“Mistakes” in a business plan are a subjective thing. While text books and “professionals” can tell you that a plan should read this way or that, most of this advice is based on personal preference. Some readers like to hear a story, some want to know just about the facts and figures. Research your small business and use your SWOT Analysis to help guide you in the writing of your Business Plan.

Avoid sensational language. No one buys it anyway so leave the rhetorical questions and exaggerations out. “Do you want to be rich?” “Do you wish you invested in Microsoft? Well now is your chance!” Leave this stuff out. Stay focused on what you are doing and don’t try to oversell. The concept should stand alone on the plan and management.

Give Assumptions to reasoning. Putting a $1MM in first year sales is fine, but tell the reader why. Just because you say so isn’t a good enough answer.

Too long winded!. Shorten it up. Some of the best business plans are under 30 pages. If you can’t explain it in 30 pages, it’s probably too complex to just trust a reader to get it. Make it 15 and draw pictures and give a slide presentation how it works.

Unrealistic Funding Requirements. “I need $250,000 to open a restaurant, so I’ll ask for million and see what happens.” You lose all creditability waltzing around with a plan carrying $600,000 in cash. You need padding but not enough to flee the country with.

Too Broad a Target Market. Many times writer’s say the potential client is “everyone.” We would like to think so, however, ideally, starting off you need to have a group to go after. Further you need to focus your marketing. If it really is everyone, make it everyone in a geographical area first. Marketing to the planet is super-expensive and usually unrealistic. Hone your target and expand from there.

To say that this blog entry is a Business Plan Example is a misnomer. The Business Plan Example to be realistic would be the 20 to 30 pages that is the business plan itself. The mistakes discussed are important to avoid so that the time, effort and money you have spent in developing your Business Plan are not wasted. Your small business will use the Business Plan and the SWOT Analysis in a step by step process to bring you the success that you desire.

Not sure what to do?  Get your FREE HELP HERE.

What are the standard elements of the Business Plan Format? If you do need a standard business plan to seek funding — as opposed to a plan-as-you-go approach for running your business, which I describe below — there are predictable contents of a standard business plan format.

For example, a business person normally starts with an Executive Summary, which should be concise and interesting. People almost always expect to see sections covering the Company, the Market, the Product, the Management Team, Strategy, Implementation, and Financial Analysis. The precise business plan format can vary.

Is the order important? If you have the main components, the order doesn’t matter that much, but here’s the sequence I suggest for the Business Plan Format. I have provided two outlines, one simple and the other more detailed.

Simple Business Plan Format

1. Executive Summary: Write this last. It’s just a page or two of highlights.
   
2. Company Description: Legal establishment, history, start-up plans, etc.
   
3. Product or Service: Describe what you’re selling. Focus on customer benefits.
   
4. Market Analysis: You need to know your market, customer needs, where they are, how to reach them, etc.
   
5. Strategy and Implementation: Be specific. Include management responsibilities with dates and budgets. Make sure you can track results.
   
6. Web Plan Summary: For e-commerce, include discussion of website, development costs, operations, sales and marketing strategies.
   
7. Management Team: Describe the organization and the key management team members.
   
8. Financial Analysis: Make sure to include at the very least your projected Profit and Loss and Cash Flow tables.
   

Build your plan, and then organize it. I don’t recommend developing the plan in the same order you present it as a finished document. For example, although the Executive Summary obviously comes as the first section of a business plan, I recommend writing it after everything else is done. It will appear first, but you write it last.

Standard tables and charts for the Business Plan Format

There are also some business tables and charts that are normally expected in a standard business plan.

Cash flow is the single most important numerical analysis in a plan, and should never be missing. Most plans will also have Sales Forecast and Profit and Loss statements. I believe they should also have separate Personnel listings, projected Balance Sheet, projected Business Ratios, and Market Analysis tables.

I also believe that every plan should include bar charts and pie charts to illustrate the numbers.

Expanded Business Plan Format

Here’s an expanded full business plan outline, with details you might want to include in your own business plan.

1.0 Executive Summary

1.1 Objectives

1.2 Mission

1.3 Keys to Success

2.0 Company Summary

2.1 Company Ownership

2.2 Company History (for ongoing companies) or Start-up Plan (for new companies)

2.3 Company Locations and Facilities

3.0 Products and Services

3.1 Products and Service Description

3.2 Competitive Comparison

3.3 Sales Literature

3.4 Sourcing and Fulfillment

3.5 Technology

3.6 Future Products and Services

4.0 Market Analysis Summary

4.1 Market Segmentation

4.2 Target Market Segment Strategy

4.2.1 Market Needs

4.2.2 Market Trends

4.2.3 Market Growth

4.3 Industry Analysis

4.3.1 Industry Participants

4.3.2 Distribution Patterns

4.3.3 Competition and Buying Patterns

4.3.4 Main Competitors

5.0 Strategy and Implementation Summary

5.1 Strategy Pyramids

5.2 Value Proposition

5.3 Competitive Edge

5.4 Marketing Strategy

5.4.1 Positioning Statements

5.4.2 Pricing Strategy

5.4.3 Promotion Strategy

5.4.4 Distribution Patterns

5.4.5 Marketing Programs

5.5 Sales Strategy

5.5.1 Sales Forecast

5.5.2 Sales Programs

5.6 Strategic Alliances

5.7 Milestones

6.0 Web Plan Summary

6.1 Website Marketing Strategy

6.2 Development Requirements

7.0 Management Summary

7.1 Organizational Structure

7.2 Management Team

7.3 Management Team Gaps

7.4 Personnel Plan

8.0 Financial Plan

8.1 Important Assumptions

8.2 Key Financial Indicators

8.3 Break-even Analysis

8.4 Projected Profit and Loss

8.5 Projected Cash Flow

8.6 Projected Balance Sheet

8.7 Business Ratios

8.8 Long-term Plan

Size your business plan to fit your business plan format. Remember that your business plan should be only as big as what you need to run your business. While everybody should have planning to help run a business, not everyone needs to develop a complete formal business plan using the business plan format suitable for submitting to a potential investor, or bank, or venture contest. So don’t include outline points just because they are on a big list somewhere, or on this list, unless you’re developing a standard business plan that you’ll be showing to somebody else who expects a standard business plan.  You can vary and change the business plan format to meet your needs.

If you follow this simple advice in implementing your Business Plan Format you have the building blocks for a successful business.  In other words you have your A, B, C’s.  For your FREE Building Blocks for a Business Plan CLICK HERE.

What is a business plan? I have counseled hundreds of start up business. Most people did not know what is a business plan was let alone how to formulate one. They were willing to lay thousands even hundreds of thousands of dollars on the line; they were willing to sign their lives away to the bank; they were willing to work ungodly hours, yet they did not know what is a business plan. How crazy can people be to not prepare. You need that business plan to succeed. As a Boy Scout I learned the motto “Be Prepared!” and I have never forgotten it.

Are you ready to BE PREPARED? Are you ready to answer the question of WHAT IS A BUSINESS PLAN?

So exactly what is a Business Plan?

HERE IS YOUR DICTIONARY TYPE OF DEFINITION OF WHAT IS A BUSINESS PLAN:

A business plan is a formal statement of a set of business goals, the reasons why they are believed attainable, and the plan for reaching those goals. It may also contain background information about the organization or team attempting to reach those goals.

The business goals may be defined for for-profit or for non-profit organizations. For-profit business plans typically focus on financial goals, such as profit or creation of wealth. Non-profit and government agency business plans tend to focus on organizational mission which is the basis for their governmental status or their non-profit, tax-exempt status, respectively—although non-profits may also focus on optimizing revenue. In non-profit organizations, creative tensions may develop in the effort to balance mission with “margin” (or revenue). Business plans may also target changes in perception and branding by the customer, client, tax-payer, or larger community.

IN REAL LIFE THIS IS THE ANSWER TO WHAT IS A BUSINESS PLAN:

A realistic business plan is your step by step plan on how you are going to succeed beyond your wildest dreams with your new business. The what is a business plan will be made up of different parts or components. These parts include:

►Executive Summary

►Market Analysis

►Company Description

►Organization & Management

►Marketing & Sales Management

►Service or Product Line

►Funding Request

►Financials

►Appendix

Each of the above is at least a separate article so stay tuned. But in the mean time remember that what is a business plan will help you to lay out your goals and what you want to accomplish. Remember the Boy Scout Axiom? Be Prepared. Now think of the simple carpenter. Everyday he comes to work with a hammer and a saw. But if he does not measure correctly the house may be built, but does not have the stability needed to prevent adversity. We MEASURE TWICE AND CUT ONCE.

We prepare in advance to answer what is a business plan so that we are prepared for every eventuality.  By measuring twice we foresee the problems that we must overcome now.  We are prepared.  This is why we use the Business Plan and the SWOT Analysis in our Small Business.

Use our experience and expertise to measure twice for you.  Get the help you need with your small business here.

If you are not willing to let the experts help you, be prepared to suffer Truth or Consequences and I am not talking about that city in New Mexico.

Without business plan help, you will fail. Now I could be nice or I could try to ease the pain, but I won’t. YOU WILL FAIL IF YOU DO NOT PLAN AHEAD. This is why you and your small business need business plan help. You have to willing to admit that you are not all powerful and all knowing and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.—Maybe it’s only small buildings that you can leap. Without business plan help you won’t be able to walk let alone leap.

THE SAD TRUTH. I have seen it all. I have seen those that said they did not need business plan help. I saw the restaurateur who spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to open a high end restaurant on the tourist strip. He failed because he spent all of his money to open the restaurant. He did not have funds to market and promote. He did not research to determine when to open—he opened during the winter when no tourists were around. He did not have funds to keep the doors open until the word got out and business could pick up. All of this would have been addressed in the business plan if he had taken the time to create one. He needed business plan help.

Here’s one that scoffed at business plan help. I have seen the franchisee who spent over a Hundred Thousand Dollars for the franchise, the equipment, and to lease the space yet had not put together a business plan to see how much more it would take to stay in business each month and whether the location he choose could sustain the type of business he was getting involved in. Oh the agony of poor business planning! Simply put he didn’t want business plan help.

Finally, an example of someone who waited too long for business plan help. I worked with companies that filed Chapter 11 Plans to try and save their business yet in the end they had to just walk away from years of labor, toil and sweat. Why did they walk away? They had not put together a plan to see if the business that they had worked so hard on for so many years was still viable. It wasn’t until the filing of the Chapter 11 that they had to prepare a Business Plan for the Bankruptcy Trustee. Business plan help too little and too late. Oh the sad truth that Business Plan showed.

Business Plan Help is a must. I would rather counsel you on what to do with all the earnings than on what a bankruptcy is. Are you with me? Got the picture yet? Business Plan Help says what it means.

If you need Business Plan Help you have come to the right place.  JUST CLICK HERE for your FREE BUSINESS PLAN HELP.