How to Write a Business Plan (Part 1) - Getting Started.

Writing a business plan can often feel like scaling a mountain. The sheer weight of the task—detailing every aspect of your business, conducting thorough research, and ensuring financial accuracy—can easily take weeks.

But what if I told you that with the right approach, you could draft a detailed business plan in just a day or two?

Understanding What is Holding You Back

Why do we struggle with writing a business plan? We start thinking about the business with full enthusiasm but quickly find ourselves bogged down by anxiety, worrying about accuracy, our writing skills, the complexity of it all, and we have time constraints.

Often, we just don't know how to start.

So we put it off and never get it started.

But don't worry.

By understanding the purpose of your business plan and following a structured approach, you can overcome these hurdles and create a plan quickly and effectively.

Who Is The Plan For?

Start by understanding the purpose of your business plan and hence the target audience. This will dictate the content, accuracy, and how often you will need to update it.

Some common types of business plan and their target are:

1. Securing Financing from Lenders

The most common reason entrepreneurs draft business plans is to seek funding, whether from investors, government grants or bank loans.

To make your business plan appealing to potential funders, it will need to focus on:

• Clarity and Precision:

  Make it easy for investors to understand your vision and business model.

  
  

• Return on Investment (ROI):

  Demonstrate the potential for significant returns.

  
  

• Risk Mitigation:

  Identify potential risks and explain how you plan to manage them.

  
  

• Accuracy:

  Ensure that the information is correct and can withstand third-party assessment.

  
  

Typically, this type of plan is written once and then not updated. Its primary job is to raise finance. Once funding is secured, a new plan—similar to those in examples 2 & 3—is used to run the business.

2. Business Growth or Turnaround

Starting and growing a business is no small feat. Collaborations can ease the journey, providing resources, expertise, and shared responsibilities. A plan targeting turnaround or growth is normally aimed at the business owner and the management team with the main focus on:-

• Identifying Challenges:

  It needs to identify issues and be transparent about obstacles.

  
  

• The Competitive Landscape:

  Understanding customer behaviours the competitions strengths and weaknesses will be an important element of the plan.

  
  

• Having a Clear Action Plan:

  There will need to be clear actions and owners, and how the plan is to managed and regularly updated.

  
  

• Implementation and Execution:

  Actions speak louder than words; you will need to clear on how to get the tough things done - resources and the financials being key.

This type of plan is focused on actions, so it should be reviewed weekly and updated monthly.

3. Setting a Long Term Vision

This is a strategic plan set around what you are aiming to achieve in 3 to 10 years. There will be more focus on analysis and scenario planning. To develop a strategic plan you need to consider:

• Long Term Vision:

  Where you want the business to be in the long-term.

  
  

• Analysis & Scenarios:

  By using a series of appropriate tools and models evaluate different aspects of the business and market

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• Plot Route to Long-Term Success:

  Define the route and the steps to achieve your vision.

  
  

• Short-Term Actions:

  Break down the route to the vision into actionable, short-term steps.

  
  

This type of plan should be reviewed monthly and updated quarterly to account for changes in the market or emergent factors as the strategy is tested.

Conclusion

Drafting a detailed business plan can be daunting, but by understanding the purpose of the plan, you can then focus on the important areas to include in it. With clarity and a structured approach, it should be possible to produce a comprehensive business plan in just a day or two.

Ready to get started on your business plan? Start with the purpose. For more tips and in-depth guides on business planning, subscribe to our blog and stay ahead in your entrepreneurial journey.

If you have any questions or need further assistance, feel free to reach out!

P.S. Are there any other types of business plans that we should consider? Share your thoughts in the comments below!