How You Intend To Market The Business

Business, Small Business.

How to write a quick & relatively painless business plan - if you' ve never written a business plan before, the idea alone can be overwhelming. Traditionally, a business plan is used to secure funding from a lender or a potential investment partner. It doesn' t have to be the nightmare of your imagination.

It serves as something akin to your business' s resume, outlining the purpose and scope of your business, marketing and management, identifying the goals, and establishing a basic balance sheet. - simply going through the process has value. Now, even if you aren' t going to seek additional funding, even if you' re going to grow your business by yourself from your office at home, you' d be wise to put together a business plan. It' ll help you develop a clearly defined vision of what you intend to do with your business and how you intend to do it. A storefront? These are some of the questions you should already have asked and answered before you sit down to write your business plan: == What" want" does your business fill, and what service or product will you be providing to fill that want? == Who will be your potential customer( this should be an established, niche market with die - hard buyers) . == Why will people purchase from you as opposed to the business down the street( in other words. what' s your Unique Selling Position) ? == How do you intend to reach your customers?

An ad in the phone book? - an internet campaign? Direct mail? Selling door - to - door? Okay, so let' s take a look at what you' ll want to include in your business plan. A combination of these? == Will you need additional funding and if so, how much will you need and how do you intend to secure it?

Most business plans are structured to examine four primary areas: Executive Summary - a decription of the business. - how the busines finances will be arranged and handled. How you intend to market the business. How the busines will be managed. Executive Summary: what the business will do, its Unique Selling Position, its ownership and, the business goals legal structure, your skills and knowledge and how they will benefit the business. Let' s take a further look at these. Marketing The Business: describe your product or service, identify your market niche, how big it is, and how you plan to reach it.

Financing The Business: estimate your start - up costs, project your monthly operating budget for the first year, outline your ROI( return on investment) and cash flow for the first year, project your income and expense balance sheet for the first two years, explain how you' re going to compensate yourself, establish who will maintain the accounting records and how they' ll be maintained, and if you' re in need of funding, explain how much you need and how it' ll be used by the business. - define your customer, detail your pricing, identify your competition plan, outline how you intend to attract and convert customers. Managing The Business: how will the business be managed day - to - day, what the hiring and personnel procedures will be, how the products or services will be developed and how they' ll get into the hands of your customers. That' s it. You' ll also need to account for equipment the business will need, rental agreements, and how insurance, etc. will be handled. In a nutshell.

If you' d like to see some free sample business plans to get a better idea of how they' re structured and how they read, here' s a good source for you: http: //www. bplans. com/ sp/ businessplans. cfm.