Business Planning - Key Questions
Defining Clear Objectives and Milestones Will Help Secure Funding
Understanding your 'business' with focused objectives, milestones and actions is critical for the implementation of new ventures and for raising financial support.
Why have a Business Plan at all?
A Business Plan will not only allow you to focus on your business objectives but it will also enable you to put forward a compelling case to raise necessary funding to establish fully your business. In essence, the Business Plan should be an informative and persuasive working, living document.
It will contain date driven milestones or action points allowing the document to be a most important management monitoring and reporting tool.
It should be well presented, clearly though out, written in plain English and straightforward. Potential financial lenders will almost certainly have no detailed knowledge of your business. They will need to see and believe in what you are selling them as a good business idea, and that of course includes selling yourself more than anything else. Put yourself in their shoes and think what it would take for you to sanction start up funding.
What should be included in the plan?
The business
- What the business is and what it does.
- Business objectives – what do you hope to achieve after 12 months, 2 years?
- What is your market?
- What analysis have you done on it?
- What are the vagaries of your market/customers – single sex, seasonal, demographic, etc...?
- How well do you “know” them?
- What are your plans for promotion of the business?
- Who are your competitors - what information do you have about them?
The Numbers
- What are your expected costs – these need to be as realistic as possible
- What are your planned sales figures?
- Do you have a projected cash flow?
- What is your expected profit?
- What is the minimum you can get by on whilst the business is in its fledgling state?
- What do you already have in place in terms of being able to start?
- What do you need to enable you to start?
The people
This is really all about you so it is vital that this section says as much about what you can bring to the enterprise to make it successful and have people believe in it as much as you do.
There maybe other key people involved in the enterprise and it is important to sell them too.
How long should a BP be?
Keep it concise, to the point and do not waffle. People, particularly busy ones, have a low boredom threshold. Try not to go over fifteen pages. Try to get it to potential sponsors or funders in time for them to go over it before you meet with them to discuss financial support.
