Better Business Planning

Send Your Business Into The Stratosphere By Learning All The Secrets Behind Great Planning!


A business plan is an essential document for anyone commencing a
new business, already in business and critical for anyone seeking
funding from a venture capitalist. The business plan needs to be
comprehensive, well thought and should contain sound business
reasons. You can get all the info you need here.
Better Business Planning
The Secrets Behind Developing A Successful Business Plan

Chapter 1:
Business Planning Basics
Synopsis
The business plan should prove that the business will generate
enough revenue to cover expenses and make satisfactory return for
bankers or investors. There are a number of ways of formulating a
business plan but there are certain essential sections that they should
all contain.

The Basics
There should be an executive summary of less than two pages at the
start of the business plan which sells the plan and highlights its
features.
A company summary should be included containing a factual
description of the company, its owners and history. There needs to be
a section referring to products and or services and their points of
difference in the market.
It is essential to include a market analysis providing a summary of
typical customers, listing competitors, referring to the market size
and the expected growth.
It is important to have a section for strategies and implementation
describing how the product will be sold and how the plan will be sold
and how the plan will be put into action together with its milestones.
There needs to be a financial plan indicating sales, cash flow and
profits. The background of the management team together with their
experience and key accomplishments should be contained in a
management summary.
Individuals could choose to hire a professional to write a business
plan for them or they could attempt to write their own making use of
the excellent business planning software or books that are available.

Once funding has been raised and a business is operating the
business plan serves as a road map for the business. It is not a static
document. It needs to be referred to in order to ensure that the
business remains focused, on track and is meeting milestones.

Chapter 2:
Market Evaluation
Synopsis
A market evaluation is a useful analysis of a company’s success. It is a
big undertaking but is invaluable. To conduct the analysis
consideration needs to be given to a range of areas including sales
figures, marketing goals, advertising content and the media mix being
utilized.

Evaluate It
All sales figures need to be compared and analyzed referring to a
specific time frame or before and after an event. The figures have to
be analyzed and it needs to be determined whether the failed, met or
exceeded expectations.
Any increase in sales should be analyzed to ascertain if they are from
old or new customers or a combination of both. Consideration needs
to be given to the reasons for increased revenue not associated with
any advertising such as a strong economy.
An evaluation needs to be done of the marketing goals. Firstly the
original marketing goals need to be examined and it has to be
ascertained whether the business is taking that market.
Thought has to be given to decide if that is the most profitable market
for the company. An analysis has to be made to show an increase or
otherwise in the market share and by how much.
A check of advertising should be undertaken to work out what the
advertising was communicating to the public and to ensure that the
advertisements fulfilled their purpose.
It is necessary to find out if the target market understood and
responded to the message of the advertisements. By evaluating the
media mix used and its efficiency and checking on the creation

process it can be ascertained how cost effective such a program was
and which sections of media proved the most effective in attracting
more market share.
Following the market evaluation it would be necessary for a section to
be added to include ideas for future improvement.

Chapter 3:
Analyze Competition
Synopsis
An analysis of the competition can be the most difficult section to
work on when undertaking the writing of a business plan. Before
analyzing the competition they have to be investigated and before
that can be done they have to be found.

Figure It Out
The first step of the competitive analysis is to determine who the local
competition is. This can be done quite simply by driving around and
observing and by searching through a telephone directory.