It would save us a lot of time, if we know what to include in the business plan. There are many ways to create business plan properly and successful businesses are usually based on good plans. Once we have created a draft for the business plan, we should read and re-read it many times over, perhaps practically memorizing it. Starting a new business is a serious matter and we should be fully aware of it. If we change the marketing and sales section of our plan, this will change the way we find our customers and we should consider whether it is a good thing. We should know how changes in the business plan will affect our monthly operating costs. If we are able only to achieve 80 percent of the projected revenue, what should we do to compensate? If the market becomes weaker, how will this impact our monthly operating costs and breakeven point? These questions will determine whether our company has the financial flexibility to handle unexpected issues. In the end, our business plan should be financially realistic and it should make sure that everything works well together.
Business plans should be developed sections by sections. It is important to think through all the critical questions to allow us create proper plans. Writing business plan isn’t meant to be a fast action and in the end, there’s a difference between understanding our plan and simply memorizing it. Improvements we do should be based on our own understanding and we need to be the leader in our own business. In some cases, we should know when to bend the guidelines and we should consider reaching external helps when needed. Some business owners may say that they are not number persons, but at least they can do simple financial projections. Business ownership is more about calculating numbers; but we should be able to create financial projections if we know about sales, expenses and profits. Even so, it would be very helpful if business owners are convenient with spreadsheets to help them create more detailed and accurate financial statements. Business owners who can better understand their own numbers will be more motivated to achieve their financial goals.
Other business owners say that they have great ideas, but they are not great writer. If we are not a strong writer, it should still be possible to create decent plans if we do through the process of organizing and writing section by section. We should force ourselves to rethink and rewrite our business as our ideas improve and evolve. Then, if our ideas have become more stable, we could polish the final documents. In this case, it is important to accurately reflect our ideas and concepts. But what if we just can’t do it? Simple: we should buy a franchise! The franchise owner already provides us with business plan and system. They could deliver us with best ownership model and we could simply focus more on the business operations.
