What to include in your business plan

Let’s take a look at the critical elements of any business plan. Each area requires careful consideration to ensure that you have thought it through.

Let’s start with how long a business plan should be. Typically each business plan will vary in length. Optimally you would expect all the information to fit into a 15-20 page document.  If there is critical information you need to include that makes your business plan longer than this, then consider adding that detail as an appendix.

While no two business plans will be identical, they will generally have these common key parts:

Executive summary: In this section, you would summarise what the company is established to do. It would include a mission statement, along with details of the company’s leadership (where applicable), the number of employees, how operations work, and location.

Products and services: In the products and services section, you want to talk about those things that you will offer.  You might want to include pricing, product lifespan (e.g. annual astrology reports last for one year), and the benefit these particular products bring to your customers.  Working through this information now will make things like setting up your store simpler because you have the pricing and benefits on hand to slot into your product description. If you are selling physical products you would want to talk about manufacturing here. If your website is going to have unique proprietary features (e.g. features that you have designed and want to build) then you would talk about this here as well.

Market analysis: You need to have a good understanding of who else is offering what you plan to sell. This competitor analysis could outline the potential strengths and weaknesses of your competitors, and highlight potential gaps in their business model that you could potentially exploit. In this section, you should also realistically assess what the public demand for your particular products and services will be, and this will help you determine how simple or difficult it will be to grab a share of this market.

Marketing strategy: Your marketing strategy explains how you will attract and keep customers, and where you plan to reach your customers. So you need to think about things like promotion, exposure, online advertising, and cross-promotion and clearly articulate how much effort you plan to put into these strategies. You should start to define the advertising and marketing campaign plans and through what types of media those campaigns will exist on. For example, just because you have an online website shouldn’t mean you don’t advertise in relevant magazines for example

Financial planning: If you are planning to attract start-up capital, you should include future projections. If you are pivoting your business online, financial statements, balance sheets, and other financial information may be included here. As a new business, you would be focusing on realistic and measurable sales targets and estimates for the first few years of the business and any potential investors you are wanting to bring on board.

Budget: Any good company needs to have a budget in place. This includes costs related to staffing, development, manufacturing, marketing, and any other expenses related to the business.

Knowing how much it costs to deliver your services is crucial to your long-term profitability and success. 

ACTIVITY

Duration: 1 hour (2 x 25-minute activity bursts with a 10-minute break)

Plan to sit down in two 25 minute sessions with a 10-minute break in between.  This will allow you periods of concentration, and time for your brain to rest in between.  You don’t need to finish, but allocating time to start strongly is important.   It’s likely you won’t finish this task, and you may have some gaps at this point.  Don’t worry, we’ll give you time to return later.

Using one of the two templates below (courtesy of Xero.com) try building out your business plan.  Add as much information as you know now, and you may come back to this template to finalise it later, as you begin to learn more about running your business.

Traditional Business Plan Template (PDF download)

Startup Business Plan Template (PDF download)

Remember – putting in the planning effort now is going to save you loads of time later.  So it’s time to daydream about your new business and write it down in words.  Let’s go!