How To Write The Perfect Business Plan

A step-by-step guide for writing an excellent business plan, perfect for any start-up or new business venture.

Read on to comprehensively learn how to develop the perfect business plan for your new venture, and give your start-up the best chance of succeeding, via securing partners, funding and more.

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What Is A business Plan?

A business plan is a document that covers the business’ objectives, as well as how you plan to meet these objectives. This includes consideration of how investments you will require, as well as how to secure those investments, and your expected profits and difficulties throughout.

Why Do I Need A Business Plan?

A business plan is essential when setting out on a new business venture or launching a new start-up.

Planning is often the key to success, so a business plan should be a priority during your entrepreneurial journey. A business plan can be seen as a guide to help you understand how your company can and should function and can be used to direct your business’ future to ensure success and please potential investors.

Firstly, creating your business plan will allow you to check your ideas regarding your start-up. When forced to consider the financial, logistical and practical aspects of your ideas in detail, you will easily notice where you are underprepared or where your ideas are not feasible. Therefore, writing a business plan enables you to check yourself before pitching to others, such as investors.

Additionally, without a business plan, you may struggle to secure investment, which in turn will damage your company’s chances of launching or succeeding. A business plan is an opportunity to demonstrate the well-thought-out nature of your venture and its profitable opportunities, helping you to convince investors it is worth their time and money.

What does a business plan include?

• Executive Summary

• Business Description and Goals

• Services Offered

• Market Analysis and Strategy

• Competitive Analysis

• Operations

• Financial Analysis

Executive Summary

The executive summary should outline the business and its goals in two pages or less.

This should include:

• Outline the business’ objectives

• Outline the services offered

• Outline the current market and why your business can succeed in it

• Risk level

• Brief description of growth potential

• Financial requirements

• Exit strategy

Business Description and Goals:

Your business description should be relatively short and your objectives should be clearly outlined.

During this description you should discuss your chosen industry briefly, whilst outlining future avenues for success within this industry. Doing this should involve data or sources, which you should reference to gain confidence in your ideas. You should explain how this will affect your business and how this relates to your company’s goals.

You should also discuss your business’ structure, namely whether it is retail or service-based, or something different.

Services Offered

Following this, you should discuss the services or products that your business will offer. For example, you should outline whether these are physical products, or in-person/online services.

You should focus on the unique selling point of your products, highlighting why your products will have a competitive edge and how this will make your business profitable.

Market Analysis and Strategy

When analysing or discussing the market you plan on entering, you should always focus on:

• Product

• Price

• Place

• Promotion

You should analyse the market overall, including how large or small it is as well as the potential for success within the market. This includes considering the potential for growth in the market, as well as its stability and demographic breakdown.

You should calculate and present your expected market share. When doing so, you must pay attention to the dominant market share, as you are unlikely to captivate this level of the market as a start-up – your numbers must be realistic.

When planning your strategy for entering this market, price is an important factor. You can approach this task via cost-based or competition-based means. Whilst competitive pricing appeals to many, it does limit your pricing options, which can be challenging if you have higher costs than your competitors. These factors must be considered and discussed in this section of the business plan.

Competitive Analysis

In the previous section, you have discussed the other competitors in the market and their prices or strategies. In this section, you should explain the differences between these competitors and your business, to highlight why you will succeed compared to them.

To do this, you should first analyse your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses. When ding so, you should be realistic. Anything unrealistic in your plan can make you appear ingenuine or unknowledgeable.

You should outline gaps in the market and how your products can exploit these opportunities.

Operations

In this section, you should consider the organizational structure of your business. This will enable you to calculate operating costs. This is useful in its own right but also essential for financial analyses, which is the final part of the business plan.

You should consider the costs of marketing and sales of your products, production, research and develop, and administrative costs. Overhead expenses must also be mentioned.

Financial Analysis

Finally, and very importantly, you need to discuss financial analysis.

The financial statements you should include are the income statement, cash-flow statement and balance sheet. You should briefly summarise these figures after including them to highlight the main points.

International Business Plans - Start-Up And Innovator Visas

For entrepreneurs from outside the UK, such as those from Dubai, UAE and America, your business plan must consider your visa plans.

This task is often daunting and must be completed accurately and efficiently. If you’re confused, get in touch with us today; our professionals have an abundance of experience helping international clients successfully launch in the UK via our start-up and innovator visa business plan services.

Still unsure?

Business plans can be difficult, and it is important to ensure they are effectively written. If you are still struggling with yours, get in touch with our experts today to see how we can help.

Our highly experiences professionals can offer advanced business plan editing services, or can provide comprehensive, high-quality business plan writing services.

Our experts have helped clients all over the globe, including the UK, America and UAE.