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Business Plan & Cashflow Forecast Downloads
Initial tasks to be completed before writing.
Sit down and put pen to paper consider the following:
- What are my personal strengths and weaknesses?
- What are the strengths/weaknesses/opportunities/threats to the business?
- What are your 3 year goals?
- What is your unique selling point?
Decide on which on the following three aspects for your unique selling point. Will usually involve an element of all three. It is up to you to decide which is the best mix for your business.
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Cost leadership (e.g. Lidl)
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Focus (e.g. Superquinn)
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Differentiation (Tesco, M&S)
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3 main ingredients for any business to succeed and to continue to succeed:
- List your customers.
- Continuously improve and try to innovate.
- Everyone involved in the company (whether staff, management, board of directors etc) is responsible for the success of the company.
What is a Business Plan?
A business plan is like taking a journey.
Where is your destination?
Planning your route
Options on delays and/or challenges
Changing course (nothing in the business plan is written in stone)
If you have no map, how will you arrive at your destination?
As was once said on an island in the Pacific "Failing to plan, is planning to fail"
A business plan should be a framework that brings your ideas together. It is a formal document addressing short term and long term decision making. It should provide checkpoints and scenarios. It should allow you build up options in a reasonable way.
The business plan should be written primarily for yourself. It can be used
- As a sounding board
- To clarify thinking
- To justify thinking
- To focus on potential risks
You will also need a business plan if you are attempting to attract investors or going to lending institutions.
Depending on whom you are writing the plan for, it should be tailored to meet the demands of the reader.
The viewpoint of investors;
Key finance questions
- How much money do you want?
- What equity stake/ownership are you offering me?
- What is the expected return on investment?
- When do I get my money back?
- How do I get my money back (exit strategy)?
The viewpoint of lenders;
- What security are you offering?
- What risk is involved for the lender?
- How good is your ability to repay the loan?
- What is the schedule of payments?
- What owners’ equity is being put into the business?
- What is the credit history of the owners?
Writing the Plan
- Write in the third person (no I, me, we - gives a greater sense of objectivity)
- Write in positive language (no might, may, hope, try, attempt etc)
E.g. the company has targeted sales of . . .
The goal of the company is . . .
- Write business plan in Times New Roman, font 11.
- Use headings and sub headings (have in different font to paragraphs). Headings in larger font than sub headings, both in bold. Underline headings.
- Use paragraphs and keep open spacing to a minimum.
- Use lots of statistics/numbers.
- Have a table of contents.
- Use page numbering, make sure this corresponds to table of contents.
- Identify possible appendices, attachments etc.
- Estimate page lengths for each key section.
- List main issues and topics to be covered within key sections.
- Draft all key sections in a logical sequence.
- Stand back and take a detached overview of the draft.
- Let an outsider or advisor have a look at the latest draft.
- Write the Executive Summary.
- Redraft, fine tune and spell check.
Finally,
- Don’t be afraid to use photographs to illustrate products or services.
- Use graphs, pie charts etc.
- Make the information on each page easily found and easy to understand.
- Avoid too much jargon. This can be accommodated in appendix, if necessary.
Key considerations
- Quality surpasses quantity.
- Executive Summary is critical.
- First impressions are important.
- Be realistic.
- Be specific and accurate.
- Use lots of numbers/figures.
- Attention to detail.
- Be concise - good editing required.
- Use positive language.
- Have a good layout.
- Have a clear focus about the purpose of your business and how you will achieve your objectives.
Websites
www.startingabusinessinireland.com
www.bplans.com
www.businessplans.org
www.aib.ie
www.planware.ie
Business Plan & Cashflow Forecast Downloads
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