“Write My Business Plan!”, - Why Do You Need a Business Plan At All?

Planning is essential for almost every person who deals with real-life problems on a daily basis. We make plans and write them down to see how fast we’ve progressed since the last we checked in. The same strategy works in business, but in this case you, I, all of us, need to write your, my and somebody else’s business plan to see where are we going to and where we are at the moment.

So what is really a business plan?

A business plan is a written description of your company’s future, a file that tells a story about your company, the way you want to do it, how and what you want to do. Even if you have written a single paragraph, or a short scheme with a brief description of your business strategy, or at least the plan germ, it is better than nothing, for the beginning.

Business plans are fundamentally strategic. You begin with stating goals you want your company to achieve and go on mentioning specific details that every good business plan must have, and you will see them later on. Your business strategy demonstrates how you can get from here to there.

Basically, every business plan must have:

• Executive Summary;
• Business Strategy;
• Marketing Strategy;
• Operation Strategy;
• Strengths, Weaknesses, and Opportunities;
• Threads Analysis;
• Human Resources Plan;
• Financial Forecasts;
• Business Exit Plan
• Some Additional Resources;

When you feel like “I need to write a business plan for a startup of my project”, it does not mean you’ve to bury yourself in a library for months to complete 20 and something pages of text. You can always imagine it, and help other people visualize it with you. You are more than welcome to try a computer presentation format, such as Keynote or PowerPoint to conserve time, and to make it easier for others to understand your strategy.

The first thing you need to think of when it comes to “I need to write my business plan” stage is to think of your potential customers. Hold on for a moment, and think who your customers are and what their motives are for going for your thing. You can even make a questionnaire to eliminate possible failures in this respect. This is a thing that may well be asked by people who consider an option of funding your startup.

Needless to say that not all business creators or startups are the same. You will need to present a detailed plan, in case you are raising capital or if it is a touch-and-go business – like supporting a family, leaving work, or investing your savings into something else. However, it is quite fine to have a less detailed business plan, if your startup business is completely risk-free, and you have all the amount of money that you need to start operating shortly.

Either way, you really need a strong strategy, and below you will find major points why you need it:

1. Eliminate Mistakes. Many business founders gradually learn the hard way that they partner with people with wrong skills, or even partner with completely wrong people, that they did not raise enough capital to achieve their goals, or they do not have even appropriate means to make money. Sharing and developing a small business plan can help make sure that you’ve chosen the right path.
2. Counterbalance Emotions: At times, when working on your startup, you may encounter diverse emotionally induced situations, you will be manically enthusiastic about your thoughts you lose sight of reality. At other times, you will be overwhelmed by uncertainty, anxiety, or exhaustion. Either way, you need to understand when emotions help you in your work and when they are inappropriate.
3. Equal Status of Every Participant. Ideally, you will have associates who will help you develop the project and the company as well. Subsequently, you will have to pay providers, workers, contractors, etc., so do not forget about your associates in order not to be left in the dark all alone. Even if you have no associates, you will have friends, family, and some advisors involved.
4. Produce a Game Plan: At a startup, performance is everything. That means you must set priorities, establish targets, and measure performance. All of these are things that you will encounter during the planning process of your company’s success.
5. Presentation. In the event you raise or borrow cash – even from family or friends – you will have to convey your vision in a manner that is clear and convincing. An excellent business plan will allow you to do that.

As you go along the way where success is your point of destination, do not get distracted by some attractive things that are completely unnecessary. Just clear your head, and get going!