provide industry research reports and using their data can strengthen the position of your business plan.

A small business plan should include a section on the external environment. Understanding the industry is crucial because we don’t plan a business in a vacuum. Make sure to research the industry trends, competitors, and forecasts. I personally prefer IBIS World for my business research. Make sure to answer questions like:

• What is the industry outlook long-term and short-term?
• How will your business take advantage of projected industry changes and trends?
• What might happen to your competitors and how will your business successfully compete?

Industry resources

Some helpful resources to help you establish more about your industry are:

• Trade Associations
• Federal Reserve
• Bureau of Labor Statistics

Legal Structure

There are five basic types of legal structures that most people will utilize:

• Sole proprietorships
• Limited Liability Companies (LLC)

Partnerships

Corporations.

• Franchises.

Each business structure has their pros and cons. An LLC is the most common legal structure due to its protection of personal assets and ease of setting up. Make sure to specify how ownership is divided and what roles each owner plays when you have more than one business owner.

You’ll have to decide which structure is best for you, but we’ve gathered information on each to make it easier.

Sole Proprietorship

A sole proprietorship is the easiest legal structure to set up but doesn’t protect the owner’s personal assets from legal issues. That means if something goes wrong, you could lose both your company and your home.

To start a sole proprietorship, fill out a special tax form called a  Schedule C . Sole proprietors can also join the American Independent Business Alliance .

Limited Liability Company (LLC)

An LLC is the most common business structure used in the United States because an LLC protects the owner’s personal assets. It’s similar to partnerships and corporations, but can be a single-member LLC in most states. An LLC requires a document called an operating agreement.

Each state has different requirements. Here’s a link to find your state’s requirements . Delaware and Nevada are common states to file an LLC because they are really business-friendly. Here’s a blog on the top 10 states to get an LLC.

Partnerships are typically for legal firms. If you choose to use a partnership choose a Limited Liability Partnership. Alternatively, you can just use an LLC.

Corporations are typically for massive organizations. Corporations have taxes on both corporate and income tax so unless you plan on selling stock, you are better off considering an LLC with S-Corp status . Investopedia has good information corporations here .

There are several opportunities to purchase successful franchises. TopFranchise.com has a list of companies in a variety of industries that offer franchise opportunities. This makes it where an entrepreneur can benefit from the reputation of an established business that has already worked out many of the kinks of starting from scratch.

How to Write a Business Plan Step 5. Products and Services

This section of the business plan should focus on what you sell, how you source it, and how you sell it. You should include:

• Unique features that differentiate your business products from competitors
• Intellectual property
• Your supply chain
• Cost and pricing structure 

Questions to answer about your products and services

Mike gave us a list  of the most important questions to answer about your product and services:

• How will you be selling the product? (in person, ecommerce, wholesale, direct to consumer)?
• How do you let them know they need a product?
• How do you communicate the message?
• How will you do transactions?
• How much will you be selling it for?
• How many do you think you’ll sell and why?

Make sure to use the worksheet on our business plan template .

How to Write a Business Plan Step 6. Sales and Marketing Plan

The marketing and sales plan is focused on the strategy to bring awareness to your company and guides how you will get the product to the consumer.  It should contain the following sections:

SWOT Analysis stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Not only do you want to identify them, but you also want to document how the business plans to deal with them.

Business owners need to do a thorough job documenting how their service or product stacks up against the competition.

If proper research isn’t done, investors will be able to tell that the owner hasn’t researched the competition and is less likely to believe that the team can protect its service from threats by the more well-established competition. This is one of the most common parts of a presentation that trips up business owners presenting on Shark Tank .

SWOT Examples

Examples of strengths and weaknesses could be things like the lack of cash flow, intellectual property ownership, high costs of suppliers, and customers’ expectations on shipping times.

Opportunities could be ways to capitalize on your strengths or improve your weaknesses, but may also be gaps in the industry. This includes:

• Adding offerings that fit with your current small business
• Increase sales to current customers
• Reducing costs through bulk ordering
• Finding ways to reduce inventory
•  And other areas you can improve

Threats will normally come from outside of the company but could also be things like losing a key member of the team. Threats normally come from competition, regulations, taxes, and unforeseen events.

The management team should use the SWOT analysis to guide other areas of business planning, but it absolutely has to be done before a business owner starts marketing. 

Include Competitor Data in Your Business Plan

When you plan a business, taking into consideration the strengths and weaknesses of the competition is key to navigating the field. Providing an overview of your competition and where they are headed shows that you are invested in understanding the industry.

For smaller businesses, you’ll want to search both the company and the owners names to see what they are working on. For publicly held corporations, you can find their quarterly and annual reports on the SEC website .

What another business plans to do can impact your business. Make sure to include things that might make it attractive for bigger companies to outsource to a small business.

Marketing Strategy

The marketing and sales part of business plans should be focused on how you are going to make potential customers aware of your business and then sell to them.

If you haven’t already included it, Mike recommends:

“They’ll want to know about Demographics, ages, and wealth of your target market.”

Make sure to include the Total addressable market .  The term refers to the value if you captured 100% of the market.

Advertising Strategy

You’ll explain what formats of advertising you’ll be using. Some possibilities are:

• Online: Facebook and Google are the big names to work with here.
• Print : Print can be used to reach broad groups or targeted markets. Check out this for tips .
• Radio : iHeartMedia is one of the best ways to advertise on the radio
• Cable television : High priced, hard to measure ROI, but here’s an explanation of the process
• Billboards: Attracting customers with billboards can be beneficial in high traffic areas.

You’ll want to define how you’ll be using each including frequency, duration, and cost. If you have the materials already created, including pictures or links to the marketing to show creative assets.

Mike told us “Most businesses are marketing digitally now due to Covid, but that’s not always the right answer.”

Make sure the marketing strategy will help team members or external marketing agencies stay within the brand guidelines .

This section of a business plan should be focused on pricing. There are a ton of pricing strategies that may work for different business plans. Which one will work for you depends on what kind of a business you run.

Some common pricing strategies are:

• Value-based pricing – Commonly used with home buying and selling or other products that are status symbols.
• Skimming pricing – Commonly seen in video game consoles, price starts off high to recoup expenses quickly, then reduces over time.
• Competition-based pricing – Pricing based on competitors’ pricing is commonly seen at gas stations.
• Freemium services –  Commonly used for software, where there is a free plan, then purchase options for more functionality.

HubSpot has a great calculator and blog on pricing strategies.

Beyond explaining what strategy your business plans to use, you should include references for how you came to this pricing strategy and how it will impact your cash flow.

Distribution Plan

This part of a business plan is focused on how the product or service is going to go through the supply chain. These may include multiple divisions or multiple companies. Make sure to include any parts of the workflow that are automated so investors can see where cost savings are expected and when.

Supply Chain Examples

For instance, lawn care companies  would need to cover aspects such as:

• Suppliers for lawn care equipment and tools
• Any chemicals or treatments needed
• Repair parts for sprinkler systems
• Vehicles to transport equipment and employees
• Insurance to protect the company vehicles and people.

Examples of Supply Chains

These are fairly flat supply chains compared to something like a clothing designer where the clothes would go through multiple vendors. A clothing company might have the following supply chain:

• Raw materials
• Shipping of raw materials
• Converting of raw materials to thread
• Shipping thread to produce garments
• Garment producer
• Shipping to company
• Company storage
• Shipping to retail stores

There have been advances such as print on demand that eliminate many of these steps. If you are designing completely custom clothing, all of this would need to be planned to keep from having business disruptions.

The main thing to include in the business plan is the list of suppliers, the path the supply chain follows, the time from order to the customer’s home, and the costs associated with each step of the process.

According to BizPlanReview , a business plan without this information is likely to get rejected because they have failed to research the key elements necessary to make sales to the customer.

How to Write a Business Plan Step 7. Company Organization and Operational Plan

This part of the business plan is focused on how the business model will function while serving customers.  The business plan should provide an overview of  how the team will manage the following aspects:

Quality Control

• Legal environment

Let’s look at each for some insight.

Production has already been discussed in previous sections so I won’t go into it much. When writing a business plan for investors, try to avoid repetition as it creates a more simple business plan.

If the organizational plan will be used by the team as an overview of how to perform the best services for the customer, then redundancy makes more sense as it communicates what is important to the business.

Quality control policies help to keep the team focused on how to verify that the company adheres to the business plan and meets or exceeds customer expectations.

Quality control can be anything from a standard that says “all labels on shirts can be no more than 1/16″ off center” to a defined checklist of steps that should be performed and filled out for every customer.

There are a variety of organizations that help define quality control including:

• International Organization for Standardization – Quality standards for energy, technology, food, production environments, and cybersecurity
• AICPA – Standard defined for accounting.
• The Joint Commission – Healthcare
• ASHRAE – HVAC best practices

You can find lists of the organizations that contribute most to the government regulation of industries on Open Secrets . Research what the leaders in your field are doing. Follow their example and implement it in your quality control plan.

For location, you should use information from the market research to establish where the location will be. Make sure to include the following in the location documentation.

• The size of your location
• The type of building (retail, industrial, commercial, etc.)
• Zoning restrictions – Urban Wire has a good map on how zoning works in each state
• Accessibility – Does it meet ADA requirements?
• Costs including rent, maintenance, utilities, insurance and any buildout or remodeling costs
• Utilities – b.e.f. has a good energy calculator .

Legal Environment

The legal requirement section is focused on defining how to meet the legal requirements for your industry. A good business plan should include all of the following:

• Any licenses and/or permits that are needed and whether you’ve obtained them
• Any trademarks, copyrights, or patents that you have or are in the process of applying for
• The insurance coverage your business requires and how much it costs
• Any environmental, health, or workplace regulations affecting your business
• Any special regulations affecting your industry
• Bonding requirements, if applicable

Your local SBA office can help you establish requirements in your area. I strongly recommend using them. They are a great resource.

Your business plan should include a plan for company organization and hiring. While you may be the only person with the company right now, down the road you’ll need more people. Make sure to consider and document the answers to the following questions:

• What is the current leadership structure and what will it look like in the future?
• What types of employees will you have? Are there any licensing or educational requirements?
• How many employees will you need?
• Will you ever hire freelancers or independent contractors?
• What is each position’s job description?
• What is the pay structure (hourly, salaried, base plus commission, etc.)?
• How do you plan to find qualified employees and contractors?

One of the most crucial parts of a business plan is the organizational chart. This simply shows the positions the company will need, who is in charge of them and the relationship of each of them. It will look similar to this:

Our small business plan template has a much more in-depth organizational chart you can edit to include when you include the organizational chart in your business plan.

How to Write a Business Plan Step 8. Financial Statements 

No business plan is complete without financial statements or financial projections. The business plan format will be different based on whether you are writing a business plan to expand a business or a startup business plan. Let’s dig deeper into each.

Provide All Financial Income from an Existing Business

An existing business should use their past financial documents including the income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statement to find trends to estimate the next 3-5 years.

You can create easy trendlines in excel to predict future revenue, profit and loss, cash flow, and other changes in year-over-year performance. This will show your expected performance assuming business continues as normal.

If you are seeking an investment, then the business is probably not going to continue as normal. Depending on the financial plan and the purpose of getting financing, adjustments may be needed to the following:

• Higher Revenue if expanding business
• Lower Cost of Goods Sold if purchasing inventory with bulk discounts
• Adding interest if utilizing financing (not equity deal)
• Changes in expenses
• Addition of financing information to the cash flow statement
• Changes in Earnings per Share on the balance sheet

Financial modeling is a challenging subject, but there are plenty of low-cost courses on the subject. If you need help planning your business financial documentation take some time to watch some of them.

Make it a point to document how you calculated all the changes to the income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statement in your business plan so that key team members or investors can verify your research.

Financial Projections For A Startup Business Plan

Unlike an existing business, a startup doesn’t have previous success to model its future performance. In this scenario, you need to focus on how to make a business plan realistic through the use of industry research and averages.

Mike gave the following advice in his interview:

Financial Forecasting Mistakes

One of the things a lot of inexperienced people use is the argument, “If I get one percent of the market, it is worth $100 million.” If you use this, investors are likely to file the document under bad business plan examples.

Let’s use custom t-shirts as an example.

Credence Research estimated in 2018 there were 11,334,800,000 custom t-shirts sold for a total of $206.12 Billion, with a 6% compound annual growth rate.

With that data,  you can calculate that the industry will grow to $270 Billion in 2023 and that the average shirt sold creates $18.18 in revenue.

Combine that with an IBIS World estimate of 11,094 custom screen printers and that means even if you become an average seller, you’ll get .009% of the market.

Here’s a table for easier viewing of that information.

The point here is to make sure your business proposal examples make sense.

You’ll need to know industry averages such as cost of customer acquisition, revenue per customer, the average cost of goods sold, and admin costs to be able to create accurate estimates.

Our simple business plan templates walk you through most of these processes. If you follow them you’ll have a good idea of how to write a business proposal.

How to Write a Business Plan Step 9. Business Plan Example of Funding Requests

What is a business plan without a plan on how to obtain funding?

The Small Business Administration has an example for a pizza restaurant that theoretically needed nearly $20k to make it through their first month.

In our video, How to Start a $500K/Year T-Shirt Business (Pt. 1 ), Sanford Booth told us he needed about $200,000 to start his franchise and broke even after 4 months.

Freshbooks estimates it takes on average 2-3 years for a business to be profitable, which means the fictitious pizza company from the SBA could need up to $330k to make it through that time and still pay their bills for their home and pizza shop.

Not every business needs that much to start, but realistically it’s a good idea to assume that you need a fairly large cushion.

Ways to get funding for a small business

There are a variety of ways to cover this. the most common are:

• Bootstrapping – Using your savings without external funding.
• Taking out debt – loans, credit cards
• Equity, Seed Funding – Ownership of a percentage of the company in exchange for current funds
• Crowdsourcing – Promising a good for funding to create the product

Keep reading for more tips on how to write a business plan.

How funding will be used

When asking for business financing make sure to include:

• How much to get started?
• What is the minimum viable product and how soon can you make money?
• How will the money be spent?

Mike emphasized two aspects that should be included in every plan, 

How to Write a Business Plan Resources

Here are some links to a business plan sample and business plan outline. 

• Sample plan

It’s also helpful to follow some of the leading influencers in the business plan writing community. Here’s a list:

• Wise Plans –  Shares a lot of information on starting businesses and is a business plan writing company.
• Optimus Business Plans –  Another business plan writing company.
• Venture Capital – A venture capital thread that can help give you ideas.

How to Write a Business Plan: What’s Next?

We hope this guide about how to write a simple business plan step by step has been helpful. We’ve covered:

• The definition of a business plan
• Coming up with a business idea
• Performing market research
• The critical components of a business plan
• An example business plan

In addition, we provided you with a simple business plan template to assist you in the process of writing your startup business plan. The startup business plan template also includes a business model template that will be the key to your success.

Don’t forget to check out the rest of our business hub .

Have you written a business plan before? How did it impact your ability to achieve your goals?

80% of businesses fail... Learn how not to.

Learn from business failures and successes in 5 min or less. The stories, frameworks, and tactics that will make you a 10x better founder.

Brandon Boushy

Related articles

Sole Proprietorship vs. LLC – Which Should You Choose?

What should a business owner consider before choosing an LLC over a sole proprietorship?

• The legal protection of personal assets
• Formation of LLC or registering the business as a sole proprietorship
• Treatment of business income

LLC vs. Sole Proprietorship: Legal Protection of Personal Assets

• When running an LLC properly, your business assets cannot be included when a court considers your personal assets, but your income and profit can be if run as a pass-through entity.
• When running an LLC properly, liability protection prevents your personal assets from being included when a court considers your business assets, as long as you were not personally responsible for the behavior that caused the court judgment.
• The debts of the business and any personal debts are separate if you follow the requirements to provide liability protection.
• Personal and business banking need to be in separate accounts.
• If you personally do something in the course of business, an LLC will not provide personal liability protection.
• Personal liability protection prevents being held personally liable for any debt to a business creditor.
• A single-member LLC can offer better protection when opting to follow C-Corp requirements by filing Form 8832 and adhering to corporate law.
• There is insurance that can add additional personal liability protection for LLCs against losses.

LLC vs. Sole Proprietorship: Formation

Forming a sole proprietorship.

Forming an LLC

• Filing cost
• Ongoing fees
• Operating agreement
• Articles of organization
• Must have an EIN
• Does not need a DBA unless operating as something other than the LLC name.

Filing Cost and Ongoing Fees

Operating agreement.

• The creation date
• Owners and percentages
• Management and voting interests
• Investment in Business
• How profits, losses, and assets, are distributed
• How membership changes are handled is important for a single-member LLC because they may want to pass it on when they die
• How to dissolve the company if there is a desire to close it
• And anything else required by your state

Articles of Organization

• Description of the company
• Mailing address
• Name and address of the registered (or statutory) agent
• Information about company owners, managers, and officers

LLC vs. Sole Proprietorship: Taxes

LLC vs. Sole Proprietorship: Business Income

• A sole proprietor has to claim the income if it is not spent on expenses in that year, while an LLC filing as a corporation can retain the profits and only pay the 21% tax rate for corporations. This makes the income easier to reinvest than a sole proprietor.
• A limited liability company can pay dividends to the owners, which may create a more favorable tax consequence. A sole proprietorship cannot.
• A limited liability company can borrow money from its owners at a fair market rate, while a sole proprietorship cannot. This allows you to get returns on your investment until it is paid off, which qualifies as interest income for the person and a business expense for the LLC. When the LLC pays off the investor, the original capital is not taxable.

Sole Proprietor vs. LLC: Franchise Tax

Llc vs. sole proprietor: operations, it’s a tie between llcs and sole proprietorships .

How to Start a $500K/Year Auto Repair Shop (2024)

Develop Repair Shop Knowledge

Industry information, major players.

• TravelCenters of America 
• TBC Corporation
• Love’s Travel Stops & Country Stores, Inc.
• Meineke Car Care Centers, LLC
• The Boyd Group Inc.
• NationaLease
• New car dealerships
• Oil changes services
• Used car dealerships
• Automotive part supply shops

Automobile Repair Shop Revenue

Operating Expenses

• Other Costs: 46.7% (includes taxes, IT, professional services, repairs, and miscellaneous). Based on my reading of the entire report, it appears that parts are the majority of this. You should expect parts to be $1 out of every $3 earned on parts, but if you can reduce this to $1 in every $4, it will increase profits to triple the market average. That’s why an auto repair shop needs to call multiple vendors for the best price.
• Wages: 28.1% (Lucky says more like $40K per mechanic)
• Purchases : 9.5% equipment and tools
• Rent : 4.7%
• Marketing : 1.9%
• Depreciation : 1.6%
• Utilities : 1.2%

Profit Margins 

What do you do with profits.

Educate Yourself

• Teach yourself to repair cars with YouTube videos.
• Attend technical school.
• Get a job at an auto mechanic shop.

YouTube Videos About Cars

Technical School

Get a job as a mechanic.

Do you need a mechanic license to open a shop?

• Automotive Service Excellence Certification ( ASE ) : The ASE offers 58 Certifications for techs. They also offer a Blue Seal certification for shops with at least 75% ASE-certified techs and at least one ASE technician for each service. This gives you a high-quality backlink to your website, marketing materials, and more.
• I-Car Gold Class Certification : Shop owners might want to consider I-Car Gold certification if their car repair shop wants to be an automobile repair center. The certifications are a multi-year process that requires the majority of employees to be trained in specific vehicle repair shop knowledge.
• AAA Approved Auto Repair Facility : Triple A has really high requirements to become a certified repair shop for cars. You’ll need ASE certified technicians, a high Better Business Bureau rating, a 94% customer satisfaction rating based on a survey of mechanic garage clients, and more. Given each AAA site is different by region, this link or this one by region might be more direct. I got my information from RepairesHub .

Business Plan for an Auto Repair Shop

• Services Offered
• Business Structure and Licensing Needed
• Startup Costs
• Ongoing Expenses

What services will you offer?

• Routine Maintenance : Every new car has a maintenance schedule, which is 31% of revenue for the industry.
• Powertrain Repair : These focus on engines, transmission, axles, and wheels. They generate 18.1% of industry revenues. Lucky told us these are the highest profit margins. 
• Brake Repair : Brakes must be replaced every 10K to 20K miles and rotors every 70kK. 17.4% of industry revenue is from brake work.
• Alignment Repair : Alignments focus on parts like wheels and axles that help the vehicle drive in a straight line. Makes up 8.1% of industry revenue.
• Electrical Repairs : Electric work focuses on the electrical system like alarm equipment at 6.4%. 
• Heating/AC Repairs : This work involves components that keep the car warm or cold, and 4.9% of revenue comes from these services.
• Muffler and Exhaust Repairs : These services repair parts regarding the emissions system. These may also include government required inspections. Without these parts, a car will be polluting the environment more than necessary. These repairs are 3.5% of industry revenue.
• Other Services : If it doesn’t fit neatly in one of the other categories, the service is thrown in here. It makes up 10.6% of revenue industry wide.
• Mobile Mechanic Business : Go to people’s sites and fix their cars.
• Mechanic Workshop : This term is normally a synonym for a repair shop, but you could also turn it into a classroom environment or space where D-I-Y mechanics can go to work on their cars.
• Parts Supply : Sell automotive parts to other shops and D-I-Yers.
• Collision Repair : Specifically focus on fixing cars that were in wrecks.

How Much Does It Cost to Open a Mechanic Shop?

Breakdown of Startup Costs

• Limited Liability Company (LLC) or Corporation: $1,000 or less in most states. Both an LLC and a Corporation separate personal assets from business assets as long as you have a business bank account. Check out our blog about business structures to learn more.
• Business Licenses: $200 to $3,000. You’ll have to check with your state, county, and city governments for exact pricing and licensing requirements. Learn how to get a business license .
• General Liability Insurance: $500 to $3,000 per year. Alternatively, you can choose the next option:
• Business Owner Policy: $500 to $3,000 per year. Combines general liability and commercial property insurance. Make sure to purchase insurance. Check out Simply Business f or easy to purchase plans.
• Workers Compensation: $500 to $4,000 per year, median $1,667. 
• Commercial Auto Insurance : Median cost $778 per year. (All insurance pricing is based on this Insureon blog .)
• Specialty Tools: Rates vary, but you can rent many tools from Autozone until you can afford to buy them.
• Diagnostic Tools: $25 to $10K+. Used to test the vehicles to see what codes and issues they are having. It can also be used for tuning. High end or Affordable options are available. Obviously the high end ones have more features and precision.
• Professional Lift: $5,000 to $40,000 depending on height and weight requirements .
• Parts budget : Rates vary, and new parts can cost from $15 for brake pads to $20,000+ for some engines. 
• Shop : $1,750+ a month for rent and utilities.
• Total : $10,753 to $100K+ for all items as shown here.
• How to start a mechanic shop at home

What permits do I need to open a mechanic shop?

Get a Business Bank Account

Get accounts with suppliers.

• AutoZone Pro : Get parts through AutoZone with special rates, marketing materials, and apply for OnDeck financing to get Net30 terms.
• O’Reilly First Call : This is the site for shops to use on O’Reilly’s website.
• Advantage Part Systems : An OEM wholesaler 

Choose an Auto Repair Business Location

• What is to be the amount of traffic around your car repair shop?
• Is there enough parking to handle existing and new customers?
• A local taxi company
• The police department
• A limousine service
• Car dealerships (which sometime have 24 to 36 of their own)
• The price of the space matters. Industrial and lower traffic areas tend to have lower rent.

How to Open Your Own Car Repair Shop

How to open mechanic shop: software used .

• OWL Carousel : For pictures
• Google Tag Manager : For tracking what occurs on the site
• Tawk.to : Customer support agents for $1 per hour
• Google Analytics UA : Web Tracking
• CloudFlare CDN : Provides fast access to content
• CDN JS : Provides fast access to content
• ProDemand® Optimized with SureTrack® : Diagnostic machine software helps diagnose cars including top 10 issues by vehicle, partners needed, and wiring diagrams.
• Manager™ SE : Custom Relationship Management software helps keep track of existing customers spending and prior work, pre-diagnosing the type of repairs needed to help technicians diagnose the vehicle, and manage invoicing and parts.
• TruckSeries : This is used for Medium and Heavy Duty Trucks. If your shop specializes in Class 4 to 8 trucks, you’ll need this to help reduce repair time and increase revenue.
• SocialCRM : Use this to manage the social aspect of running your own business. This includes customer reviews, preventive maintenance reminders, promotions, and other marketing automations.

Bolt On Technology

Arrange your space.

• The tools should be convenient, but out of the way where technicians can move around the cars freely.
• Have a specific dock for oil changes, battery replacement, and other quick jobs. They shouldn’t have to wait while you are changing out an engine.
• Tool boxes should have locks and be locked at the end of the night.
• Always have an alarm system in case vandals or robbers break in.
• Make customer spaces comfortable. Provide a seating space, reading materials, a TV, a restroom, drinking water, and maybe a vending machine .

Marketing Your Car Repair Shop

• Building signs
• Vehicle signs
• Company letterhead for invoices and other communication
• Brand messaging guidelines
• Communication channels
• Brand colors and font specification
• Marketing analytics 
• Branded pens (These are a cheap way for any business to get their name out because people tend to take pens, plus you can get them for less than $1 per pen for less than $500.)
• Use social media
• Partner with other businesses
• Pay for leads on Google Local Ads
• Create videos on how to fix cars
• Use print ads in local papers and billboards
• Try Lucky’s method:

How to Open Your Own Mechanic Shop: Employees

Mechanic Garage Customer Service

• Customer is added to the system
• Complimentary inspection (body, wheels, suspension)
• Get quotes for parts from vendors
• Provide an estimate
• Get approval
• Put the vehicle on the lift
• Perform the work
• Accept payment and ask for reviews

How to Start a Mechanic Shop: The Keys to Success

• Hiring the right people
• Customer service
• Asking for reviews

Pay Your Bills

• Lease payments
• Payments on any bank loan for business assets
• Business insurance costs
• Payroll taxes
• State and federal taxes
• Annual business license and business structure fees

Live Mechanically Ever After…

How to Start a $24K/Month Laundromat Business (2024)

Step 1: Learn about the industry

Step 2: pick a laundry business type.

• Coin laundry
• Private laundromat equipment for multi-tenant buildings
• Wash-and-fold service
• Commercial laundry for uniforms, linens, and facilities
• Additional services, such as pick up and delivery 

Step 3: Build your skills

Laundromat customer care.

Appliance repair

• Broken belt in a dryer
• Door circuits 
• General machine breakdowns
• Heating coil
• Idler pulley in a dryer
• Overheating due to a clogged vent (a fire hazard)
• Roller in a dryer
• Start switch
• Temperature switch

Laundromat-specific training

Step 4: write a business plan.

• Laundromat business plan available here
• Startup business plan t emplate
• Single-page business plan
• Business Guide by the Small Business Administration (SBA) 
• Take online courses for business
• Guide describing how to write a Business Plan
• Service Corps of Retired Executives ( SCORE ) resources
• The Complete Business Plan Course  
• Calculating Startup Costs

Step 5: Name your business

Have a safe spelling, tag your location, pick a dot-com website url, test your branding.

Step 6: Decide on a business model

Existing laundry business, advantages of an existing laundromat.

• Exempt from the cost of hooking up to a city's water and sewer.
• Built-in customer base.
• Power, water, utilities, and other costs are known in advance.

Disadvantages of an existing laundromat

• Older equipment that might need replacing .
• Aging infrastructure that might be dated or not up to code.
• Inheriting the reputation of the previous business.

Due diligence

• Is it not profitable?
• Did all the machines break down?
• Are they asking for a premium but leaving you with a lot of maintenance costs?
• Is the person just tired and wanting to retire?                                               

Investigate water usage

Investing in improvements

New laundromat.

• Select a site .
• Analyze the market.
• Design and build-out.
• Finance the business.
• Host a grand opening.

Disadvantages of a new laundromat

• Paying the enormous fees cities charge to businesses that impact the sewage system.
• Obtaining the required permits.
• Estimating the future costs of running the laundromat without the benefit of comparable enterprises nearby.

Step 7: Select a location

Review local ordinances and zoning laws

Compare and contrast, location importance.

• Apartment buildings
• College students
• Tourist areas
• Hotels and motels
• Large families

Is an older neighborhood a good place to open a laundromat?

In-unit washers and dryers.

Utility costs

Step 8: equipment and supplies, new equipment .

Equipment and services directories

Step 9: revenue.

• Self-service
• Wash and fold
• Commercial contracts (which pay well but are hard to win and maintain)

Wash and fold services

Step 10: expenses.

Utility bills

Tank vs. tankless water heaters, ozone injections, electricity and gas, maintenance and repair, step 11: integrate technology, speed queen value center, step 12: build profit margins.

Reinvestment

Step 13: organize daily operations, coin collection, delegating tasks.

Step 14: Create a marketing strategy

Digital marketing.

• Track the number of visitors and impressions .
• Determine where visitors saw his advertisement based on the code.
• Know if a new customer is the result of a conversion from his marketing campaign.

Printed materials

Attracting customers, step 15: legal considerations.

Licenses, permits, and tax forms

Sole proprietorship, limited liability corporation (llc), partnerships and corporations, step 16: hire employees.

Compensation

Employer identification number, tax filing and withholding, unemployment insurance tax , federal employment and labor laws.

• Employment Eligibility Verification (Form I-9)
• State’s New Hire Program
• Worker’s Compensation Insurance
• Disability insurance, as required by some states
• Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)

Step 17: Add safety protocols

• Heavy machinery with fast-moving parts.
• Large quantities of water near high-voltage sources of electricity.
• Equipment large enough for a person (like a child) to fall or climb into.
• Rolling carts scattered everywhere.
• Spills that can make people slip and fall.
• Americans with Disabilities Act ( ADA )-compliance for customers and staff.

Step 18: Purchase insurance

Step 19: Finalize finances

Money handling, step 20: explore passive income.

nice work https://binarychemist.com/

My Name is PRETTY NGOMANE. A south African female. Aspiring to do farming. And finding a home away from home for the differently abled persons in their daily needs.

Become a business owner in less than 90 days

Start your 10-day free trial of the UpFlip Academy and learn how to start your own business from scratch.

Get business advice straight to your   Inbox 

We use essential cookies to make Venngage work. By clicking “Accept All Cookies”, you agree to the storing of cookies on your device to enhance site navigation, analyze site usage, and assist in our marketing efforts.

Manage Cookies

Cookies and similar technologies collect certain information about how you’re using our website. Some of them are essential, and without them you wouldn’t be able to use Venngage. But others are optional, and you get to choose whether we use them or not.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

These cookies are always on, as they’re essential for making Venngage work, and making it safe. Without these cookies, services you’ve asked for can’t be provided.

Show cookie providers

• Google Login

Functionality Cookies

These cookies help us provide enhanced functionality and personalisation, and remember your settings. They may be set by us or by third party providers.

Performance Cookies

These cookies help us analyze how many people are using Venngage, where they come from and how they're using it. If you opt out of these cookies, we can’t get feedback to make Venngage better for you and all our users.

• Google Analytics

Targeting Cookies

These cookies are set by our advertising partners to track your activity and show you relevant Venngage ads on other sites as you browse the internet.

• Google Tag Manager
• Infographics
• Daily Infographics
• Popular Templates
• Accessibility
• Graphic Design
• Graphs and Charts
• Data Visualization
• Human Resources
• Beginner Guides

Blog Business What is A Business Plan & How To Design It?

What is A Business Plan & How To Design It?

Written by: Midori Nediger Jul 11, 2023

A business plan outlines the goals of your business and how it plans to achieve them.

Real important – because without it, it’s like running a business in the dark. It’s like a roadmap that guides your company’s direction and helps everyone stay on track.

Gone are the days when designing a business plan from scratch was a time-consuming and challenging task. Today, business plan templates offer a convenient solution by providing pre-designed layouts that simplify the process.

In this blog, I’m going to break it down for you. I’ll share the six things you need to know to put together a compelling, engaging business plan. Ready to get started now? Venngage’s online Business Plan Maker  lets anyone create a winning business plan quickly and easily.

Click to jump ahead:

• How to format your business plan

Startup business plan templates

Simple business plan templates.

• How to write your business plan
• How to design an engaging executive summary
• How to use charts and graphs to present data
• How to communicate growth strategies in your business plan

How to present financial data in your business plan

How to format your business plan.

To format your business plan:

• Start with a clear title page.
• Include an executive summary.
• Provide a company description.
• Conduct a market analysis.
• Describe your product or service offering.
• Outline your marketing and sales strategy.
• Include organizational or business structure and management information.

A typical business plan is an in-depth document and covers every facet of your business (present and future). Creating a traditional business plan makes sense when you have a clear growth plan for the next three to five years, are in need of major funding, or want to attract long-term partners.  

A professional business plan typically has the following sections: 

• Table of Contents
• Executive summary
• Company description
• Market analysis
• Organization and management
• Service or product line
• Marketing and sales
• Funding request
• Financial projections
• An appendix

A business plan can span a dozen or more pages because it presents the big picture, as complete as possible, to reassure others to invest in you. Investment can mean a few different things – usually financial, but also as partners or employees. 

The sections that can take a lot of research and add to the bulk of your business plan are your market analysis, marketing and sales plans, and financial projections. 

These are the sections that demonstrate your business acumen, your long-term vision, and your accountability. Whereas, sections like the executive summary are meant to grab attention, inspire and get people excited about your business. 

Start with a business plan template

To get started on your business plan, save yourself some time and use a template.

Most business plan templates will include things like a cover page, table of contents and the main sections you need. It will also have pre-formatted pages with placeholder text and charts that you can swap out. 

It takes time to do market research, present growth plans, put together financial projections, analyze your customer base, create competitor breakdowns…the list goes on.

The last thing you want to do is spend precious time formatting the resulting document. 

Save time by building your business plan from an existing business plan template, and customize it with your own content.

With a clean, consistent structure and clear headings, this template is the perfect starting point:

Then you’re free to customize the template with helpful visual elements like charts, tables, and diagrams, that will make your business pitch impossible to resist.

A Venngage business plan template is designed to help you communicate visually  and explain complex ideas easily. The right business plan template for you depends on the length and detail of your business plan, your brand and style, and the different sections you want to cover.

If your small business doesn’t have a dedicated design team, but you still need to learn how to write a business plan to present to investors–build off of a pre-designed business plan template:

There are just a handful of our business plan templates that can be customized in the Venngage editor. Browse more business plan templates,  choose one that’s best for you and start editing right away.

Structuring your startup business plan involves organizing it into sections such as executive summary, company description, market analysis, product/service offering, marketing and sales strategy, financial projections, and operational plan.

Here are some business plan template examples:

Short Business Plan Template

Number your pages and include a table of contents

A table of contents is crucial to help readers navigate your document and quickly find specific sections that are of interest to them.

It’s a good idea to include page numbers, main section headings, and section subheadings here for easy reference.

Keeping these tips in mind will ensure that your business plan design feels clean and professional and doesn’t distract from your content. You want your information, not your formatting, to be the focus!

How to write your business plan 

Here are three tips for writing your business plan to ensure it’s easy to read, appears professional and is memorable.

Use bulleted lists, bold text, and a clear type hierarchy for ‘skimmability’

Business plans need to be understandable at a glance to attract funding . Investors are looking for information that will help them understand your business quickly and without much effort.

Take a look at this snippet of the business plan template from above:

What stands out to you?

To me, the large green headers pop out first, making it easy to scan through the sections to find what I want to focus on.

This is because there’s a defined type hierarchy, giving more visual weight to the headers over the body text.

Next, the unique selling points of this business–superior quality products, unique glass carving and brass inlays, and excellent service–jump out. Because they’re presented in an indented list , they’re easier to see at a glance, which will likely make them more memorable.

Finally, I’m drawn to the bolded stats–“top 30% of the industry” and “4 out of 5 households spent money on renovation”.

Key statistics like these can go a long way towards convincing your investors that you’re worth their time and money. If you’re going to include them within larger paragraphs, make sure they stand out by increasing their font weight.

To sum up: make your report skimmable. Draw attention to important takeaways with indented lists, bolded text, and a clear type hierarchy.

Consider using a one-column or two-column grid

If your business plan contains only text, stick with a single-column layout that reinforces the linear flow of the document. If your business plan includes some supporting data in the form of charts and tables, use a two-column layout to juxtapose text with its corresponding data.

Maintain page margins that set text at a readable line length

When we read long passages of text, the ease at which we read depends on how the text flows on the page. Something called line length (the number of characters in a horizontal line of text) plays a huge role in readability, and is something you should consider when formatting your business plan.

To dictate line length, designers and typesetters play with the width of page margins (the edges of a document that don’t contain any text or images) with the aim of maximizing readability.

It’s generally accepted that the ideal line length sits somewhere between 40 and 90 characters per line. Any longer or shorter and you’ll find that something feels “off” about your document.

How do you achieve this in your business plan?

If you use a single-column layout, use nice wide margins (1 ½ to 2 inches) to limit your text to less than 90 characters per line.

With a two-column layout, you might need to use narrower margins (possibly as little as ½ an inch on either side) to make sure there’s enough space for at least 40 characters per line of text.

The last thing to remember about margins and line length–don’t play around with them from page to page. Use consistent margins across your whole document.

How to design an executive summary

An executive summary is a snapshot of your business plan. It should be concise and hook your readers. It should reassure stakeholders that your business plan will be a worthwhile read.

How you choose to structure your executive summary is key. You can deliver a lot of excellent information that simply gets lost in a sea of text and paragraphs. Even if someone reads through it entirely, they may have missed something.

To make key information stand out, use vibrant headings, incorporate visuals throughout, and break up the layout of your text.

Not every investor looks for the same thing. Some will care more about who you or your executive team are, while another is interested solely in the financials of the business. Identifying each section makes it easy for readers to find exactly what they’re looking for.

You can also list out the key takeaways, briefly explaining them in the executive summary. If your reader finds everything they needed to know in the executive summary, they’ll happily move onto the rest of the business plan.

Use one feature color to tie your business plan together

Color should be used with restraint in professional documents like business plans. Instead of adding color solely for aesthetic purposes, think of color selection as another tool to highlight information you want your reader to focus on and to tie the document together.

You shouldn’t need more than a single color (ideally one of your brand colors ) to achieve this in a business plan.

In business plan charts, color should be used only to clarify trends and relationships. Use color to emphasize single important data points, differentiate between real and projected values, or group related data:

In the rest of your business plan, keep color to a minimum. At most, use it to make headers stand out or to highlight key points in long-form text, diagrams, or tables.

The nice thing about keeping document colors this simple? It’s hard to mess up, and without any complex design work, it creates a sense of cohesion and unity within a document.

How to use charts and graphs to present your data

Since your business plan should be backed by solid data, you might want to include some of that data as evidence, in the form of  charts, tables or diagrams . Even simple visuals can communicate better than long paragraphs of text.

I’ll touch on some specific types of charts commonly used in business plans next, but first let’s review a few general chart design tactics.

Use descriptive titles and annotations to spell out chart takeaways

Avoid generic headers whenever possible. Maximize your chart’s value and impact by providing takeaway messages right in the title.

In the same vein, add direct annotations to data points or trends that support your case.

Repeating key messages within a chart, in the title, annotations, and captions, may improve viewers understanding and recall of those messages .

Aid understanding of market size and market share with area charts and pie charts

A market potential analysis is a fundamental pillar of your business plan. Market size and market share are two major components of a market potential analysis.

These numbers are typically in the millions and billions (the bigger the better, really), but most people have trouble grasping the meaning of such big numbers . At a surface level we can understand that one billion is one thousand times larger than one million, but we often struggle to comprehend what that really means.

This is the perfect opportunity to add some visual aids to your business plan.

Use bubble charts to represent market size

Bubble charts are useful for showing general proportions among numbers. Check out this one from our redesigned version of AirBnb’s first pitch deck :

Without having to think about the absolute values of these very large numbers, we can quickly see how they relate to one another.

While bubble charts are good for making quick, general comparisons, they’re less useful when it comes to precise measurements. To help readers make slightly more accurate judgements of proportion:

Use pie or donut charts to represent market share and market composition

Pie and donut charts are the industry standard for showing market share and market composition, since they’re the most widely understood method for representing part-to-whole relationships.

The way Uber breaks down their market with a simple donut chart makes their biggest segment (a key takeaway) really stand out, while the subtler differences between the smaller segments are still evident.

When you present a market analysis, use pie charts, donut charts, or bubble charts to aid the reader understanding proportions and part-to-whole relationships.

Use histograms and bar charts to represent demographic distributions in market segmentation summaries

Another part of analyzing market potential is about identifying and understanding target customers. This means segmenting customers by geography, interests, demographics…really anything that might affect purchasing behaviour.

Two standard metrics that most businesses include in a market segmentation summary are customer age and gender. These data are easily summarized in a histogram, with bars that represent age group distribution.

Bar charts can then be used to contrast the key behaviors and lifestyle choices of the top consumer segments.

Histograms and bar charts are standard features of a market segmentation summary. Use them together to identify and present information about top customer segments.

Outline major milestones with a Gantt chart

Stakeholders will want to see that you have a concrete plan in place to help you reach your revenue goals. When formulating your goals, use the SMART principle to provide your stakeholders with a very clear vision of how you intend to achieve them. 

Use a Gantt chart (a sort of modified bar chart) to outline the major milestones and phases of your business strategy. Try to include a multi-year plan, broken down by quarter and by project or department.

You can create your own Gantt chart with Venngage.

How to communicate growth strategies in your business plan

No matter how impressive your product line or services, your business won’t just magically grow. You concrete marketing and sales plans in place, and effectively communicate strategies to your stakeholders.

Start by acknowledging your target market – who are you going after? This is what your marketing and sales efforts will revolve around after all.

Demonstrate an understanding of the competitor landscape. You will always have direct or indirect competition, and showing how your planning accounts for it is key. Then you can talk about actual plans and strategies you wish to implement.

Present your target audience with persona guides

A product may great on its own. But its value is determined when there is a clear and obvious market for it. You can point out shortcomings of your competition, but you also need to show that your target audience exists and how you’re serving them.

A persona guide provides a great deal of context to readers of your business plan. It’s the best way for them to understand who cares about your product or service, how it aligns with their lifestyle and needs, and why your marketing and sales tactics will work.

A persona guide needs to be detailed, and share an intimate understanding of your target audience. The more you can divulge, the more reassuring your research and overall business plan will be.

Even if you don’t have a substantial customer base, you can still create an ideal persona guide to show who you’re pursuing.

Highlight competitors and differentiate yourself with a SWOT analysis

Every business plan should include an analysis of the competitive landscape–an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of competitive businesses.

In terms of visuals, this competitive analysis is typically summarized in a SWOT analysis matrix .

You can also present the SWOT analysis as a table or a list. The layout is up to you, but you want to focus on strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in relation to your competition.

While the SWOT analysis framework provides valuable insights, it’s not the entire reflection of your competitive landscape. For example, it doesn’t make it easy to see at a glance the qualities that differentiate your business from your competitors.

To highlight those offerings that set you apart from your competitors, a comparison matrix is more effective. Take a look at these two templates:

With a direct competitor comparison, it’s easy to present the key differentiators between the existing options for a product or service, and your business.

Alternatively, a “ Magic Quadrant ” can be useful when you’re focused on comparing across two main metrics ( key differentiators ):

Finally, in a competitive market, there are going to be a lot of players who compete directly or indirectly with you.  A breakdown of them all may not be necessary. Instead, you can point visually to the space that you will address, that has been so far ignored up to now.

To do that, a prioritization chart can be used. By plotting competing businesses on a prioritization chart, you highlight experiences existing competitors focus on, and where your business falls. 

Use roadmaps to present your marketing and sales plans

To explain any long-term marketing or sales plan, you want visuals. It’s easier to break down strategies you’ll be deploying every month or each quarter, when you can actually show what you’re talking about.

Keep in mind, those reading your business plan may not be marketers or sales executives. Being able to lay out your approach in a way that’s organized, shows how much thought you’ve given to your growth strategies.

You can design a simple roadmap that points to what you’ll be doing throughout the year. The more detailed you can get, the better.

You can also present your product roadmap , with your marketing roadmap how the business will be growing overall.

You don’t need to use a traditional roadmap layout, either. Experiment with different formats as you may find one easier to work with than another. As long as the time period for different strategies is clear, your roadmap will be easy to understand.

Presenting financial data isn’t easy. You have to crunch a lot of numbers before you can share projections with confidence. You’ll also need to explain how you arrived at the numbers and prepare for your answers.

Understanding how to organize your information is key to walking potential investors and other stakeholders through your projections.

Use organizational flow charts and summary tables for budget breakdowns and financial summaries

The financials section of your business plan will get a lot of attention from stakeholders. Simple bar charts and pie charts won’t suffice, as they can’t present financial data in very much detail.

If your business has already been operating for some time, stakeholders will expect a detailed report of revenues and expenses. Tables are usually the best choice for this kind of financial summary, as they provide an unbiased view of the numbers and allow stakeholders to look up specific values.

If you’re interested in highlighting a particular trend, however, you may want to include a line chart featuring a smaller snapshot of your financial data:

If you’re just starting your business and you don’t have any detailed revenue data, you can still provide useful information about your budget. Outline higher-level budget allocation with an organizational flow chart .

Use line or bar graphs to visualize financial trends

You can use different types of graphs to also show how your business has performed thus far. 

You can share results over the course of a year with a line graph. This is effective to show an overall set of trends and growth rates. 

You can also compare previous years to highlight how your business has grown.

Your audience should be able to draw conclusions from your data within seconds. If there is simply too much information, or it’s hard to find important information, they will lose interest. 

Looking for a business plan software to help save time and reduce errors? Pick from one of these 7 best business plan software to get started.

A quick summary 

A business plan is the one key document that every young business needs to present their vision to potential investors and other stakeholders.

The quality of a business plan can make or break a young business Here’s a quick recap of what we covered for you to keep in mind:

• Get started with a template
• Use a table of contents and numbered pages
• Use lists, bold headings and aim for skimmability
• Consider using a one-column or two-column
• Maintain page margins
• Use headings to identify the most important information
• Use one thematic color palette for your design
• Use descriptive titles and annotations
• Use area and pie charts to explain market size and market share
• Use pie/donut charts to visualize marketing share and market composition
• Use bar charts and histograms to capture demographics data
• Highlight major milestones with a gantt chart
• Identify your target audience using persona guides
• Differentiate yourself with a SWOT analysis/competitor chart
• Use roadmaps to visualize your marketing and sales plans
• Use flow charts and summary tables for financial breakdowns
• Use line or bar graphs for financial trends and projection

You can always reference this post as you work on your business plan. I’ve also included additional blog posts you can reference for specific areas of your business plan.

More Resources for business planning and growth:

• Growth Strategy Checklist: Plan Your Business Goals With These 5 Templates
• What is a Marketing Plan & How to Create One [with Examples]
• How to Communicate Strategy To Your Team Effectively
• 50+ Essential Business Report Examples with Templates

Discover popular designs

Infographic maker

Brochure maker

White paper online

Newsletter creator

Flyer maker

Timeline maker

Letterhead maker

Mind map maker

Ebook maker

Do you REALLY need a business plan?

The top three questions that I get asked most frequently as a professional business plan writer will probably not surprise you:

• What is the purpose of a business plan – why is it really required?
• How is it going to benefit my business if I write a business plan?
• Is a business plan really that important – how can I actually use it?

Keep reading to get my take on what the most essential advantages of preparing a business plan are—and why you may (not) need to prepare one.

The importance, purpose and benefit of a business plan is in that it enables you to validate a business idea, secure funding, set strategic goals – and then take organized action on those goals by making decisions, managing resources, risk and change, while effectively communicating with stakeholders.

Let’s take a closer look at how each of the important business planning benefits can catapult your business forward:

1. Validate Your Business Idea

The process of writing your business plan will force you to ask the difficult questions about the major components of your business, including:

• External: industry, target market of prospective customers, competitive landscape
• Internal: business model, unique selling proposition, operations, marketing, finance

Business planning connects the dots to draw a big picture of the entire business.

And imagine how much time and money you would save if working through a business plan revealed that your business idea is untenable. You would be surprised how often that happens – an idea that once sounded so very promising may easily fall apart after you actually write down all the facts, details and numbers.

While you may be tempted to jump directly into start-up mode, writing a business plan is an essential first step to check the feasibility of a business before investing too much time and money into it. Business plans help to confirm that the idea you are so passionate and convinced about is solid from business point of view.

Take the time to do the necessary research and work through a proper business plan. The more you know, the higher the likelihood that your business will succeed.

2. Set and Track Goals

Successful businesses are dynamic and continuously evolve. And so are good business plans that allow you to:

• Priorities: Regularly set goals, targets (e.g., sales revenues reached), milestones (e.g. number of employees hired), performance indicators and metrics for short, mid and long term
• Accountability: Track your progress toward goals and benchmarks
• Course-correction: make changes to your business as you learn more about your market and what works and what does not
• Mission: Refer to a clear set of values to help steer your business through any times of trouble

Essentially, business plan is a blueprint and an important strategic tool that keeps you focused, motivated and accountable to keep your business on track. When used properly and consulted regularly, it can help you measure and manage what you are working so hard to create – your long-term vision.

As humans, we work better when we have clear goals we can work towards. The everyday business hustle makes it challenging to keep an eye on the strategic priorities. The business planning process serves as a useful reminder.

3. Take Action

A business plan is also a plan of action . At its core, your plan identifies where you are now, where you want your business to go, and how you will get there.

Planning out exactly how you are going to turn your vision into a successful business is perhaps the most important step between an idea and reality. Success comes not only from having a vision but working towards that vision in a systematic and organized way.

A good business plan clearly outlines specific steps necessary to turn the business objectives into reality. Think of it as a roadmap to success. The strategy and tactics need to be in alignment to make sure that your day-to-day activities lead to the achievement of your business goals.

4. Manage Resources

A business plan also provides insight on how resources required for achieving your business goals will be structured and allocated according to their strategic priority. For example:

Large Spending Decisions

• Assets: When and in what amount will the business commit resources to buy/lease new assets, such as computers or vehicles.
• Human Resources: Objectives for hiring new employees, including not only their pay but how they will help the business grow and flourish.
• Business Space: Information on costs of renting/buying space for offices, retail, manufacturing or other operations, for example when expanding to a new location.

Cash Flow It is essential that a business carefully plans and manages cash flows to ensure that there are optimal levels of cash in the bank at all times and avoid situations where the business could run out of cash and could not afford to pay its bills.

Revenues v. Expenses In addition, your business plan will compare your revenue forecasts to the budgeted costs to make sure that your financials are healthy and the business is set up for success.

5. Make Decisions

Whether you are starting a small business or expanding an existing one, a business plan is an important tool to help guide your decisions:

Sound decisions Gathering information for the business plan boosts your knowledge across many important areas of the business:

• Industry, market, customers and competitors
• Financial projections (e.g., revenue, expenses, assets, cash flow)
• Operations, technology and logistics
• Human resources (management and staff)
• Creating value for your customer through products and services

Decision-making skills The business planning process involves thorough research and critical thinking about many intertwined and complex business issues. As a result, it solidifies the decision-making skills of the business owner and builds a solid foundation for strategic planning , prioritization and sound decision making in your business. The more you understand, the better your decisions will be.

Planning Thorough planning allows you to determine the answer to some of the most critical business decisions ahead of time , prepare for anticipate problems before they arise, and ensure that any tactical solutions are in line with the overall strategy and goals.

If you do not take time to plan, you risk becoming overwhelmed by countless options and conflicting directions because you are not unclear about the mission , vision and strategy for your business.

6. Manage Risk

Some level of uncertainty is inherent in every business, but there is a lot you can do to reduce and manage the risk, starting with a business plan to uncover your weak spots.

You will need to take a realistic and pragmatic look at the hard facts and identify:

• Major risks , challenges and obstacles that you can expect on the way – so you can prepare to deal with them.
• Weaknesses in your business idea, business model and strategy – so you can fix them.
• Critical mistakes before they arise – so you can avoid them.

Essentially, the business plan is your safety net . Naturally, business plan cannot entirely eliminate risk, but it can significantly reduce it and prepare you for any challenges you may encounter.

7. Communicate Internally

Attract talent For a business to succeed, attracting talented workers and partners is of vital importance.

A business plan can be used as a communication tool to attract the right talent at all levels, from skilled staff to executive management, to work for your business by explaining the direction and growth potential of the business in a presentable format.

Align performance Sharing your business plan with all team members helps to ensure that everyone is on the same page when it comes to the long-term vision and strategy.

You need their buy-in from the beginning, because aligning your team with your priorities will increase the efficiency of your business as everyone is working towards a common goal .

If everyone on your team understands that their piece of work matters and how it fits into the big picture, they are more invested in achieving the objectives of the business.

It also makes it easier to track and communicate on your progress.

Share and explain business objectives with your management team, employees and new hires. Make selected portions of your business plan part of your new employee training.

8. Communicate Externally

Alliances If you are interested in partnerships or joint ventures, you may share selected sections of your plan with the potential business partners in order to develop new alliances.

Suppliers A business plan can play a part in attracting reliable suppliers and getting approved for business credit from suppliers. Suppliers who feel confident that your business will succeed (e.g., sales projections) will be much more likely to extend credit.

In addition, suppliers may want to ensure their products are being represented in the right way .

Professional Services Having a business plan in place allows you to easily share relevant sections with those you rely on to support the organization, including attorneys, accountants, and other professional consultants as needed, to make sure that everyone is on the same page.

Advisors Share the plan with experts and professionals who are in a position to give you valuable advice.

Landlord Some landlords and property managers require businesses to submit a business plan to be considered for a lease to prove that your business will have sufficient cash flows to pay the rent.

Customers The business plan may also function as a prospectus for potential customers, especially when it comes to large corporate accounts and exclusive customer relationships.

9. Secure Funding

If you intend to seek outside financing for your business, you are likely going to need a business plan.

Whether you are seeking debt financing (e.g. loan or credit line) from a lender (e.g., bank or financial institution) or equity capital financing from investors (e.g., venture or angel capital), a business plan can make the difference between whether or not – and how much – someone decides to invest.

Investors and financiers are always looking at the risk of default and the earning potential based on facts and figures. Understandably, anyone who is interested in supporting your business will want to check that you know what you are doing, that their money is in good hands, and that the venture is viable in the long run.

Business plans tend to be the most effective ways of proving that. A presentation may pique their interest , but they will most probably request a well-written document they can study in detail before they will be prepared to make any financial commitment.

That is why a business plan can often be the single most important document you can present to potential investors/financiers that will provide the structure and confidence that they need to make decisions about funding and supporting your company.

Be prepared to have your business plan scrutinized . Investors and financiers will conduct extensive checks and analyses to be certain that what is written in your business plan faithful representation of the truth.

10. Grow and Change

It is a very common misconception that a business plan is a static document that a new business prepares once in the start-up phase and then happily forgets about.

But businesses are not static. And neither are business plans. The business plan for any business will change over time as the company evolves and expands .

In the growth phase, an updated business plan is particularly useful for:

Raising additional capital for expansion

• Seeking financing for new assets , such as equipment or property
• Securing financing to support steady cash flows (e.g., seasonality, market downturns, timing of sale/purchase invoices)
• Forecasting to allocate resources according to strategic priority and operational needs
• Valuation (e.g., mergers & acquisitions, tax issues, transactions related to divorce, inheritance, estate planning)

Keeping the business plan updated gives established businesses better chance of getting the money they need to grow or even keep operating.

Business plan is also an excellent tool for planning an exit as it would include the strategy and timelines for a transfer to new ownership or dissolution of the company.

Also, if you ever make the decision to sell your business or position yourself for a merger or an acquisition , a strong business plan in hand is going to help you to maximize the business valuation.

Valuation is the process of establishing the worth of a business by a valuation expert who will draw on professional experience as well as a business plan that will outline what you have, what it’s worth now and how much will it likely produce in the future.

Your business is likely to be worth more to a buyer if they clearly understand your business model, your market, your assets and your overall potential to grow and scale .

Related Questions

Business plan purpose: what is the purpose of a business plan.

The purpose of a business plan is to articulate a strategy for starting a new business or growing an existing one by identifying where the business is going and how it will get there to test the viability of a business idea and maximize the chances of securing funding and achieving business goals and success.

Business Plan Benefits: What are the benefits of a business plan?

A business plan benefits businesses by serving as a strategic tool outlining the steps and resources required to achieve goals and make business ideas succeed, as well as a communication tool allowing businesses to articulate their strategy to stakeholders that support the business.

Business Plan Importance: Why is business plan important?

The importance of a business plan lies in it being a roadmap that guides the decisions of a business on the road to success, providing clarity on all aspects of its operations. This blueprint outlines the goals of the business and what exactly is needed to achieve them through effective management.

Sign up for our Newsletter

Get more articles just like this straight into your mailbox.

Related Posts

Recent Posts

• Sources of Business Finance
• Small Business Loans
• Small Business Grants
• Crowdfunding Sites
• How to Get a Business Loan
• Small Business Insurance Providers
• Best Factoring Companies
• Types of Bank Accounts
• Best Banks for Small Business
• Best Business Bank Accounts
• Open a Business Bank Account
• Bank Accounts for Small Businesses
• Free Business Checking Accounts
• Best Business Credit Cards
• Get a Business Credit Card
• Business Credit Cards for Bad Credit
• Build Business Credit Fast
• Business Loan Eligibility Criteria
• Small-Business Bookkeeping Basics
• How to Set Financial Goals
• Business Loan Calculators
• How to Calculate ROI
• Calculate Net Income
• Calculate Working Capital
• Calculate Operating Income
• Calculate Net Present Value (NPV)
• Calculate Payroll Tax

12 Key Elements of a Business Plan (Top Components Explained)

Starting and running a successful business requires proper planning and execution of effective business tactics and strategies .

You need to prepare many essential business documents when starting a business for maximum success; the business plan is one such document.

When creating a business, you want to achieve business objectives and financial goals like productivity, profitability, and business growth. You need an effective business plan to help you get to your desired business destination.

Even if you are already running a business, the proper understanding and review of the key elements of a business plan help you navigate potential crises and obstacles.

This article will teach you why the business document is at the core of any successful business and its key elements you can not avoid.

Let’s get started.

Why Are Business Plans Important?

Business plans are practical steps or guidelines that usually outline what companies need to do to reach their goals. They are essential documents for any business wanting to grow and thrive in a highly-competitive business environment .

1. Proves Your Business Viability

A business plan gives companies an idea of how viable they are and what actions they need to take to grow and reach their financial targets. With a well-written and clearly defined business plan, your business is better positioned to meet its goals.

2. Guides You Throughout the Business Cycle

A business plan is not just important at the start of a business. As a business owner, you must draw up a business plan to remain relevant throughout the business cycle .

During the starting phase of your business, a business plan helps bring your ideas into reality. A solid business plan can secure funding from lenders and investors.

After successfully setting up your business, the next phase is management. Your business plan still has a role to play in this phase, as it assists in communicating your business vision to employees and external partners.

Essentially, your business plan needs to be flexible enough to adapt to changes in the needs of your business.

3. Helps You Make Better Business Decisions

As a business owner, you are involved in an endless decision-making cycle. Your business plan helps you find answers to your most crucial business decisions.

A robust business plan helps you settle your major business components before you launch your product, such as your marketing and sales strategy and competitive advantage.

4. Eliminates Big Mistakes

Many small businesses fail within their first five years for several reasons: lack of financing, stiff competition, low market need, inadequate teams, and inefficient pricing strategy.

Creating an effective plan helps you eliminate these big mistakes that lead to businesses' decline. Every business plan element is crucial for helping you avoid potential mistakes before they happen.

5. Secures Financing and Attracts Top Talents

Having an effective plan increases your chances of securing business loans. One of the essential requirements many lenders ask for to grant your loan request is your business plan.

A business plan helps investors feel confident that your business can attract a significant return on investments ( ROI ).

You can attract and retain top-quality talents with a clear business plan. It inspires your employees and keeps them aligned to achieve your strategic business goals.

Key Elements of Business Plan

Starting and running a successful business requires well-laid actions and supporting documents that better position a company to achieve its business goals and maximize success.

A business plan is a written document with relevant information detailing business objectives and how it intends to achieve its goals.

With an effective business plan, investors, lenders, and potential partners understand your organizational structure and goals, usually around profitability, productivity, and growth.

Every successful business plan is made up of key components that help solidify the efficacy of the business plan in delivering on what it was created to do.

Here are some of the components of an effective business plan.

1. Executive Summary

One of the key elements of a business plan is the executive summary. Write the executive summary as part of the concluding topics in the business plan. Creating an executive summary with all the facts and information available is easier.

In the overall business plan document, the executive summary should be at the forefront of the business plan. It helps set the tone for readers on what to expect from the business plan.

A well-written executive summary includes all vital information about the organization's operations, making it easy for a reader to understand.

The key points that need to be acted upon are highlighted in the executive summary. They should be well spelled out to make decisions easy for the management team.

A good and compelling executive summary points out a company's mission statement and a brief description of its products and services.

An executive summary summarizes a business's expected value proposition to distinct customer segments. It highlights the other key elements to be discussed during the rest of the business plan.

Including your prior experiences as an entrepreneur is a good idea in drawing up an executive summary for your business. A brief but detailed explanation of why you decided to start the business in the first place is essential.

Adding your company's mission statement in your executive summary cannot be overemphasized. It creates a culture that defines how employees and all individuals associated with your company abide when carrying out its related processes and operations.

Your executive summary should be brief and detailed to catch readers' attention and encourage them to learn more about your company.

Components of an Executive Summary

Here are some of the information that makes up an executive summary:

• The name and location of your company
• Products and services offered by your company
• Mission and vision statements
• Success factors of your business plan

2. Business Description

Your business description needs to be exciting and captivating as it is the formal introduction a reader gets about your company.

What your company aims to provide, its products and services, goals and objectives, target audience , and potential customers it plans to serve need to be highlighted in your business description.

A company description helps point out notable qualities that make your company stand out from other businesses in the industry. It details its unique strengths and the competitive advantages that give it an edge to succeed over its direct and indirect competitors.

Spell out how your business aims to deliver on the particular needs and wants of identified customers in your company description, as well as the particular industry and target market of the particular focus of the company.

Include trends and significant competitors within your particular industry in your company description. Your business description should contain what sets your company apart from other businesses and provides it with the needed competitive advantage.

In essence, if there is any area in your business plan where you need to brag about your business, your company description provides that unique opportunity as readers look to get a high-level overview.

Components of a Business Description

Your business description needs to contain these categories of information.

• Business location
• The legal structure of your business
• Summary of your business’s short and long-term goals

3. Market Analysis

The market analysis section should be solely based on analytical research as it details trends particular to the market you want to penetrate.

Graphs, spreadsheets, and histograms are handy data and statistical tools you need to utilize in your market analysis. They make it easy to understand the relationship between your current ideas and the future goals you have for the business.

All details about the target customers you plan to sell products or services should be in the market analysis section. It helps readers with a helpful overview of the market.

In your market analysis, you provide the needed data and statistics about industry and market share, the identified strengths in your company description, and compare them against other businesses in the same industry.

The market analysis section aims to define your target audience and estimate how your product or service would fare with these identified audiences.

Market analysis helps visualize a target market by researching and identifying the primary target audience of your company and detailing steps and plans based on your audience location.

Obtaining this information through market research is essential as it helps shape how your business achieves its short-term and long-term goals.

Market Analysis Factors

Here are some of the factors to be included in your market analysis.

• The geographical location of your target market
• Needs of your target market and how your products and services can meet those needs
• Demographics of your target audience

Components of the Market Analysis Section

Here is some of the information to be included in your market analysis.

• Industry description and statistics
• Demographics and profile of target customers
• Marketing data for your products and services
• Detailed evaluation of your competitors

4. Marketing Plan

A marketing plan defines how your business aims to reach its target customers, generate sales leads, and, ultimately, make sales.

Promotion is at the center of any successful marketing plan. It is a series of steps to pitch a product or service to a larger audience to generate engagement. Note that the marketing strategy for a business should not be stagnant and must evolve depending on its outcome.

Include the budgetary requirement for successfully implementing your marketing plan in this section to make it easy for readers to measure your marketing plan's impact in terms of numbers.

The information to include in your marketing plan includes marketing and promotion strategies, pricing plans and strategies , and sales proposals. You need to include how you intend to get customers to return and make repeat purchases in your business plan.

5. Sales Strategy

Sales strategy defines how you intend to get your product or service to your target customers and works hand in hand with your business marketing strategy.

Your sales strategy approach should not be complex. Break it down into simple and understandable steps to promote your product or service to target customers.

Apart from the steps to promote your product or service, define the budget you need to implement your sales strategies and the number of sales reps needed to help the business assist in direct sales.

Your sales strategy should be specific on what you need and how you intend to deliver on your sales targets, where numbers are reflected to make it easier for readers to understand and relate better.

6. Competitive Analysis

Providing transparent and honest information, even with direct and indirect competitors, defines a good business plan. Provide the reader with a clear picture of your rank against major competitors.

Identifying your competitors' weaknesses and strengths is useful in drawing up a market analysis. It is one information investors look out for when assessing business plans.

The competitive analysis section clearly defines the notable differences between your company and your competitors as measured against their strengths and weaknesses.

This section should define the following:

• Your competitors' identified advantages in the market
• How do you plan to set up your company to challenge your competitors’ advantage and gain grounds from them?
• The standout qualities that distinguish you from other companies
• Potential bottlenecks you have identified that have plagued competitors in the same industry and how you intend to overcome these bottlenecks

In your business plan, you need to prove your industry knowledge to anyone who reads your business plan. The competitive analysis section is designed for that purpose.

7. Management and Organization

Management and organization are key components of a business plan. They define its structure and how it is positioned to run.

Whether you intend to run a sole proprietorship, general or limited partnership, or corporation, the legal structure of your business needs to be clearly defined in your business plan.

Use an organizational chart that illustrates the hierarchy of operations of your company and spells out separate departments and their roles and functions in this business plan section.

The management and organization section includes profiles of advisors, board of directors, and executive team members and their roles and responsibilities in guaranteeing the company's success.

Apparent factors that influence your company's corporate culture, such as human resources requirements and legal structure, should be well defined in the management and organization section.

Defining the business's chain of command if you are not a sole proprietor is necessary. It leaves room for little or no confusion about who is in charge or responsible during business operations.

This section provides relevant information on how the management team intends to help employees maximize their strengths and address their identified weaknesses to help all quarters improve for the business's success.

8. Products and Services

This business plan section describes what a company has to offer regarding products and services to the maximum benefit and satisfaction of its target market.

Boldly spell out pending patents or copyright products and intellectual property in this section alongside costs, expected sales revenue, research and development, and competitors' advantage as an overview.

At this stage of your business plan, the reader needs to know what your business plans to produce and sell and the benefits these products offer in meeting customers' needs.

The supply network of your business product, production costs, and how you intend to sell the products are crucial components of the products and services section.

Investors are always keen on this information to help them reach a balanced assessment of if investing in your business is risky or offer benefits to them.

You need to create a link in this section on how your products or services are designed to meet the market's needs and how you intend to keep those customers and carve out a market share for your company.

Repeat purchases are the backing that a successful business relies on and measure how much customers are into what your company is offering.

This section is more like an expansion of the executive summary section. You need to analyze each product or service under the business.

9. Operating Plan

An operations plan describes how you plan to carry out your business operations and processes.

The operating plan for your business should include:

• Information about how your company plans to carry out its operations.
• The base location from which your company intends to operate.
• The number of employees to be utilized and other information about your company's operations.
• Key business processes.

This section should highlight how your organization is set up to run. You can also introduce your company's management team in this section, alongside their skills, roles, and responsibilities in the company.

The best way to introduce the company team is by drawing up an organizational chart that effectively maps out an organization's rank and chain of command.

What should be spelled out to readers when they come across this business plan section is how the business plans to operate day-in and day-out successfully.

10. Financial Projections and Assumptions

Bringing your great business ideas into reality is why business plans are important. They help create a sustainable and viable business.

The financial section of your business plan offers significant value. A business uses a financial plan to solve all its financial concerns, which usually involves startup costs, labor expenses, financial projections, and funding and investor pitches.

All key assumptions about the business finances need to be listed alongside the business financial projection, and changes to be made on the assumptions side until it balances with the projection for the business.

The financial plan should also include how the business plans to generate income and the capital expenditure budgets that tend to eat into the budget to arrive at an accurate cash flow projection for the business.

Base your financial goals and expectations on extensive market research backed with relevant financial statements for the relevant period.

Examples of financial statements you can include in the financial projections and assumptions section of your business plan include:

• Projected income statements
• Cash flow statements
• Balance sheets
• Income statements

Revealing the financial goals and potentials of the business is what the financial projection and assumption section of your business plan is all about. It needs to be purely based on facts that can be measurable and attainable.

11. Request For Funding

The request for funding section focuses on the amount of money needed to set up your business and underlying plans for raising the money required. This section includes plans for utilizing the funds for your business's operational and manufacturing processes.

When seeking funding, a reasonable timeline is required alongside it. If the need arises for additional funding to complete other business-related projects, you are not left scampering and desperate for funds.

If you do not have the funds to start up your business, then you should devote a whole section of your business plan to explaining the amount of money you need and how you plan to utilize every penny of the funds. You need to explain it in detail for a future funding request.

When an investor picks up your business plan to analyze it, with all your plans for the funds well spelled out, they are motivated to invest as they have gotten a backing guarantee from your funding request section.

Include timelines and plans for how you intend to repay the loans received in your funding request section. This addition keeps investors assured that they could recoup their investment in the business.

12. Exhibits and Appendices

Exhibits and appendices comprise the final section of your business plan and contain all supporting documents for other sections of the business plan.

Some of the documents that comprise the exhibits and appendices section includes:

• Legal documents
• Licenses and permits
• Credit histories
• Customer lists

The choice of what additional document to include in your business plan to support your statements depends mainly on the intended audience of your business plan. Hence, it is better to play it safe and not leave anything out when drawing up the appendix and exhibit section.

Supporting documentation is particularly helpful when you need funding or support for your business. This section provides investors with a clearer understanding of the research that backs the claims made in your business plan.

There are key points to include in the appendix and exhibits section of your business plan.

• The management team and other stakeholders resume
• Marketing research
• Permits and relevant legal documents
• Financial documents

Was This Article Helpful?

Martin luenendonk.

Martin loves entrepreneurship and has helped dozens of entrepreneurs by validating the business idea, finding scalable customer acquisition channels, and building a data-driven organization. During his time working in investment banking, tech startups, and industry-leading companies he gained extensive knowledge in using different software tools to optimize business processes.

This insights and his love for researching SaaS products enables him to provide in-depth, fact-based software reviews to enable software buyers make better decisions.

Ace Office Furniture serving Corporate, Government, Educational, & Medical Facilities

• Afghanistan (USD $)
• Åland Islands (USD $)
• Albania (USD $)
• Algeria (USD $)
• Andorra (USD $)
• Angola (USD $)
• Anguilla (USD $)
• Antigua & Barbuda (USD $)
• Argentina (USD $)
• Armenia (USD $)
• Aruba (USD $)
• Ascension Island (USD $)
• Australia (USD $)
• Austria (USD $)
• Azerbaijan (USD $)
• Bahamas (USD $)
• Bahrain (USD $)
• Bangladesh (USD $)
• Barbados (USD $)
• Belarus (USD $)
• Belgium (USD $)
• Belize (USD $)
• Benin (USD $)
• Bermuda (USD $)
• Bhutan (USD $)
• Bolivia (USD $)
• Bosnia & Herzegovina (USD $)
• Botswana (USD $)
• Brazil (USD $)
• British Indian Ocean Territory (USD $)
• British Virgin Islands (USD $)
• Brunei (USD $)
• Bulgaria (USD $)
• Burkina Faso (USD $)
• Burundi (USD $)
• Cambodia (USD $)
• Cameroon (USD $)
• Canada (USD $)
• Cape Verde (USD $)
• Caribbean Netherlands (USD $)
• Cayman Islands (USD $)
• Central African Republic (USD $)
• Chad (USD $)
• Chile (USD $)
• China (USD $)
• Christmas Island (USD $)
• Cocos (Keeling) Islands (USD $)
• Colombia (USD $)
• Comoros (USD $)
• Congo - Brazzaville (USD $)
• Congo - Kinshasa (USD $)
• Cook Islands (USD $)
• Costa Rica (USD $)
• Côte d’Ivoire (USD $)
• Croatia (USD $)
• Curaçao (USD $)
• Cyprus (USD $)
• Czechia (USD $)
• Denmark (USD $)
• Djibouti (USD $)
• Dominica (USD $)
• Dominican Republic (USD $)
• Ecuador (USD $)
• Egypt (USD $)
• El Salvador (USD $)
• Equatorial Guinea (USD $)
• Eritrea (USD $)
• Estonia (USD $)
• Eswatini (USD $)
• Ethiopia (USD $)
• Falkland Islands (USD $)
• Faroe Islands (USD $)
• Fiji (USD $)
• Finland (USD $)
• France (USD $)
• French Guiana (USD $)
• French Polynesia (USD $)
• French Southern Territories (USD $)
• Gabon (USD $)
• Gambia (USD $)
• Georgia (USD $)
• Germany (USD $)
• Ghana (USD $)
• Gibraltar (USD $)
• Greece (USD $)
• Greenland (USD $)
• Grenada (USD $)
• Guadeloupe (USD $)
• Guatemala (USD $)
• Guernsey (USD $)
• Guinea (USD $)
• Guinea-Bissau (USD $)
• Guyana (USD $)
• Haiti (USD $)
• Honduras (USD $)
• Hong Kong SAR (USD $)
• Hungary (USD $)
• Iceland (USD $)
• India (USD $)
• Indonesia (USD $)
• Iraq (USD $)
• Ireland (USD $)
• Isle of Man (USD $)
• Israel (USD $)
• Italy (USD $)
• Jamaica (USD $)
• Japan (USD $)
• Jersey (USD $)
• Jordan (USD $)
• Kazakhstan (USD $)
• Kenya (USD $)
• Kiribati (USD $)
• Kosovo (USD $)
• Kuwait (USD $)
• Kyrgyzstan (USD $)
• Laos (USD $)
• Latvia (USD $)
• Lebanon (USD $)
• Lesotho (USD $)
• Liberia (USD $)
• Libya (USD $)
• Liechtenstein (USD $)
• Lithuania (USD $)
• Luxembourg (USD $)
• Macao SAR (USD $)
• Madagascar (USD $)
• Malawi (USD $)
• Malaysia (USD $)
• Maldives (USD $)
• Mali (USD $)
• Malta (USD $)
• Martinique (USD $)
• Mauritania (USD $)
• Mauritius (USD $)
• Mayotte (USD $)
• Mexico (USD $)
• Moldova (USD $)
• Monaco (USD $)
• Mongolia (USD $)
• Montenegro (USD $)
• Montserrat (USD $)
• Morocco (USD $)
• Mozambique (USD $)
• Myanmar (Burma) (USD $)
• Namibia (USD $)
• Nauru (USD $)
• Nepal (USD $)
• Netherlands (USD $)
• New Caledonia (USD $)
• New Zealand (USD $)
• Nicaragua (USD $)
• Niger (USD $)
• Nigeria (USD $)
• Niue (USD $)
• Norfolk Island (USD $)
• North Macedonia (USD $)
• Norway (USD $)
• Oman (USD $)
• Pakistan (USD $)
• Palestinian Territories (USD $)
• Panama (USD $)
• Papua New Guinea (USD $)
• Paraguay (USD $)
• Peru (USD $)
• Philippines (USD $)
• Pitcairn Islands (USD $)
• Poland (USD $)
• Portugal (USD $)
• Qatar (USD $)
• Réunion (USD $)
• Romania (USD $)
• Russia (USD $)
• Rwanda (USD $)
• Samoa (USD $)
• San Marino (USD $)
• São Tomé & Príncipe (USD $)
• Saudi Arabia (USD $)
• Senegal (USD $)
• Serbia (USD $)
• Seychelles (USD $)
• Sierra Leone (USD $)
• Singapore (USD $)
• Sint Maarten (USD $)
• Slovakia (USD $)
• Slovenia (USD $)
• Solomon Islands (USD $)
• Somalia (USD $)
• South Africa (USD $)
• South Georgia & South Sandwich Islands (USD $)
• South Korea (USD $)
• South Sudan (USD $)
• Spain (USD $)
• Sri Lanka (USD $)
• St. Barthélemy (USD $)
• St. Helena (USD $)
• St. Kitts & Nevis (USD $)
• St. Lucia (USD $)
• St. Martin (USD $)
• St. Pierre & Miquelon (USD $)
• St. Vincent & Grenadines (USD $)
• Sudan (USD $)
• Suriname (USD $)
• Svalbard & Jan Mayen (USD $)
• Sweden (USD $)
• Switzerland (USD $)
• Taiwan (USD $)
• Tajikistan (USD $)
• Tanzania (USD $)
• Thailand (USD $)
• Timor-Leste (USD $)
• Togo (USD $)
• Tokelau (USD $)
• Tonga (USD $)
• Trinidad & Tobago (USD $)
• Tristan da Cunha (USD $)
• Tunisia (USD $)
• Türkiye (USD $)
• Turkmenistan (USD $)
• Turks & Caicos Islands (USD $)
• Tuvalu (USD $)
• U.S. Outlying Islands (USD $)
• Uganda (USD $)
• Ukraine (USD $)
• United Arab Emirates (USD $)
• United Kingdom (USD $)
• United States (USD $)
• Uruguay (USD $)
• Uzbekistan (USD $)
• Vanuatu (USD $)
• Vatican City (USD $)
• Venezuela (USD $)
• Vietnam (USD $)
• Wallis & Futuna (USD $)
• Western Sahara (USD $)
• Yemen (USD $)
• Zambia (USD $)
• Zimbabwe (USD $)
• Office Suites
• Office Desks
• Cubicles & Workstations
• Partition Panels & Systems
• Reception Furniture
• Conference Room Furniture
• Office Chairs
• Breakroom & Cafetaria
• Training & Education
• Mail Room Furniture
• Safe - Maintenance & Security
• Custom Furniture
• Portable Classrooms
• For the Teacher
• Chalkboards
• Markerboards
• Bulletin Boards
• Audio & Visual
• Student Desks
• Study Carrels
• Stackable Chairs
• Science Lab Furniture
• Activity Tables
• Storage Cabinets
• Media Storage
• Stages & Risers
• Preschool Furniture
• Infants & Toddlers
• Display Divider Panels
• Computer Stands
• Literature Organizers
• Conference Tables
• Round Conference Tables
• Conference Room Seating
• Buffets & Servers
• Presentation Boards
• Audio Visual
• Seminar / Training Nesting Tables
• Portable Room Dividers
• Training Room Chairs
• Reception Desks
• Reception Seating
• Waiting Area Furniture
• Dillon Antimicrobial Seating
• Magazines Racks
• Executive Office Chairs
• Managerial & Conference Chairs
• Task Chairs
• Guest Chairs
• Chairs for Big & Tall
• Reclining Chairs
• Folding Chairs
• Waiting Area Seating
• Club Chairs
• Stacking & Folding/Nesting Chairs
• Banquet Chairs
• Specialty Seating
• Seat Cushions
• Wheelchair Accessible Reception Desks
• Medical Chart Holders
• Literature Display
• Shop by Brand
• CURRENT DEALS & SPECIALS!

866-964-8457 , [email protected]

Office Layout Plan: Overview, Importance, Types, And Examples

The Impact of Office Layout

Effective office layout planning is a crucial aspect of creating a productive and harmonious work environment. The design and arrangement of office spaces can significantly impact various aspects of the workplace, including employee productivity, collaboration, and well-being. In this section, we will explore the importance of office layout planning and its impact on the overall work environment.

Introduction to Office Layout Planning

Office layout planning involves strategically arranging workspaces, furniture, and amenities to optimize the functionality and efficiency of a workspace. It takes into consideration factors such as workflow, communication, employee needs, and future growth. By carefully planning the office layout, businesses can create an environment that supports their objectives and enhances employee performance.

A well-designed office layout plan promotes a seamless flow of work, encourages collaboration, and provides spaces for both focused work and social interaction. It also considers the physical and psychological well-being of employees, ensuring that the workspace is comfortable, ergonomic, and conducive to their needs. Furthermore, an effective office layout plan takes into account the potential for future growth and adaptability, allowing the workspace to evolve as the business expands or changes.

Importance of a Well-Designed Office Layout

A well-designed office layout has numerous benefits for both employees and the organization as a whole. Here are a few key reasons why office layout planning is essential:

Enhanced Productivity:   A thoughtfully designed office layout can optimize workflow and minimize distractions, leading to increased productivity. By strategically placing workstations and amenities, employees can easily access the tools and resources they need to perform their tasks efficiently.

Improved Collaboration and Communication:   An office layout that encourages collaboration and communication can foster teamwork and innovation. Open and shared spaces, meeting rooms, and communal areas facilitate interaction and idea exchange among employees, promoting a collaborative work culture.

Employee Well-being and Satisfaction:   A well-designed office layout takes into account employee comfort, ergonomics, and well-being. Providing adequate space, natural light, proper ventilation, and ergonomic furniture contributes to employee satisfaction, reduces stress, and promotes a positive work environment.

Flexibility and Future Growth:   An effective office layout plan considers the organization's current and future needs. It allows for flexibility and adaptability, enabling the workspace to accommodate changes in staff size, departmental needs, or technological advancements.

By investing time and effort into office layout planning, businesses can create a workspace that maximizes productivity, fosters a positive work culture, and supports the well-being of employees. Whether it's an open plan layout, cubicle layout, or a combination of both, the design of the office layout plays a critical role in shaping the overall work environment.

In the next section, we will explore different types of office layouts and their benefits. Stay tuned for an in-depth look at open plan layouts, cubicle layouts, private office layouts, and combination layouts.

Factors to Consider in Office Layout Planning

When planning an office layout, there are several key factors to consider in order to create an effective and productive workspace. These factors include workflow and productivity, collaboration and communication, employee well-being and satisfaction, as well as flexibility and future growth.

Workflow and Productivity

A well-designed office layout should promote efficient workflow and enhance employee productivity. Consider the flow of tasks and processes within the office space. Are there any bottlenecks or areas where employees tend to congregate? By optimizing the layout to minimize unnecessary movement and congestion, you can improve overall productivity.

To achieve an effective workflow, consider the placement of workstations, meeting rooms, and communal areas. Providing easy access to necessary tools, equipment, and resources can also streamline productivity. By analyzing the workflow and identifying potential areas for improvement, you can create a layout that supports smooth and efficient operations.

Collaboration and Communication

Collaboration and communication are vital for fostering teamwork and creativity within an office environment. The layout of the office should encourage interaction and collaboration among employees. Consider incorporating collaborative spaces, such as meeting rooms, breakout areas, or open seating arrangements, where employees can easily share ideas, brainstorm, and collaborate on projects.

Additionally, it's important to provide spaces that facilitate both formal and informal communication. This can include dedicated areas for team meetings, as well as informal gathering spots like coffee areas or lounge spaces. By designing the office layout to promote collaboration and communication, you can enhance teamwork and foster a sense of community among employees.

Employee Well-being and Satisfaction

The well-being and satisfaction of employees are crucial for maintaining a positive and productive work environment. The office layout should prioritize the comfort and well-being of employees. Consider factors such as ergonomic furniture, proper lighting, and adequate ventilation to create a comfortable and healthy workspace.

Incorporating elements of nature, such as plants or natural views, can also contribute to employee well-being. Additionally, providing quiet areas or designated spaces for relaxation and rejuvenation can help reduce stress and increase employee satisfaction.

Flexibility and Future Growth

As businesses evolve and grow, office layouts need to accommodate changing needs. Flexibility is key when planning an office layout to adapt to future growth or changes in the organization. Consider modular furniture and flexible partition systems that can be easily reconfigured to accommodate different team sizes or departments.

Designing a layout that allows for scalability and flexibility enables the office space to adapt to new technologies, work processes, or organizational changes. This ensures that the office layout remains functional and efficient in the long term.

By considering these factors in office layout planning, you can create a workspace that supports productivity, collaboration, employee well-being, and future growth. Remember to analyze the specific needs of your organization and involve employees in the planning process to ensure a layout that meets both practical and human-centric requirements.

Types of Office Layouts

When it comes to designing an effective office layout, there are several options to consider. Each layout type has its own characteristics and can greatly impact the functionality and atmosphere of the workspace. Let's explore some of the most common office layout types:

Open Plan Layout

The open plan layout is a popular choice for modern offices. This layout promotes collaboration, communication, and a sense of transparency among employees. In an open plan layout, there are minimal physical barriers, such as walls or cubicles, allowing for easy interaction and flexibility. This type of layout encourages teamwork, idea sharing, and fosters a sense of community among employees. However, it's important to consider noise management and privacy concerns when implementing an open plan layout.

Cubicle Layout

Cubicle layouts, also known as workstation layouts, provide a balance between open space and individual privacy. In this layout, employees have their own designated workstations separated by cubicle walls. Cubicles offer some level of privacy and can help minimize distractions, allowing employees to focus on their tasks. Additionally, cubicles provide a sense of personal space and can be customized to suit individual preferences. However, it's important to ensure that cubicles are designed to promote adequate airflow and natural light to maintain a pleasant working environment.

Private Office Layout

Private office layouts are typically reserved for executives, managers, or employees who require a higher level of privacy and confidentiality. Private offices provide a dedicated space for individuals to work, hold meetings, and conduct confidential conversations. This layout offers a sense of authority, autonomy, and reduced distractions. However, it's important to balance privacy with the need for collaboration and accessibility to ensure effective communication among team members.

Combination Layouts

Combination layouts, as the name suggests, incorporate a blend of different office layout types. This approach allows organizations to cater to the specific needs of various departments or teams within the office. For example, a combination layout may include open plan areas for collaborative work, cubicles for individual focus, and private offices for managers or executives. By combining different layout types, organizations can create a dynamic and versatile workspace that maximizes productivity and supports different work styles.

Considering the specific needs and objectives of your organization is crucial when selecting the most suitable office layout. It's important to assess factors such as workflow, collaboration requirements, employee preferences, and the nature of the work being performed. By understanding the characteristics of each office layout type, you can make an informed decision that aligns with your organization's goals and enhances the overall work environment.

Examples of Effective Office Layouts

When it comes to designing an effective office layout, there are various approaches that can be adopted based on the specific needs and goals of the organization. Here are three examples of office layouts that have proven to be effective in promoting productivity, collaboration, and employee well-being.

Collaborative Workspace Design

Collaborative workspace design focuses on creating an environment that encourages teamwork, idea sharing, and open communication among employees. This layout often features open spaces with shared desks or workstations, allowing for easy collaboration and interaction between team members.

In a collaborative workspace design, meeting rooms and breakout areas are strategically placed to facilitate impromptu discussions and brainstorming sessions. These spaces are equipped with tools and technology that support collaborative work, such as whiteboards, projectors, and comfortable seating arrangements.

By fostering a sense of community and promoting teamwork, a collaborative workspace design can enhance creativity, innovation, and problem-solving within the organization. It encourages employees to work together and share their expertise, leading to improved productivity and a more dynamic work environment.

Agile Workspace Design

Agile workspace design is centered around flexibility and adaptability. This layout aims to create an environment that can easily accommodate changing team dynamics, project requirements, and work styles. It often includes modular furniture and movable partitions that can be rearranged to meet the evolving needs of the organization.

In an agile workspace design, there are designated areas for different activities, such as individual workstations, team project areas, and collaboration zones. These spaces are designed to be easily reconfigured based on the specific needs of different teams or projects.

By providing employees with the freedom to choose where and how they work, an agile workspace design promotes autonomy and empowers individuals to work in a manner that suits their preferences and tasks. This flexibility can contribute to increased employee satisfaction, engagement, and overall productivity.

Activity-Based Workspace Design

Activity-based workspace design focuses on providing employees with a variety of spaces designed for different work activities. It recognizes that different tasks require different environments and provides dedicated areas for focused work, collaboration, relaxation, and social interaction.

In an activity-based workspace design, there may be quiet zones for concentration, meeting rooms for collaborative discussions, breakout areas for informal conversations, and relaxation areas for employees to unwind. Each area is thoughtfully designed to cater to specific work functions and provides the necessary tools and amenities to support those activities.

By offering a range of work environments, an activity-based workspace design enables employees to choose the most suitable space for their tasks, leading to improved focus, creativity, and overall job satisfaction. It also encourages movement and interaction throughout the office, enhancing communication and fostering a sense of belonging among employees.

By considering these examples of effective office layouts, organizations can tailor their workspace design to align with their specific goals and work culture. Whether it's a collaborative workspace design, agile workspace design, or activity-based workspace design, the key is to create an environment that supports productivity, collaboration, and the well-being of employees.

Tips for Designing an Effective Office Layout

Designing an effective office layout requires careful consideration of various factors to create a functional and productive workspace. Here are some tips to help you design an office layout that maximizes efficiency and enhances employee well-being.

Analyzing Space and Needs

Before designing an office layout, it's crucial to analyze the available space and identify the specific needs of your organization. Consider the number of employees, departments, and the nature of their work. This analysis will help determine the overall layout, the number of workstations needed, and the allocation of space for common areas.

Considering Ergonomics and Comfort

Creating a workspace that prioritizes ergonomics and comfort is essential for employee well-being and productivity. Ensure that workstations are designed with adjustable chairs, proper desk heights, and ergonomic accessories such as keyboard trays and monitor stands. Encourage the use of standing desks or provide options for employees to switch between sitting and standing positions throughout the day.

Maximizing Natural Light and Ventilation

Natural light and good ventilation play a vital role in creating a positive work environment. When designing the office layout, maximize the use of natural light by positioning workstations near windows and using glass partitions to allow light to flow throughout the space. Additionally, ensure proper ventilation to maintain a fresh and comfortable atmosphere.

Incorporating Breakout Areas and Amenities

To promote collaboration, creativity, and employee well-being, incorporate breakout areas and amenities into your office layout. Designate spaces for informal meetings, relaxation, and socialization. Consider creating dedicated areas for brainstorming sessions or quiet zones for focused work. Additionally, provide amenities such as kitchenettes, restrooms, and comfortable seating areas to enhance the overall office experience.

By following these tips, you can design an office layout that promotes productivity, collaboration, and employee well-being. Remember to consider the specific needs of your organization, prioritize ergonomics and comfort, maximize natural light and ventilation, and incorporate breakout areas and amenities. A well-designed office layout can have a significant impact on the overall effectiveness and satisfaction of your workforce.

How do I determine the best office layout plan for my company?

The best office layout plan for your company will depend on several factors, including the type of work being performed, the size of your office space, and the needs of your employees. Consider consulting with an interior designer or workplace consultant to help you determine the optimal layout for your specific needs.

Can I change my office layout plan after it has been implemented?

Yes, you can certainly change your office layout plan if it is not working well for your company. However, keep in mind that major changes may require significant time and expense to implement. It is important to carefully consider any changes before making them.

How can I ensure that my employees are comfortable with the new office layout plan?

Communication is key when implementing a new office layout plan. Be sure to involve employees in the planning process and communicate clearly about why changes are being made and how they will benefit everyone. Encourage feedback and be open to making adjustments as needed.

Are there any downsides to an open plan layout?

While open plan layouts can promote communication and collaboration, they may also increase distractions and noise levels. It is important to carefully consider whether this type of layout is appropriate for your particular work environment before implementing it.

What role does technology play in determining an office layout plan?

Technology can have a significant impact on office layout plans. For example, a company that relies heavily on video conferencing may need more enclosed spaces for privacy during meetings. Consult with IT professionals to determine how technology should factor into your office design decisions.

In conclusion, a well-designed office layout plan is an essential element to consider for creating a comfortable and productive work environment. Whether you opt for an open plan layout, closed office layout, cubicle layout, or combination layout, it's important to choose a plan that meets the needs of your employees and your business. We hope this article has provided you with a useful overview of office layout plans and some inspiration for creating your own.

• https://orlandoofficefurniture.com/blog/the-office-layout/
• https://www.edrawmax.com/office-layout/
• https://waspecialprojects.com.au/types-of-office-layouts/
• https://ca.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/office-layout

Your Cart is Empty

• Choosing a selection results in a full page refresh.

• Business Ideas
• Grow Your Business
• Online Business
• Internet Marketing
• Use Of Cookie

15 Profitable Business Ideas & Opportunities In South Africa for 2024

7 profitable business ideas & opportunities in 3d printing technology, the most profitable food franchise for sale to invest in, starting a food truck business in new zealand – procedure, permits…, starting a pool cleaning business – profitable business plan sample, how to work effectively with a local marketing consultant, the business of opulence: how luxury hotels stay ahead in the…, 10 situations when your business should consult an employment attorney, top tips for success as a new e-commerce firm, partnering with an amazon fba prep centre: what to look for…, examining the top challenges faced by start-ups in australia, how artificial intelligence is changing appraisal management and how to adapt, peter’s success: navigating nyc’s vacation rental business legally, starting a small business in australia – an overview, breathing life into old buildings: the marketing magic behind revitalizing properties…, 5 reasons to combine dropshipping with shopify, 5 new online business trends for 2024, andrew’s inspiring blogging success: from passion to prosperity, 5 ways to make money from home right now, success in e-book publishing business: a journey from dream to reality, seo tactics tailored for the hospitality industry, marketing the unique: strategies for promoting boutique hotels in a competitive…, 4 ways to optimize underperforming email campaigns, how to create product descriptions that convert.

• Factory and Plant
• Manufacturing

10 Importance of a Plant Layout to Improve your Business Manufacturing Process

A plant layout is an important part of improving your business’s manufacturing process, as it determines the most efficient use of the available space, materials, and equipment. By carefully examining the layout of your manufacturing facility, you can reduce the amount of time and effort required to set up and operate the equipment, while improving safety and production. Also, implementing an effective plant layout reduces the cost of manufacturing and increases the speed at which goods are produced.

By optimizing the layout of production equipment, workers are able to maximize the efficiency of their labor by eliminating extra movement, decreasing fatigue and increasing productivity. Also, it can help improve the quality of the end product by reducing the number of errors due to poor organization or inefficient processes. A well-designed plant layout encourages the reuse of resources and recycle wasted materials, which increases sustainability and reduces waste.

As we know that having a well-thought out plant layout is the cornerstone of successful manufacturing. It provides the basis for creating a stream-lined production process, which optimizes the use of space, labor and materials. Additionally, it enables the efficient use of resources and technologies, which reduces costs and increases quality. A well-designed plant layout also reduces hazards and improves overall operation, for a more profitable and sustainable business.

10 Importance of a Plant Layout

• Increases Efficiency : A good plant layout will help to increase efficiency by optimizing workflow and reducing material flow.
• Enhances Productivity : With fewer obstructions and less wastage, better communication and a more streamlined flow of the production process, a well-organized plant layout can result in higher productivity.
• Reduces Wastage : Poor layouts can cause wastage of resources due to inefficient and ineffective production line.
• Minimizes Risk and Accidents : Improved safety can be achieved in the workplace by minimising obstructions and unnecessary equipment.
• Enhances Employee Job Satisfaction : An efficient layout increases employee job satisfaction as they are able to perform their duties quickly and precisely with less confusion.
• Responsible for Maximizing Efficiency : A well-designed plant layout takes into account various factors such as material flow, production demands and human resources. As a result, it can maximize efficiency
• Develops Economy of Scale : Plant layouts support economies of scale and can help to increase profits by reducing production costs.
• Manages Transportation : A well-thought-out plant layout will limit the amount of transportation necessary. This reduces the cost of production and improves efficiency.
• Facilitates Communication : Plant layout makes communication between departments and workers much easier through enhanced visibility.
• Streamlines Maintenance : By removing obstructions from areas that are necessary for maintaining the machinery, a good plant layout has the ability to minimize downtime and costs associated with repairs.

The Cost Of Materials Handling Will Reduce

When you’re operating a manufacturing plant, one of the most significant concerns that you have to be wary about has to do with the reduction of costs. As much as possible, the plant has to operate most economically. This can be achieved with a plant layout.

With a plant or factory layout, you’re able to arrange every section in the plant. Because this layout works as a floor plan, before every aspect of production is sectioned together, you’re able to study which position works best for the most efficient results.

For instance, long-distance movements are reduced or avoided. Materials don’t have to be moved consistently from one end of the plant to another. When you’re talking about large materials, this means that you have to transport them to a vehicle. This means an added gas expense, and so on. If there was a proper plant layout, this could’ve been avoided.

For instance, you run a garment factory. This requires a lot of work and processes. The demand is very high, so time has to be efficiently managed. Resources also can’t be wasted. This is where the benefits of a plant layout come in handy.

You’ll Have Better Visual Control

When you visit a manufacturing plant, you’ll want to know where you’re going. Even if you own or manage the business, this doesn’t necessarily mean that you know every section. With a plant layout, you have a better visual control every time you visit your business.

You know what needs to go on in every area of the manufacturing plant. If there’s an activity going on in an area that you know doesn’t belong there, you can correct this as soon as possible before a more significant problem arises.

Every Area In Your Plan Will Be Used Efficiently

Running a manufacturing plant is costly. Apart from the salaries of the employees and the cost of the materials, there are utilities that need to be considered. Electricity, for instance, makes up a huge bulk of your operating expenses. This highlights the importance of being able to use every inch in your existing area efficiently.

Don’t waste a single space and make sure that every area is put to good use. This can be achieved through a plant layout.

Here are some ways to achieve efficient use of space, such that you can effectively improve factory operations:

• Proper job assignments in each area, so every member of the workforce is contributing productively
• The location of the equipment, so that multiple job functions for every area can be done
• The creation of up-to-date work areas

Eliminates Bottlenecks In Production

Bottlenecks in the production line refer to delays. In a chain of processes, delays should be avoided. While sometimes it’s inevitable, some strategies are in place that can help reduce this occurrence.

In business operations, bottlenecks are negative. This pulls down the efficiency and productivity. In turn, results are also going to get affected.

When the manufacturing plant goes through bottlenecks, the following may happen:

• There will be increased pressure from customers to deliver on time
• There will be stalls in the production line
• There might be perishable supplies that are going to be wasted

Here, it’s safe to say that a bottleneck is a major problem in any manufacturing plant. As big as this problem is, it can be avoided by simply having a plant layout.

Allows For Better Quality Control

Quality control is an important aspect of any factory or manufacturing business, which begins by having a plant layout. This serves as the guide during the inspection process as to the tasks required to be done in every area. This plant layout also shows the expected results in every area or every level of the production line.

Without quality control in any business, there won’t be a timely execution in orders. Delay will start piling up, which also puts your reputation in a bad light. This is precisely why it’s imperative to have some form of control and inspection in every stage of the manufacturing process.

The abovementioned are some of the best reasons as to why a plant layout is critical. These benefits are common to all manufacturing plants. Whether it’s for a small company or a large scale one, a plant layout shouldn’t be skipped.

When a company has this floor plan as the foundation of daily operations, efficiency and productivity are surely increased.

RELATED ARTICLES MORE FROM AUTHOR

Waste tyre recycling plant business plan & profit in india, how to remove tough carpet stains, 20 manufacturing business ideas without breaking the bank, crafting a profitable paper bag making business plan in india & profit margin, 7 ways to enhance durability and performance using vespel in your designs, how to improve production efficiency in manufacturing, leave a reply cancel reply.

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

TRENDING ARTICLES

20 best franchise business opportunities under 10k dollars in the usa, 20 best business ideas & opportunities in dubai – uae.

• Advertise With Us
• Privacy Policy

Privacy Overview

วิธีวางแผนกลยุทธ์เนื้อหาเว็บไซต์

ในโลกดิจิทัลปัจจุบัน การมีตัวตนในโลกออนไลน์ที่แข็งแกร่งถือเป็นสิ่งสำคัญสำหรับธุรกิจหรือองค์กร เว็บไซต์ที่ได้รับการออกแบบอย่างดีไม่เพียงแต่ช่วยดึงดูดผู้มีโอกาสเป็นลูกค้าเท่านั้น แต่ยังทำหน้าที่เป็นแพลตฟอร์มในการแสดงผลิตภัณฑ์และบริการของคุณอีกด้วย อย่างไรก็ตาม การออกแบบเว็บไซต์ไม่ได้เป็นเพียงเรื่องของความสวยงามเท่านั้น แต่ยังเกี่ยวกับการสร้างเนื้อหาที่มีคุณค่าซึ่งดึงดูดและเปลี่ยนผู้เยี่ยมชมให้เป็นลูกค้าประจำ

การสร้างกลยุทธ์เนื้อหาเว็บไซต์ที่มีประสิทธิภาพเป็นกุญแจสู่ความสำเร็จในโลกดิจิทัล ในบล็อกนี้ เราจะพูดถึงขั้นตอนต่างๆ ที่เกี่ยวข้องกับการวางแผนให้ประสบความสำเร็จ กลยุทธ์เนื้อหาเว็บไซต์ .

กำหนดเป้าหมายและวัตถุประสงค์ของคุณ

ก่อนที่จะเริ่มโครงการใดๆ สิ่งสำคัญคือต้องกำหนดเป้าหมายและวัตถุประสงค์ของคุณ เช่นเดียวกับการสร้างกลยุทธ์เนื้อหาเว็บไซต์ เป้าหมายและวัตถุประสงค์ของคุณจะนำทางคุณไปในทิศทางที่ถูกต้องและช่วยให้คุณจดจ่ออยู่กับสิ่งที่สำคัญอย่างแท้จริง

เป้าหมายทั่วไปบางประการสำหรับเว็บไซต์อาจเป็นการเพิ่มการเข้าชมเว็บไซต์ การสร้างโอกาสในการขาย หรือการปรับปรุงการรับรู้ถึงแบรนด์ เมื่อคุณระบุเป้าหมายได้แล้ว คุณก็สามารถกำหนดเป้าหมายเฉพาะเจาะจงที่จะช่วยให้คุณบรรลุเป้าหมายเหล่านั้นได้

รู้จักกลุ่มเป้าหมายของคุณ

ความสำเร็จของกลยุทธ์เนื้อหาเว็บไซต์ของคุณขึ้นอยู่กับว่าคุณเข้าใจกลุ่มเป้าหมายของคุณได้ดีเพียงใด กลุ่มเป้าหมายของคุณคือกลุ่มคนที่มีแนวโน้มจะสนใจผลิตภัณฑ์หรือบริการของคุณมากที่สุด การทำความเข้าใจความต้องการ ความสนใจ และปัญหาของพวกเขาจะช่วยให้คุณสร้างเนื้อหาที่ตรงใจพวกเขาและกระตุ้นการมีส่วนร่วม

เพื่อให้เข้าใจกลุ่มเป้าหมายของคุณได้ดีขึ้น คุณสามารถดำเนินการวิจัยตลาด วิเคราะห์การวิเคราะห์เว็บไซต์ และรวบรวมคำติชมจากลูกค้าปัจจุบันของคุณได้ สิ่งนี้จะช่วยคุณสร้างบุคลิกของผู้ซื้อที่แสดงถึงลูกค้าในอุดมคติของคุณ

วิเคราะห์คู่แข่งของคุณ

ในภาพรวมการแข่งขันในปัจจุบัน การมีความเข้าใจที่ชัดเจนเกี่ยวกับคู่แข่งของคุณเป็นสิ่งสำคัญ การวิเคราะห์เว็บไซต์ของพวกเขาสามารถให้ข้อมูลเชิงลึกอันมีค่าแก่คุณเกี่ยวกับสิ่งที่ได้ผลและสิ่งที่ไม่อยู่ในอุตสาหกรรมของคุณ สิ่งนี้จะช่วยคุณระบุช่องว่างในตลาดและวางตำแหน่งเว็บไซต์ของคุณให้สอดคล้องกัน

อย่างไรก็ตาม สิ่งสำคัญคือต้องไม่คัดลอกกลยุทธ์ของคู่แข่ง ให้ใช้สิ่งเหล่านี้เป็นแรงบันดาลใจและหาวิธีสร้างความแตกต่างให้กับตนเองแทน สิ่งนี้จะช่วยให้คุณโดดเด่นและดึงดูดกลุ่มเป้าหมายของคุณ

กำหนดเสียงและโทนของแบรนด์ของคุณ

เสียงและน้ำเสียงของแบรนด์เป็นองค์ประกอบสำคัญของกลยุทธ์เนื้อหาเว็บไซต์ของคุณ พวกเขาแสดงถึงบุคลิกภาพของแบรนด์ของคุณและวิธีการสื่อสารกับผู้ชม การกำหนดโทนเสียงและน้ำเสียงของแบรนด์ที่สอดคล้องกันจะช่วยให้คุณสร้างประสบการณ์ที่สอดคล้องกันสำหรับผู้เยี่ยมชมของคุณ และสร้างการจดจำแบรนด์

เสียงของแบรนด์ของคุณควรสอดคล้องกับคุณค่าของแบรนด์ ภารกิจ และกลุ่มเป้าหมายของคุณ ตัวอย่างเช่น หากคุณเป็นแบรนด์ที่สนุกสนานและขี้เล่นซึ่งมุ่งเป้าไปที่วัยรุ่น โทนเสียงของคุณควรมีความเป็นกันเองและเป็นบทสนทนามากขึ้น ในทางกลับกัน หากคุณเป็นแบรนด์หรูที่มุ่งเป้าไปที่ลูกค้าระดับไฮเอนด์ น้ำเสียงของคุณควรมีความเป็นมืออาชีพและมีความซับซ้อนมากขึ้น

สร้างแผนเนื้อหา

เมื่อคุณมีความเข้าใจที่ชัดเจนเกี่ยวกับเป้าหมาย กลุ่มเป้าหมาย และเสียงของแบรนด์แล้ว ก็ถึงเวลาสร้างแผนเนื้อหา นี่คือที่ที่คุณจะกำหนดประเภทของเนื้อหาที่คุณจะสร้างและความถี่ที่คุณจะเผยแพร่

แผนเนื้อหาของคุณควรรวมเนื้อหาประเภทต่างๆ ผสมกัน เช่น บล็อกโพสต์ วิดีโอ อินโฟกราฟิก และโพสต์บนโซเชียลมีเดีย สิ่งนี้จะช่วยให้ผู้ชมมีส่วนร่วมและสนใจแบรนด์ของคุณ สิ่งสำคัญคือต้องสร้างปฏิทินเนื้อหาเพื่อให้แน่ใจว่าคุณจะเผยแพร่เนื้อหาใหม่อย่างสม่ำเสมอ

SEO การเพิ่มประสิทธิภาพ

การเพิ่มประสิทธิภาพกลไกค้นหา (SEO) เป็นสิ่งสำคัญในการเพิ่มปริมาณการเข้าชมเว็บไซต์ของคุณ ด้วยการเพิ่มประสิทธิภาพเว็บไซต์และเนื้อหาสำหรับเครื่องมือค้นหา คุณสามารถปรับปรุงการมองเห็นและเพิ่มโอกาสในการจัดอันดับที่สูงขึ้นในหน้าผลลัพธ์ของเครื่องมือค้นหา

แนวทางปฏิบัติ SEO ขั้นพื้นฐานบางประการ ได้แก่ การใช้คำหลักที่เกี่ยวข้อง การเขียนคำอธิบายเมตาและแท็กชื่อ การเพิ่มประสิทธิภาพรูปภาพด้วยข้อความแสดงแทน และการสร้างลิงก์ย้อนกลับคุณภาพสูง สิ่งสำคัญคือต้องตรวจสอบและอัปเดต SEO ของเว็บไซต์ของคุณอย่างต่อเนื่องเพื่อให้นำหน้าคู่แข่ง

Big Red Jellyแนวทางของกลยุทธ์เนื้อหาเว็บไซต์

At Big Red Jelly ในเมืองโพรโว รัฐยูทาห์ เราเข้าใจถึงความสำคัญของกลยุทธ์เนื้อหาเว็บไซต์ที่มีการวางแผนอย่างดี แนวทางของเราเกี่ยวข้องกับการทำความเข้าใจอย่างถี่ถ้วน , และมีส่วนร่วมกับเป้าหมาย กลุ่มเป้าหมาย และเสียงของแบรนด์ก่อนที่จะสร้างแผนเนื้อหาที่กำหนดเองสำหรับเว็บไซต์ของพวกเขา

นอกจากนี้เรายังเชื่อในการวิเคราะห์และเพิ่มประสิทธิภาพเว็บไซต์ของลูกค้าของเราสำหรับ SEO อย่างต่อเนื่อง เพื่อให้มั่นใจถึงการมองเห็นและการเข้าถึงสูงสุด ทีมผู้เชี่ยวชาญของเราทุ่มเทเพื่อสร้างเนื้อหาคุณภาพสูงและน่าดึงดูดซึ่งช่วยให้ลูกค้าของเราบรรลุวัตถุประสงค์ทางธุรกิจ

ติดต่อเราวันนี้

หากคุณพร้อมที่จะยกระดับเว็บไซต์ของคุณไปอีกระดับด้วยกลยุทธ์เนื้อหาที่วางแผนไว้อย่างดี โปรดติดต่อ Big Red Jelly วันนี้ที่โพรโว หน่วยงานพัฒนาเว็บไซต์ของเราจะทำงานอย่างใกล้ชิดกับคุณเพื่อสร้างแผนงานที่สอดคล้องกับเป้าหมายของคุณและช่วยให้คุณประสบความสำเร็จทางออนไลน์ ให้เราช่วยคุณสร้างชื่อเสียงให้กับโลกดิจิทัล!

ลงทะเบียนเพื่อรับจดหมายข่าวของเรา

• ยี่ห้อสินค้า
• ความเป็นผู้นำ

คุณอาจจะชอบ

7 ข้อเท็จจริงที่น่าสนใจเกี่ยวกับเทคโนโลยี .

Big Red Jelly ยินดีต้อนรับ Stephen Sobisky ผู้นำฝ่ายสร้างสรรค์สู่ทีมแบรนด์ที่กำลังขยายตัวของเรา!

การสร้างแผนภูมิต้นไม้ครอบครัวของแบรนด์: เผยพลังของลำดับชั้นของแบรนด์

Comments are closed.

แบบแปลน ยี่ห้อสินค้า คอนเทนต์ สร้าง กลยุทธ์การเจริญเติบโต ขึ้น การใช้งาน HubSpot

บริการเพิ่มเติม

เพิ่มจำนวนสมาชิก การสนับสนุนรายชั่วโมง สงวนลิขสิทธิ์ ออกแบบเว็บราคาไม่แพง การพัฒนาเว็บ ไฟกระชาก: ขับเคลื่อนโดย AI โดเมนและบริการเว็บ ปลั๊กอินเยลลี่

รายการบริการเต็มรูปแบบ

เกี่ยวกับเรา.

รางวัล กรณีศึกษา ติดต่อเรา การให้กลับ ผลงาน ทีม Testimonials

ทำไมต้องแมงกะพรุนสีแดง? การเดินทางของบริษัท ตำแหน่งงาน

แหล่งข้อมูล

บล็อก กิจกรรมและการสัมมนาผ่านเว็บ พอดแคสต์ของ Branding Bros ปัจจุบัน (สมัครสมาชิก) พจนานุกรมการสร้างแบรนด์

ทรัพยากรฟรี

การตรวจสอบแบรนด์ธุรกิจ หลักสูตรฟรี eBooks คู่มือ และอื่นๆ ห้องสมุดเครื่องมือออนไลน์

โปรแกรมพันธมิตร

ร่วมงานกับเรา แนะนำธุรกิจ พันธมิตรปัจจุบัน

พอร์ทัลสนับสนุนลูกค้า พื้นที่ที่เราให้บริการ อุตสาหกรรมที่เราให้บริการ ข้อตกลงและเงื่อนไข ช่วยเหลือด่วน คำถามที่พบบ่อย

ขอรับใบเสนอราคา กำหนดเวลาการโทรเพื่อการค้นพบ ติดต่อเรา

สวัสดี@bigredjelly.com (435) 631-9968

Big Red Jelly HQ 2545 ถ.เอ็นแคนยอน ห้องสวีท แบบ A Provo, UT 84604

© 2023 Big Red Jelly. สงวนลิขสิทธิ์

นโยบายความเป็นส่วนตัว

• กระบวนการที่พิสูจน์แล้ว
• กลยุทธ์การเจริญเติบโต
• Testimonials
• กิจกรรมและการสัมมนาผ่านเว็บ
• พอดแคสต์ของ Branding Bros
• ปัจจุบัน (สมัครสมาชิก)
• พจนานุกรมการสร้างแบรนด์
• การตรวจสอบแบรนด์ธุรกิจ
• หลักสูตรฟรี
• อีบุ๊ค คู่มือ และอื่นๆ
• ห้องสมุดเครื่องมือออนไลน์
• ทำไมต้องแมงกะพรุนแดง?
• ประวัติ บริษัท
• ร่วมงานกับเรา
• แนะนำธุรกิจ
• พันธมิตรปัจจุบัน
• ขอรับใบเสนอราคา
• มาคุยกันเถอะ
• พอร์ทัลไคลเอ็นต์
• เอ็กซ์-ทวิตเตอร์

Business | The Savings Game: Explaining successor…

Share this:.

• Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on X (Opens in new window)

Daily e-Edition

Evening e-Edition

• Real Estate
• GrowthSpotter

SUBSCRIBER ONLY

Business | the savings game: explaining successor beneficiaries, other questions.

A. A successor beneficiary is the named beneficiary of an individual who has inherited an IRA. It’s important, if you are the beneficiary of an IRA, that you name a beneficiary of your inherited IRA immediately to avoid probate.

Successor beneficiaries must use the 10-year rule. If the original beneficiary has been using the 10-year rule, the successor beneficiary must continue to use the 10-year rule using the life expectancy of the original beneficiary.

For example, suppose your brother, Thomas, inherited an IRA from his mother three years ago who was taking yearly RMDs. He used the 10-year rule and had taken required minimum distributions (RMDs) for three years. You would be required to continue taking RMDs for seven years using Thomas’ single-life expectancy. At the end of seven years, you would have to distribute the remaining assets in the IRA.

If you inherited an IRA from someone who, as a beneficiary was withdrawing distributions on his life expectancy, (not the 10-year rule), you would be allowed to establish a 10-year rule for yourself and use the single life table based on the original beneficiary’s age.

Example: Your cousin, Henry, inherited an IRA from his mother 10 years ago before the SECURE Act passed. His mother had been taking annual RMDs because she had reached her required beginning date. Henry named you as the successor beneficiary, and he has died.

Under the existing regulations at the time he inherited the account, he had been able to take yearly distributions based on his single-life expectancy. Because he was not using the 10-year rule (which was not in effect at the time of his inheritance) when he died, you are allowed to use the 10-year rule, making withdrawals yearly for your RMD using Henry’s single life expectancy.

Q. What is the difference between zero Treasury bills and regular Treasury bills regarding reporting interest on my tax return?

A. With zero Treasury bills, interest is payable on an accrued basis, meaning interest earned but not received yet. With regular Treasury bills, you would report interest earned after the bills mature.

Q. I no longer have earned income but I want to convert some of my traditional 401(k) assets to Roth 401(k)s. Can I do that?

A. Yes. You don’t have to have any earned income to do a Roth rollover for some or all of your traditional 401(k) holdings. The same regulation applies to IRAs as well.

Q. I was divorced after 10 years, and have been receiving a portion of my ex’s pension, which was earned outside Social Security. In a recent column, you indicated that if you have pension income from work outside of Social Security, your survivor benefit from Social Security would be reduced by 2/3 of your pension income from a pension earned outside Social Security. If my ex died before me, I would still be entitled to income from his pension. Does the existing GPO (government pension offset) law have any impact on my survivor benefit?

A. No. The GPO offset only applies to a pension received based on your work record, not pension earned by another party.

Elliot Raphaelson welcomes your questions and comments at [email protected] .

More in Business

Health | Amgen plows ahead with costly, highly toxic cancer dosing despite FDA challenge

Business | Black homeowners start to close gap in property values

Science | FAA initiates environmental impact study for SpaceX Starship launches from KSC

Transportation | ‘Flying cars’ may be the next mode of travel for South Florida commuters