Tag: Plan

Guide on How to Write a Business Plan

From the start, a new business owner gets to know that having a business plan is important when dealing with banking personnel or potential investors. A business plan is also used by business owners and employees to make business decisions and to measure your company’s success. This document, at the least, should outline your company’s goals, and projected expenses, as well as marketing plans and exit strategy. Perhaps with these objectives in mind, many business owners want to know the easier way how to write business plan.

Here are some techniques.

a. Use a business plan template which has blank areas in which you can fill in the relevant information regarding your own business. Although a “fill in the blanks” approach is not a really a serious way to write a plan and will not help in securing financing or ensure the business’ success, think of templates as a good point to start writing your plan for business.

b. Business plan outlines are also a good place to start. Generic business outlines can be found in books or on the Internet, but the outline or the business plan’s basic structure should be changed to suit the type of your business.

c. Some beginning business owners use software like Business Plan Pro. It has sample of templates which can be used to help in writing your own business plan.

Here are some guidelines on how to write business plan. It should have:

1. An executive summary that outlines the company’s goals and objectives – Lending institutions always look for a business plan’s executive summary, which should always come at the beginning. It is important to emphasize the viability of your proposed business to persuade institutions to give you a loan. The executive summary can also be used as a way to communicate your ideas to employees and potential customers to get their support.

2. A short account of the company’s beginnings – Give a clear explanation on how the company was created and how the idea to start the business came about.

3. The proposed product or service you will offer – It is important that you discuss how the service or product is different from those already available in the market. Emphasize the market potential of your offering to convince employees and potential investors. Knowing the market potential usually requires research to know market demand but you can usually get basic information on this in the Internet.

4. A clear marketing strategy – If the business owner already has a good reputation, he or she could rely on word-of-mouth but most beginners should think of a plan to market or advertise on television, in print, or on the Internet. You need to include in this section your projected marketing expenses.

5. An exit strategy – List the benchmarks that will make you decide when to stop the company’s operations. These benchmarks could be based on revenue growth or the consensus among top management officers.

Knowing how to write business plan should not add to the pressures of starting a business. Good thing there are many resources beginning business owners can use for this.

How To Put Together a Strategic Business Plan

What is a Business Plan?

Most people assume you only have to write a business plan if you are going to seek capital from a bank or other lending institution. This is not always the case.

Most plans are driven by market needs and aims. The importance of having a business plan is to ensure your business remains on target for goals and objectives set for that financial year and for the future. There is no real difference between a business plan and a ‘strategic business plan’. You could say that every plan is a strategic one.

Most plans are driven by marketing, since you have to look outwards at the market, the market place, products and services before being able to look inwards at the company and finances.

Part of the business plan will include a marketing strategy, looking at how you will achieve growth, where to market and who to market to. Many people look at marketing as ‘selling’ but it is more than that. It’s about ‘branding’, image and building trust within the marketplace, about identifying the people who you need to market to. It’s about customer engagement and identifying your niche market and where they hang out. The Marketing strategy also looks at product development, customer service, ongoing training, the marketing system used to capture lead generation and how to retail to your customer on an ongoing basis, getting repeat customers, not just once off.

Why is it needed?

Having a plan helps you to define growth for your company, and expansion. It helps to keep you focused and on track.

Writing a business plan is not as complex as most people think, there are lots of templates out there on the market place that can help with the format.

Here are some quick tips for researching and putting together your marketing strategy:

· Determine your company values or ‘mission statement’, this will help to keep you on track as it is easy to get distracted without a mission statement.

· Do your market research, who are your audience? Your competitors? Who are your products aimed at? Where do they hang out?

· What is your unique selling point? What makes you stand out from your competitors

· What are your competitors activity? How do they compare to yours?

· What is it you are trying to achieve in your company / business? What are your aims?

· Are your products or services competitive? Do they stand out?

· What’s your customer service level like? Compared to your competitors?

· Have you got your marketing strategy right?

· Have you determined your advertising budget, your company brand etc?

· Market expansion – any plans for this?

· What will your business be like in 3 to 5 years time? Plan for growth financially and products, service wide.

Here are some great sites that offer more information on business planning and templates that you can use when producing a business plan.

U Style It

Business Balls

If you have found this post useful, let me know and leave me a comment below.

Feel free to share this with others on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc…

Sample Roofing Contractor Business Plan Outline

Is it worth writing a lengthy business plan for your roofing startup? Business plan preparation can be time consuming and many entrepreneurs are tempted to go ahead without one unless they really need it to prove the viability of ideas to partners or investors.

Your roofing business won’t be a huge, complicated business for a few years anyway so why bother? Well, while I would not suggest that you spend months writing a 100 page report, it could be useful for you to have a 10 to 20 page document on your PC that can be your company blueprint for success. You can make changes to it as you slowly learn more about the business.

It will be the key document that sets out exactly how your business is run. If done properly you should basically be able to hand this document over to somebody when they buy your business and they can take over with very little of your time needed to explain things to them.

Here is a brief business roofing business plan template to give you some ideas on how to put your own together.

Contents Page and Executive Summary

This should be a summary of your entire roofing business plan. If you will be presenting the plan to interested parties then let them know the contents. Include a basic summary of your plans to start a roofing business. Outline the opportunities that you see in the market and what you plan to do in order to capture a piece of the pie for yourself.

Background in the Roofing Business

Prove to yourself or others why you are cut out to go into this business. List details on your education and any relevant experience that you have had in the roofing industry or in business in general. Outline your reasons for wanting to start a roofing business.

Mission Statement

Set out your company mission or philosophy in a few words or a short phrase. Try to think about what you want to achieve with your business apart from profits. You should be driven by a desire to deliver a quality service to people in way that satisfies them and provides great value for them while still allowing you to meet your goals. What kind of products and services do you want to deliver? How will you be different from all the other roofing companies?

Business Goals

Set out the goals that you have for your business in its first few years. Set realistic targets that you know are attainable so that you won’t be discouraged if you don’t meet them. Success can be measured by a number of metrics such as the total number of roofing jobs completed per month, the percentage of leads that become new customers or the productivity of your employees for example.

Startup Requirements

List down all of the products and services that your company will offer and then set out a list of equipment and inventory that you will need to get started. If you need to buy a truck then you will be looking at minimum startup costs of around $20,000.

Startup requirements will also include compliance costs. Depending on what state you are operating out of you may need a contractors license, insurance, bonding or to comply with a number of other relevant regulations.

Don’t forget that as well as purchasing all of the necessary roofing equipment you will also have to purchase materials for your first job. Clients will typically pay a large chunk of your total invoice upon completion of the job so you will have to foot the bill until you get reimbursed when they pay their invoice in full.

Structure, Ownership and Management

There are four basic options to consider for your business structure and they include sole proprietorship, partnership, corporation or limited liability corporation (LLC).

Outline how your business will be owned and make a note of the various parties that may have an ownership stake.

Set out a management structure so that there is no confusion among those involved with the business as to who is responsible for managing each part of the business.

Marketing Plan

Identify your target market both by location as well as other demographic factors and describe the kind of people or properties that make up your target market. Include the results of any market research that you do or local industry statistics that you are able to gather.

Set out a detailed plan for your roofing business marketing. This should include how you plan on getting enquiries, converting them into new accounts and maintaining them over the long term. It should also include brand development, pricing, advertising, a sales approach and other marketing methods.

Competitive Analysis

Write up profiles of your main local competitors and try to understand how they run their businesses. Borrow and adapt characteristics of their business that work and look for weaknesses in their business models that you may be able to capitalize on. Figure out how you will differentiate your brand from theirs in a way that allows you to stand out in the market.

Operations

Include details of the day to day operations of the proposed roofing business. Make a note of your office location, business administration and record keeping systems, plans to hire employees and procedures regarding roofing installations or repairs.

Financial Analysis

Outline some of the methods that you could use to obtain financing for your new venture.

Create a spreadsheet that shows anticipated cash flow forecasts over the first few years of business for a variety of scenarios. You can then determine how profitable you think the business will be in a number of different economic climates.

You will be able to find many free business plan examples online but it can be harder to find a specific sample of a roofing business plan. There are some business planning software programs that you can buy but they are usually just generic business plans that have been adapted anyway.

Unless you can persuade other roofing business owners to share their plan with you then you really have to look at templates from other industries and model your roofing business plan on them.

Buy a Business Plan Template to Jump Start Your Writing

A business plan template is a product which can give your writing a significant jump start, shaving hours and maybe days off of your business plan development time. Rather than working on a plan from scratch, pulling together directions and guidance from multiple websites or sources, using a business plan template offers you direct and practical guidance on how to create a full business plan all in one package.

Guidance

The template should include directions to show how to customize it to reflect your specific business. This may come within the template itself or in a separate set of instructions. Regardless, the effect is like having a business plan consultant with you, nudging you in the right direction throughout your writing process.

Format

A business plan template comes pre-formatted, with appropriate fonts, colors, and sections. The cover sheet, table of contents, headings, and page layouts will be preset. All of this work allows you to sidestep concerns about your format and presentation style, and move on to focus on the ideas behind the plan’s major sections.

Graphics and Charts

A template may present many potential spots for graphics and charts to replace text. This will make your plan much more attractive and save you the time of developing these graphics yourself.

Financials

A financial model in Excel or a similar program will give you a significant short cut when it comes to the financial section. After entering your financial assumptions (such as average price, units you expect to sell, revenue growth rates, startup costs, and operating costs), the model should automatically generate valid pro forma financial statements in the format required by funders (generally, greater detail for the first one to three years, with annual numbers for the first five years of operation. Not only do you not need to be an accounting whiz to use such a template, but you can quickly and easily try out different financial assumptions and see how they change your statements and return over the years.

How to Make a Business Plan Template

A good business plan template contains two main parts. A narrative followed by a series of financial worksheets. The narrative part of the business plan template embodies all the details and the strategy of the business plan and is further divided and subdivided into various sections. It is highly recommended that you work on creating a business plan template in a systematic way to avoid missing out on the inclusion of important facts and points.

Answering the question of how to make a business plan template begins by the realization that the first step is the creation of a rough draft, where you end up with a set of notes on each and every topic of the template. The next step is to work on these points and edit them to create a professional narrative that has a smooth flow. The purpose of creating the template is not to speed up the process of deriving the final business report but thinking about your business in an intelligent, smart and planning fashion. While going through the various facts and ideas, you gradually get involved in looking at ideas and business models in a more critical way. Though this process may initially appear to be a waste of time, the process of creating the template also has the power to prevent a poor decision that could prove to be a disaster in the long run, if not properly addressed upfront.

There is a generic template that is available for all types of businesses. To make a business plan template, you need to modify the standard template that is suitable for your industry and business. The style of writing, the overall organization and the presentation of the ideas is what makes a good business plan template. Creating a template involves a significant amount of research, re-thinking and planning. Detailed notes regarding the sources of information and the underlying assumptions that support the financial data and information must be kept carefully for quick and easy reference as and when needed.

To make a business plan template usually begins with the name and the details of the owners of the plan. This is followed by a table of contents that constitutes an executive summary, a general description of the company, the products and services the company offers, the marketing plan, the operational plan, and the management and organizational structures. These elements complete the narrative part of the business template. The financial part of the template should contain a financial statement, startup expenses and capitalization details, and a complete financial plan that encompasses the goals of the company.

The answer to how to make a business plan template is to create an organizational structure that will allow a company to present its assets, ideas, strategies and goals in document form so that a reader will be lead to the desired conclusion.

An Insider Review Of The Market America Business And The Market America Business Plan (Part 2 of 2)

In the first section of this 2 part series, we explored the nature of why many network marketing and MLM companies are setting you up for massive failure from the get-go. I’m not reviewing this statistic or trying to say this company and or that company is better for you, rather, I’m implying that if The Direct Selling Association is saying that a company representative can effectively work with 2.8 distribution channels over a lifetime, then why would you partner yourself with a company that goes against what the “average person” has been proven to profit from?

We also spoke about the horrific attributes of horizontal marketing. Once you understand the “woes” of the ways of conventional thinking, you’ll never view business the same again. I don’t claim to be the end-all-be-all or know-it-all, I simply enjoy being an informational vessel that has worked long and hard to acquire the necessary knowledge to lead prominent leaders.

The last point from part #1 of this 2 part series was that multi-level marketing (MLM) compounds the negative and ill-effects of horizontal marketing. The reason I said that you’ve bought into a roller-coaster ride is directly aimed at how the rigorous recruiting is never-ending for network marketing and MLM professionals.

It’s PROVEN that 97% of network marketers and MLM business builders spend more money than they make in their careers. Although I’m an advocate for the direct marketing industry, I want to share JR’s vision about why the Market America (MA) business plan is radically different from ANYTHING ELSE on the open market.

In building an UnFranchise® there are 4 logistical factors that must be considered when partaking in the process of doing your due diligence? You should know these differentiators if you aspire to learn more about being on the edge of ‘cutting edge’ in today’s economy.

  1. When you personally sell a product in MA, everyone on the team can also get paid.
  2. If a person sells a product, they can share 100% of the sale with their team.
  3. UnFranchise® owners can open multiple locations. Some say, the MA business and the Market America business plan it capped – it’s not, and actually, you can pay your partners again for the same volume. This one strategy is completely earth-shattering and doesn’t exist anywhere!
  4. When a product is sold, there is a 2x paying of self, plus everyone else benefits.

These 4 Market America business plan principles are the “game changers” for anybody that evaluates the Market America UnFranchise® business opportunity. The technology, people power and vast vision to surpass amazon.com in the next 3 years are present – so watch out world, there’s a new “big fish” online!

Your Seven Step Plan for Email Marketing Mastery

Email marketing hits your prospects right where it counts – right in their inbox. With an effective email marketing campaign you can accomplish several different goals all at once. You can:

Find new prospects

Show off your expertise.

Develop trust.

Introduce them to new resources.

Become a friendly expert in their corner.

And of course… sell products and services.

Although most marketers are focused on the last bullet point, all of the other goals of email marketing feed into your ultimate level of sales. It’s important to use email marketing in the right way so you can reach all of these goals and more.

Here are seven steps you can follow to master email marketing and make it an essential tool for your business.

Choose the right autoresponder program.

Your email marketing is only as strong as the technology that supports it. I highly recommend GetResponse for their reliable service and outstanding results. With GetResponse you can use a number of professional looking templates, training and other resources to help you make the most of email marketing.

Identify who you are.

People are more likely to open emails from names that they recognize, so it’s important to use the right identification in your messages. Even if you’ve established your business with a name like “USA Sports Equipment” your messages should be coming from an individual person and use a unique voice. People want to receive email from other people – not faceless businesses.

Use a valuable freebie.

You won’t get any opt ins to your list unless you have something to give away. Make sure that your giveaway is something that your audience will take interest in – and something that they’ll be willing to give their email addresses away for. You can give away an information rich white paper, a demo of the software you’re selling or an ecourse that covers topics that are important to your audience.

Engage your audience with a follow up sequence.

The biggest mistake that entrepreneurs make when they build a list is getting people to sign up and then disappearing until they have something to sell. It’s important that you keep engaged with your audience regularly. Send them a sequence of five to seven messages in order to stay involved, educate them further and be a regular part of their inbox.

Send a monthly newsletter.

Once you’ve sent out a follow up sequence, you can stay in touch with your list members regularly by sending out a newsletter. The newsletter should highlight the latest news from your blog, share insider tips that you want your list members to know and remind them of special offers that are coming up.

Sell only after you’ve offered value.

Your sales offers are going to be more well received when you have established a relationship with your list members and they know that you offer quality. You should hold off on “hard selling” your list members until they’ve at least been through your follow up sequence. You’ll see much higher conversion rates this way.

Create a follow up sequence after the sale.

People who have made a purchase from you should be segmented into a different list so you can approach them in a different way. This follow up sequence can go over some of the benefits of your list, can upsell them on similar products and make them feel comfortable with their purchase so they are more likely to buy from you in the future.

Exit mobile version