Start-up business owners seem to have great difficulty writing out their business plans. Getting through this process is always a great help in building and expanding your business into the future so don't skip creating this excellent planning tool. A business plan is not just a one-time exercise. It is a process that parallels, indeed proceeds, your business as it develops. Here are six easy steps that will put you on the right path to produce a worthwhile and useful business plan:
- Write out your basic business concept. Use point form or prose. Write it with a pen or on the computer. It doesn't matter so much how you do it as it does that you commit it to paper or hard drive -- that you actually do it; that you make it real. Whether it's one page or several, hand written or computer printed, put it into a folder or binder where you can keep it safe, readily accessible, and add to it, or modify it, later.
- Gather together all of the information you can find on the feasibility, function, specifics and process of your business idea. Document all of this in your business plan. Make it real. Rough it out first and then fill in the detail. Jot down points. Write what you know.
- Focus your ideas and refine your concept into a more formalized presentation based on the information you have gathered.
- Outline the specifics of your business. Be detailed but don't worry about order or appearance. Perhaps using the famous "who, what, where, why, and how" writing approach might be useful for this process. Begin to expend the points to paragraphs.
- Organize your plan into a suitable order with a compelling form that will not only give you insights and focus into your future business but will, at the same time, become a useful and valuable tool in dealing with business relationships (lawyer, banker, partners, investors, suppliers, etc.) that will likely become very important to you.
- Review one or more sample business plan forms available online or in various books, choose one that suits your needs, and fill it in as your first formalized business plan.
These first steps are the beginning of an on-going process that should become a regular part of your business regimen. Don't fail to plan. If you do, says Dr. Robert H. Schuller, American televangelist, pastor, and author, you are planning to fail!