reflection in making a business plan

How to Write a Business Plan (Plus Examples & Templates)

Have you ever wondered how to write a business plan step by step? Mike Andes, told us: 

This guide will help you write a business plan to impress investors.

Throughout this process, we’ll get information from Mike Andes, who started Augusta Lawn Care Services when he was 12 and turned it into a franchise with over 90 locations. He has gone on to help others learn how to write business plans and start businesses.  He knows a thing or two about writing  business plans!

We’ll start by discussing the definition of a business plan. Then we’ll discuss how to come up with the idea, how to do the market research, and then the important elements in the business plan format. Keep reading to start your journey!

What Is a Business Plan?

A business plan is simply a road map of what you are trying to achieve with your business and how you will go about achieving it. It should cover all elements of your business including: 

• Finding customers
• Plans for developing a team
•  Competition
• Legal structures
• Key milestones you are pursuing

If you aren’t quite ready to create a business plan, consider starting by reading our business startup guide .

Get a Business Idea

Before you can write a business plan, you have to have a business idea. You may see a problem that needs to be solved and have an idea how to solve it, or you might start by evaluating your interests and skills. 

Mike told us, “The three things I suggest asking yourself when thinking about starting a business are:

• What am I good at?
• What would I enjoy doing?
• What can I get paid for?”

If all three of these questions don’t lead to at least one common answer, it will probably be a much harder road to success. Either there is not much market for it, you won’t be good at it, or you won’t enjoy doing it. 

As Mike told us, “There’s enough stress starting and running a business that if you don’t like it or aren’t good at it, it’s hard to succeed.”

If you’d like to hear more about Mike’s approach to starting a business, check out our YouTube video

Conduct Market Analysis

Market analysis is focused on establishing if there is a target market for your products and services, how large the target market is, and identifying the demographics of people or businesses that would be interested in the product or service. The goal here is to establish how much money your business concept can make.

Product and Service Demand

A search engine is your best friend when trying to figure out if there is demand for your products and services. Personally, I love using presearch.org because it lets you directly search on a ton of different platforms including Google, Youtube, Twitter, and more. Check out the screenshot for the full list of search options.

With quick web searches, you can find out how many competitors you have, look through their reviews, and see if there are common complaints about the competitors. Bad reviews are a great place to find opportunities to offer better products or services. 

If there are no similar products or services, you may have stumbled upon something new, or there may just be no demand for it. To find out, go talk to your most honest friend about the idea and see what they think. If they tell you it’s dumb or stare at you vacantly, there’s probably no market for it.

You can also conduct a survey through social media to get public opinion on your idea. Using Facebook Business Manager , you could get a feel for who would be interested in your product or service.

 I ran a quick test of how many people between 18-65  you could reach in the U.S. during a week. It returned an estimated 700-2,000 for the total number of leads, which is enough to do a fairly accurate statistical analysis.

Identify Demographics of Target Market

Depending on what type of business you want to run, your target market will be different. The narrower the demographic, the fewer potential customers you’ll have. If you did a survey, you’ll be able to use that data to help define your target audience. Some considerations you’ll want to consider are:

• Other Interests
• Marital Status
• Do they have kids?

Once you have this information, it can help you narrow down your options for location and help define your marketing further. One resource that Mike recommended using is the Census Bureau’s Quick Facts Map . He told us,  

“It helps you quickly evaluate what the best areas are for your business to be located.”

How to Write a Business Plan

Now that you’ve developed your idea a little and established there is a market for it, you can begin writing a business plan. Getting started is easier with the business plan template we created for you to download. I strongly recommend using it as it is updated to make it easier to create an action plan. 

Each of the following should be a section of your business plan:

• Business Plan Cover Page
• Table of Contents
• Executive Summary
• Company Description
• Description of Products and Services

SWOT Analysis

• Competitor Data
• Competitive Analysis
• Marketing Expenses Strategy 

Pricing Strategy

• Distribution Channel Assessment
• Operational Plan
• Management and Organizational Strategy
• Financial Statements and/or Financial Projections

We’ll look into each of these. Don’t forget to download our free business plan template (mentioned just above) so you can follow along as we go. 

How to Write a Business Plan Step 1. Create a Cover Page

The first thing investors will see is the cover page for your business plan. Make sure it looks professional. A great cover page shows that you think about first impressions.

A good business plan should have the following elements on a cover page:

• Professionally designed logo
• Company name
• Mission or Vision Statement
• Contact Info

Basically, think of a cover page for your business plan like a giant business card. It is meant to capture people’s attention but be quickly processed.

How to Write a Business Plan Step 2. Create a Table of Contents

Most people are busy enough that they don’t have a lot of time. Providing a table of contents makes it easy for them to find the pages of your plan that are meaningful to them.

A table of contents will be immediately after the cover page, but you can include it after the executive summary. Including the table of contents immediately after the executive summary will help investors know what section of your business plan they want to review more thoroughly.

Check out Canva’s article about creating a  table of contents . It has a ton of great information about creating easy access to each section of your business plan. Just remember that you’ll want to use different strategies for digital and hard copy business plans.

How to Write a Business Plan Step 3. Write an Executive Summary

An executive summary is where your business plan should catch the readers interest.  It doesn’t need to be long, but should be quick and easy to read.

Mike told us,

How long should an executive summary bein an informal business plan?

For casual use, an executive summary should be similar to an elevator pitch, no more than 150-160 words, just enough to get them interested and wanting more. Indeed has a great article on elevator pitches .  This can also be used for the content of emails to get readers’ attention.

It consists of three basic parts:

• An introduction to you and your business.
• What your business is about.
• A call to action

Example of an informal executive summary 

One of the best elevator pitches I’ve used is:

So far that pitch has achieved a 100% success rate in getting partnerships for the business.

What should I include in an executive summary for investors?

Investors are going to need a more detailed executive summary if you want to secure financing or sell equity. The executive summary should be a brief overview of your entire business plan and include:

• Introduction of yourself and company.
• An origin story (Recognition of a problem and how you came to solution)
• An introduction to your products or services.
• Your unique value proposition. Make sure to include intellectual property.
• Where you are in the business life cycle
• Request and why you need it.

Successful business plan examples

The owner of Urbanity told us he spent 2 months writing a 75-page business plan and received a $250,000 loan from the bank when he was 23. Make your business plan as detailed as possible when looking for financing. We’ve provided a template to help you prepare the portions of a business plan that banks expect.

Here’s the interview with the owner of Urbanity:

When to write an executive summary?

Even though the summary is near the beginning of a business plan, you should write it after you complete the rest of a business plan. You can’t talk about revenue, profits, and expected expenditures if you haven’t done the market research and created a financial plan.

What mistakes do people make when writing an executive summary?

Business owners commonly go into too much detail about the following items in an executive summary:

• Marketing and sales processes
• Financial statements
• Organizational structure
• Market analysis

These are things that people will want to know later, but they don’t hook the reader. They won’t spark interest in your small business, but they’ll close the deal.

How to Write a Business Plan Step 4. Company Description

Every business plan should include a company description. A great business plan will include the following elements while describing the company:

• Mission statement
• Philosophy and vision
• Company goals

Target market

• Legal structure

Let’s take a look at what each section includes in a good business plan.

Mission Statement

A mission statement is a brief explanation of why you started the company and what the company’s main focus is. It should be no more than one or two sentences. Check out HubSpot’s article 27 Inspiring Mission Statement for a great read on informative and inspiring mission and vision statements. 

Company Philosophy and Vision

The company philosophy is what drives your company. You’ll normally hear them called core values.  These are the building blocks that make your company different. You want to communicate your values to customers, business owners, and investors as often as possible to build a company culture, but make sure to back them up.

What makes your company different?

Each company is different. Your new business should rise above the standard company lines of honesty, integrity, fun, innovation, and community when communicating your business values. The standard answers are corporate jargon and lack authenticity. 

Examples of core values

One of my clients decided to add a core values page to their website. As a tech company they emphasized the values:

•  Prioritize communication.
•  Never stop learning.
•  Be transparent.
•  Start small and grow incrementally.

These values communicate how the owner and the rest of the company operate. They also show a value proposition and competitive advantage because they specifically focus on delivering business value from the start. These values also genuinely show what the company is about and customers recognize the sincerity. Indeed has a great blog about how to identify your core values .

What is a vision statement?

A vision statement communicate the long lasting change a business pursues. The vision helps investors and customers understand what your company is trying to accomplish. The vision statement goes beyond a mission statement to provide something meaningful to the community, customer’s lives, or even the world.

Example vision statements

The Alzheimer’s Association is a great example of a vision statement:

A world without Alzheimer’s Disease and other dementia.

It clearly tells how they want to change the world. A world without Alzheimers might be unachievable, but that means they always have room for improvement.

Business Goals

You have to measure success against goals for a business plan to be meaningful. A business plan helps guide a company similar to how your GPS provides a road map to your favorite travel destination. A goal to make as much money as possible is not inspirational and sounds greedy.

Sure, business owners want to increase their profits and improve customer service, but they need to present an overview of what they consider success. The goals should help everyone prioritize their work.

How far in advance should a business plan?

Business planning should be done at least one year in advance, but many banks and investors prefer three to five year business plans. Longer plans show investors that the management team  understands the market and knows the business is operating in a constantly shifting market. In addition, a plan helps businesses to adjust to changes because they have already considered how to handle them.

Example of great business goals

My all time-favorite long-term company goals are included in Tesla’s Master Plan, Part Deux . These goals were written in 2016 and drive the company’s decisions through 2026. They are the reason that investors are so forgiving when Elon Musk continually fails to meet his quarterly and annual goals.

If the progress aligns with the business plan investors are likely to continue to believe in the company. Just make sure the goals are reasonable or you’ll be discredited (unless you’re Elon Musk).

You did target market research before creating a business plan. Now it’s time to add it to the plan so others understand what your ideal customer looks like. As a new business owner, you may not be considered an expert in your field yet, so document everything. Make sure the references you use are from respectable sources. 

Use information from the specific lender when you are applying for lending. Most lenders provide industry research reports and using their data can strengthen the position of your business plan.

A small business plan should include a section on the external environment. Understanding the industry is crucial because we don’t plan a business in a vacuum. Make sure to research the industry trends, competitors, and forecasts. I personally prefer IBIS World for my business research. Make sure to answer questions like:

• What is the industry outlook long-term and short-term?
• How will your business take advantage of projected industry changes and trends?
• What might happen to your competitors and how will your business successfully compete?

Industry resources

Some helpful resources to help you establish more about your industry are:

• Trade Associations
• Federal Reserve
• Bureau of Labor Statistics

Legal Structure

There are five basic types of legal structures that most people will utilize:

• Sole proprietorships
• Limited Liability Companies (LLC)

Partnerships

Corporations.

• Franchises.

Each business structure has their pros and cons. An LLC is the most common legal structure due to its protection of personal assets and ease of setting up. Make sure to specify how ownership is divided and what roles each owner plays when you have more than one business owner.

You’ll have to decide which structure is best for you, but we’ve gathered information on each to make it easier.

Sole Proprietorship

A sole proprietorship is the easiest legal structure to set up but doesn’t protect the owner’s personal assets from legal issues. That means if something goes wrong, you could lose both your company and your home.

To start a sole proprietorship, fill out a special tax form called a  Schedule C . Sole proprietors can also join the American Independent Business Alliance .

Limited Liability Company (LLC)

An LLC is the most common business structure used in the United States because an LLC protects the owner’s personal assets. It’s similar to partnerships and corporations, but can be a single-member LLC in most states. An LLC requires a document called an operating agreement.

Each state has different requirements. Here’s a link to find your state’s requirements . Delaware and Nevada are common states to file an LLC because they are really business-friendly. Here’s a blog on the top 10 states to get an LLC.

Partnerships are typically for legal firms. If you choose to use a partnership choose a Limited Liability Partnership. Alternatively, you can just use an LLC.

Corporations are typically for massive organizations. Corporations have taxes on both corporate and income tax so unless you plan on selling stock, you are better off considering an LLC with S-Corp status . Investopedia has good information corporations here .

There are several opportunities to purchase successful franchises. TopFranchise.com has a list of companies in a variety of industries that offer franchise opportunities. This makes it where an entrepreneur can benefit from the reputation of an established business that has already worked out many of the kinks of starting from scratch.

How to Write a Business Plan Step 5. Products and Services

This section of the business plan should focus on what you sell, how you source it, and how you sell it. You should include:

• Unique features that differentiate your business products from competitors
• Intellectual property
• Your supply chain
• Cost and pricing structure 

Questions to answer about your products and services

Mike gave us a list  of the most important questions to answer about your product and services:

• How will you be selling the product? (in person, ecommerce, wholesale, direct to consumer)?
• How do you let them know they need a product?
• How do you communicate the message?
• How will you do transactions?
• How much will you be selling it for?
• How many do you think you’ll sell and why?

Make sure to use the worksheet on our business plan template .

How to Write a Business Plan Step 6. Sales and Marketing Plan

The marketing and sales plan is focused on the strategy to bring awareness to your company and guides how you will get the product to the consumer.  It should contain the following sections:

SWOT Analysis stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Not only do you want to identify them, but you also want to document how the business plans to deal with them.

Business owners need to do a thorough job documenting how their service or product stacks up against the competition.

If proper research isn’t done, investors will be able to tell that the owner hasn’t researched the competition and is less likely to believe that the team can protect its service from threats by the more well-established competition. This is one of the most common parts of a presentation that trips up business owners presenting on Shark Tank .

SWOT Examples

Examples of strengths and weaknesses could be things like the lack of cash flow, intellectual property ownership, high costs of suppliers, and customers’ expectations on shipping times.

Opportunities could be ways to capitalize on your strengths or improve your weaknesses, but may also be gaps in the industry. This includes:

• Adding offerings that fit with your current small business
• Increase sales to current customers
• Reducing costs through bulk ordering
• Finding ways to reduce inventory
•  And other areas you can improve

Threats will normally come from outside of the company but could also be things like losing a key member of the team. Threats normally come from competition, regulations, taxes, and unforeseen events.

The management team should use the SWOT analysis to guide other areas of business planning, but it absolutely has to be done before a business owner starts marketing. 

Include Competitor Data in Your Business Plan

When you plan a business, taking into consideration the strengths and weaknesses of the competition is key to navigating the field. Providing an overview of your competition and where they are headed shows that you are invested in understanding the industry.

For smaller businesses, you’ll want to search both the company and the owners names to see what they are working on. For publicly held corporations, you can find their quarterly and annual reports on the SEC website .

What another business plans to do can impact your business. Make sure to include things that might make it attractive for bigger companies to outsource to a small business.

Marketing Strategy

The marketing and sales part of business plans should be focused on how you are going to make potential customers aware of your business and then sell to them.

If you haven’t already included it, Mike recommends:

“They’ll want to know about Demographics, ages, and wealth of your target market.”

Make sure to include the Total addressable market .  The term refers to the value if you captured 100% of the market.

Advertising Strategy

You’ll explain what formats of advertising you’ll be using. Some possibilities are:

• Online: Facebook and Google are the big names to work with here.
• Print : Print can be used to reach broad groups or targeted markets. Check out this for tips .
• Radio : iHeartMedia is one of the best ways to advertise on the radio
• Cable television : High priced, hard to measure ROI, but here’s an explanation of the process
• Billboards: Attracting customers with billboards can be beneficial in high traffic areas.

You’ll want to define how you’ll be using each including frequency, duration, and cost. If you have the materials already created, including pictures or links to the marketing to show creative assets.

Mike told us “Most businesses are marketing digitally now due to Covid, but that’s not always the right answer.”

Make sure the marketing strategy will help team members or external marketing agencies stay within the brand guidelines .

This section of a business plan should be focused on pricing. There are a ton of pricing strategies that may work for different business plans. Which one will work for you depends on what kind of a business you run.

Some common pricing strategies are:

• Value-based pricing – Commonly used with home buying and selling or other products that are status symbols.
• Skimming pricing – Commonly seen in video game consoles, price starts off high to recoup expenses quickly, then reduces over time.
• Competition-based pricing – Pricing based on competitors’ pricing is commonly seen at gas stations.
• Freemium services –  Commonly used for software, where there is a free plan, then purchase options for more functionality.

HubSpot has a great calculator and blog on pricing strategies.

Beyond explaining what strategy your business plans to use, you should include references for how you came to this pricing strategy and how it will impact your cash flow.

Distribution Plan

This part of a business plan is focused on how the product or service is going to go through the supply chain. These may include multiple divisions or multiple companies. Make sure to include any parts of the workflow that are automated so investors can see where cost savings are expected and when.

Supply Chain Examples

For instance, lawn care companies  would need to cover aspects such as:

• Suppliers for lawn care equipment and tools
• Any chemicals or treatments needed
• Repair parts for sprinkler systems
• Vehicles to transport equipment and employees
• Insurance to protect the company vehicles and people.

Examples of Supply Chains

These are fairly flat supply chains compared to something like a clothing designer where the clothes would go through multiple vendors. A clothing company might have the following supply chain:

• Raw materials
• Shipping of raw materials
• Converting of raw materials to thread
• Shipping thread to produce garments
• Garment producer
• Shipping to company
• Company storage
• Shipping to retail stores

There have been advances such as print on demand that eliminate many of these steps. If you are designing completely custom clothing, all of this would need to be planned to keep from having business disruptions.

The main thing to include in the business plan is the list of suppliers, the path the supply chain follows, the time from order to the customer’s home, and the costs associated with each step of the process.

According to BizPlanReview , a business plan without this information is likely to get rejected because they have failed to research the key elements necessary to make sales to the customer.

How to Write a Business Plan Step 7. Company Organization and Operational Plan

This part of the business plan is focused on how the business model will function while serving customers.  The business plan should provide an overview of  how the team will manage the following aspects:

Quality Control

• Legal environment

Let’s look at each for some insight.

Production has already been discussed in previous sections so I won’t go into it much. When writing a business plan for investors, try to avoid repetition as it creates a more simple business plan.

If the organizational plan will be used by the team as an overview of how to perform the best services for the customer, then redundancy makes more sense as it communicates what is important to the business.

Quality control policies help to keep the team focused on how to verify that the company adheres to the business plan and meets or exceeds customer expectations.

Quality control can be anything from a standard that says “all labels on shirts can be no more than 1/16″ off center” to a defined checklist of steps that should be performed and filled out for every customer.

There are a variety of organizations that help define quality control including:

• International Organization for Standardization – Quality standards for energy, technology, food, production environments, and cybersecurity
• AICPA – Standard defined for accounting.
• The Joint Commission – Healthcare
• ASHRAE – HVAC best practices

You can find lists of the organizations that contribute most to the government regulation of industries on Open Secrets . Research what the leaders in your field are doing. Follow their example and implement it in your quality control plan.

For location, you should use information from the market research to establish where the location will be. Make sure to include the following in the location documentation.

• The size of your location
• The type of building (retail, industrial, commercial, etc.)
• Zoning restrictions – Urban Wire has a good map on how zoning works in each state
• Accessibility – Does it meet ADA requirements?
• Costs including rent, maintenance, utilities, insurance and any buildout or remodeling costs
• Utilities – b.e.f. has a good energy calculator .

Legal Environment

The legal requirement section is focused on defining how to meet the legal requirements for your industry. A good business plan should include all of the following:

• Any licenses and/or permits that are needed and whether you’ve obtained them
• Any trademarks, copyrights, or patents that you have or are in the process of applying for
• The insurance coverage your business requires and how much it costs
• Any environmental, health, or workplace regulations affecting your business
• Any special regulations affecting your industry
• Bonding requirements, if applicable

Your local SBA office can help you establish requirements in your area. I strongly recommend using them. They are a great resource.

Your business plan should include a plan for company organization and hiring. While you may be the only person with the company right now, down the road you’ll need more people. Make sure to consider and document the answers to the following questions:

• What is the current leadership structure and what will it look like in the future?
• What types of employees will you have? Are there any licensing or educational requirements?
• How many employees will you need?
• Will you ever hire freelancers or independent contractors?
• What is each position’s job description?
• What is the pay structure (hourly, salaried, base plus commission, etc.)?
• How do you plan to find qualified employees and contractors?

One of the most crucial parts of a business plan is the organizational chart. This simply shows the positions the company will need, who is in charge of them and the relationship of each of them. It will look similar to this:

Our small business plan template has a much more in-depth organizational chart you can edit to include when you include the organizational chart in your business plan.

How to Write a Business Plan Step 8. Financial Statements 

No business plan is complete without financial statements or financial projections. The business plan format will be different based on whether you are writing a business plan to expand a business or a startup business plan. Let’s dig deeper into each.

Provide All Financial Income from an Existing Business

An existing business should use their past financial documents including the income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statement to find trends to estimate the next 3-5 years.

You can create easy trendlines in excel to predict future revenue, profit and loss, cash flow, and other changes in year-over-year performance. This will show your expected performance assuming business continues as normal.

If you are seeking an investment, then the business is probably not going to continue as normal. Depending on the financial plan and the purpose of getting financing, adjustments may be needed to the following:

• Higher Revenue if expanding business
• Lower Cost of Goods Sold if purchasing inventory with bulk discounts
• Adding interest if utilizing financing (not equity deal)
• Changes in expenses
• Addition of financing information to the cash flow statement
• Changes in Earnings per Share on the balance sheet

Financial modeling is a challenging subject, but there are plenty of low-cost courses on the subject. If you need help planning your business financial documentation take some time to watch some of them.

Make it a point to document how you calculated all the changes to the income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statement in your business plan so that key team members or investors can verify your research.

Financial Projections For A Startup Business Plan

Unlike an existing business, a startup doesn’t have previous success to model its future performance. In this scenario, you need to focus on how to make a business plan realistic through the use of industry research and averages.

Mike gave the following advice in his interview:

Financial Forecasting Mistakes

One of the things a lot of inexperienced people use is the argument, “If I get one percent of the market, it is worth $100 million.” If you use this, investors are likely to file the document under bad business plan examples.

Let’s use custom t-shirts as an example.

Credence Research estimated in 2018 there were 11,334,800,000 custom t-shirts sold for a total of $206.12 Billion, with a 6% compound annual growth rate.

With that data,  you can calculate that the industry will grow to $270 Billion in 2023 and that the average shirt sold creates $18.18 in revenue.

Combine that with an IBIS World estimate of 11,094 custom screen printers and that means even if you become an average seller, you’ll get .009% of the market.

Here’s a table for easier viewing of that information.

The point here is to make sure your business proposal examples make sense.

You’ll need to know industry averages such as cost of customer acquisition, revenue per customer, the average cost of goods sold, and admin costs to be able to create accurate estimates.

Our simple business plan templates walk you through most of these processes. If you follow them you’ll have a good idea of how to write a business proposal.

How to Write a Business Plan Step 9. Business Plan Example of Funding Requests

What is a business plan without a plan on how to obtain funding?

The Small Business Administration has an example for a pizza restaurant that theoretically needed nearly $20k to make it through their first month.

In our video, How to Start a $500K/Year T-Shirt Business (Pt. 1 ), Sanford Booth told us he needed about $200,000 to start his franchise and broke even after 4 months.

Freshbooks estimates it takes on average 2-3 years for a business to be profitable, which means the fictitious pizza company from the SBA could need up to $330k to make it through that time and still pay their bills for their home and pizza shop.

Not every business needs that much to start, but realistically it’s a good idea to assume that you need a fairly large cushion.

Ways to get funding for a small business

There are a variety of ways to cover this. the most common are:

• Bootstrapping – Using your savings without external funding.
• Taking out debt – loans, credit cards
• Equity, Seed Funding – Ownership of a percentage of the company in exchange for current funds
• Crowdsourcing – Promising a good for funding to create the product

Keep reading for more tips on how to write a business plan.

How funding will be used

When asking for business financing make sure to include:

• How much to get started?
• What is the minimum viable product and how soon can you make money?
• How will the money be spent?

Mike emphasized two aspects that should be included in every plan, 

How to Write a Business Plan Resources

Here are some links to a business plan sample and business plan outline. 

• Sample plan

It’s also helpful to follow some of the leading influencers in the business plan writing community. Here’s a list:

• Wise Plans –  Shares a lot of information on starting businesses and is a business plan writing company.
• Optimus Business Plans –  Another business plan writing company.
• Venture Capital – A venture capital thread that can help give you ideas.

How to Write a Business Plan: What’s Next?

We hope this guide about how to write a simple business plan step by step has been helpful. We’ve covered:

• The definition of a business plan
• Coming up with a business idea
• Performing market research
• The critical components of a business plan
• An example business plan

In addition, we provided you with a simple business plan template to assist you in the process of writing your startup business plan. The startup business plan template also includes a business model template that will be the key to your success.

Don’t forget to check out the rest of our business hub .

Have you written a business plan before? How did it impact your ability to achieve your goals?

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Before opening super-successful Woods Coffee , Wes Herman was traveling all over the U.S. for work, not seeing his family as much as he'd like, and wanting to empower his kids to live better. You'll never believe how he did it.

[su_quote]We started the company as a homeschool project to teach our four kids how to start a business. We hoped they would love it so much that we could work together for a long time as we grew this new brand.[/su_quote]

The family started serving coffee in 2002 when their homeschool project got a $23,000 loan. Since then, Woods Coffee has steadily grown to 19 shops over the Northwest.

Here, Wes shares coffee business secrets like avoiding tying your funds up in real estate and buying used whenever possible. By the end of this article, you’ll know how to start the coffee shop of your dreams with any budget.

[su_note note_color="#dbeafc"]

We’ll cover the following (click any link to jump to the part that interests you most):

• What is a coffee shop ?

Step 1. Research the coffee shop industry

Step 2. create a coffee shop business plan, step 3. create a business structure, step 4. get your business license, step 5. fund your coffee shop startup costs, step 6. choose the right coffee supplier, step 7. plan the coffee shop layout and decor, step 8. buy coffee equipment and furnishings, step 9. hire employees, step 10. create a menu, step 11. start coffee shop marketing, step 12. comply with all regulations, step 13. soft launch your coffee shop, step 14. host a grand opening, step 15. manage your coffee shop business, step 16. provide excellent customer service, step 17. grow your coffee shop business, what is donut shop coffee, what is a coffee shop bar, what is a café.

• Go start a successful coffee shop [/su_note]

If you want to know how to start a coffee shop, keep reading to find out how Wes started his multi-million-dollar coffee empire without spending his own money.

What is a coffee shop?

A coffee shop is a small restaurant, cart, kiosk, or drive-thru that primarily sells coffee, tea, and other refreshments.

Popular styles of coffee include:

A coffee shop might also carry small snacks like cookie cakes. A coffee shop owner might also consider opening a café, which tends to have more tables and a full menu of food in addition to coffee.

Keep reading to learn about the coffee industry.

How to open a coffee shop business

Opening a coffee shop can be an exciting and rewarding venture, but it also requires careful planning and execution. You’ll need to perform the following steps to start a coffee shop:

• Research the coffee shop industry
• Create a coffee shop business plan
• Create a business structure
• Get your business licenses
• Fund your coffee shop startup costs
• Choose the right coffee supplier
• Plan the coffee shop layout and decor
• Buy coffee equipment and furnishings
• Hire employees
• Create a menu
• Start coffee shop marketing
• Comply with all regulations
• Soft launch your coffee shop
• Host a grand opening
• Manage your coffee shop business
• Provide excellent customer service
• Improve your coffee shop performance

Get ready to learn how to open a coffee shop.

The first step to starting a coffee shop brand is to research coffee businesses to understand how to place yourself within the industry. You’ll have two considerations during the market research phase:

• You’ll want to understand coffee industry earning potential and trends on both a national and local level.
• Choose a strategic location with high foot traffic, accessibility, visibility, and proximity to other businesses.

Identify how to make your new coffee shop unique

Opening a coffee shop can be a lucrative business, but a new coffee shop needs to understand the startup costs, earning potential, fixed and variable costs, and marketing strategies of a successful business.

Companies like Starbucks, Dunkin, and Tim Hortons make hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars each year.

That’s awesome for them, but an independent coffee shop will take years to reach that point. Here, we help you explore your business opportunities for becoming a successful coffee shop starting from scratch.

Cautionary tale about coffee shops

We use IBIS World for all of our industry reports. They provide multiple reports about coffee shops, and there is some contradictory information.

We used the following coffee shop reports in the Industry Section:

• INDUSTRY REPORT OD6 098 : This report covers the retail market for coffee in the U.S. It was last updated in April 2021.
• (NAICS) REPORT 7222 1B : This report covers coffee and snack shops in the U.S. It was last updated in January 2023.
• INDUSTRY REPORT OD5 552 : This report covers coffee store franchises in the U.S. It was updated in January 2023.

We combined data from multiple reports because Starbucks gets nearly 40% of U.S. coffee and snack shop revenue. In addition, the NAICS report indicated that the industry operates at a loss when you exclude Starbucks.

The chart below is the coffee shop data from OD6098 and NAICS Code 72221B. This gives you a more adequate view of coffee shops by the numbers than including just one report's information.

How much does a coffee shop make?

The average coffee shop location makes between $150K and $600K per year with 4-10 people working at the shop, but the exact amount will depend on the coffee shop concept, foot traffic, and number of employees.

If you’re opening a coffee shop or coffee cart as a solo entrepreneur, know that you might make as little as $24K a year, though.

Pro Tip: Plan ahead from the start. Scaling and acquiring an existing coffee shop is how most of the industry improves revenues and profit margins.

How much does a coffee shop make a month?

Depending on the coffee shop location and other factors, you can expect to make somewhere between $40K and $50K per month, but the average Starbucks location approaches $100K monthly.

These numbers will fluctuate seasonally and based on the number of days in each month.

Independent coffee shops will obviously make less in monthly sales than a Starbucks until they develop a reputation and get repeat customers.

How much does an average coffee shop make a day?

An average coffee shop makes between $410 and $1,650 per day, while the average Starbucks makes nearly $3,200 per day.

Coffee shops tend to have the most business when people go to work, during lunch breaks, and after work. Of course, a great coffee business in a place like an airport or casino might have different high-traffic times.

Get ready to find out if a coffee shop is profitable.

How profitable is a coffee shop?

It’s getting harder to measure profits because business owners have established that the ideal profit amount is zero to minimize their tax consequences. That said, a coffee shop can make up to 50% gross profit and 17% net profit.

Wes shared the following about the profit potential of a coffee shop:

[su_quote]You can operate a small business very efficiently in coffee, and if you get a lot of customers, then you can make some serious dough.[/su_quote]

In Wes's case, that's definitely true considering he owns a multi-million-dollar coffee shop empire!

How much do coffee shop owners make?

Estimating how much coffee shop owners make requires analyzing various financial reports since a business owner may make money in the following ways:

• Salary: $59,440 as General Manager or Comparable Position • Tips: 8-20% of revenue • Dividends: Up to $21,142 paid out above salary • Benefits: $17,565 • Total: $59,440 to $120,000

You might make much more if you open a coffee shop like Woods Coffee. They have 19 stores and make millions per year. In that scenario, your salary would be comparable to a CEO or Operations Manager, tips would be removed, and dividends would be much higher. Check out our interview with Wes below to learn more:

Find a great location with reasonable rent

Just because a spot is centrally located doesn't mean it’s the right coffee shop location.

High-traffic locations usually have sky-high rents and cutthroat competition. Meanwhile, a coffee shop starting as a coffee kiosk in a mall will have much lower costs and cover its operating costs quicker.

Pro Tip: Try to see potential in a location that nobody else appreciates. Wes has this to say about his Boulevard Park location, the crown jewel in his entire chain:

[su_quote]As an entrepreneur, you must trust what you see. It will always be different than what others see. There were quite a few businesses that passed on Blvd. Park because they couldn't see it working. We saw it from day one, never wavered, and built one of the finest coffee shops in the world.[/su_quote]

When you do your location analysis, consider the following factors:

• Demographics
• Regulations and zoning
• How close you are to your target market
• How far away suppliers are
• Competition
• Crime rates

Pro Tip: Learn more about picking locations .

Virtually every entrepreneur will tell you to write a business plan when opening a coffee shop.

Wes is no different. However, his coffee shop business plan was only one page long:

[su_quote]I always like to think that a business plan can be put on one sheet of paper. It's the difference between just driving aimlessly without a map versus having a map and understanding where you're going. You'll get there faster, you'll get there more directly, and you won't be distracted trying to figure out where you're supposed to be going.[/su_quote]

The beauty of the one-page coffee shop business plan is that it pares down your idea to its barest essentials. This helps you to focus on your vision with laser-sharp intensity. It makes opening a coffee shop so much easier.

You’ll want to include the following:

• Your Elevator Pitch: Why you are opening a coffee shop and why investors should care
• SWOT Analysis: An analysis of your coffee shop’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats
• Business Model: How your coffee shop will make money while increasing revenue and profit—the more disruptive to the industry, the higher the likelihood that your coffee shop succeeds
• Unique Value Proposition: What makes you different from other coffee shops?
• Target Demographic: Proof that you’ve performed market research
• Budget: Financial analysis to help you manage coffee shop startup costs and ongoing expenses
• Pricing Strategy: How will you approach pricing your coffee shop menu?
• Marketing: A list of strategies you’ll use to market and become a successful coffee shop
• Funding Plans: Statement of how much funding you’ll need, how you’ll get it, and how you’ll use it

Pro Tip: You can create supplemental materials such as income and cash flow statements for potential investors but save them separately.

A business structure is just how your business is treated from a legal standpoint. It can be considered a separate entity, like a limited liability company (LLC) or corporation. Alternatively, sole proprietors and partners' personal and business interests remain legally connected.

Most business owners opt for an LLC through their Secretary of State website because it’s less costly than a corporation and limits their losses to the startup costs should the business fail. Your coffee business will also need an employee identification number ( EIN ) to file taxes.

Pro Tip: Learn more about the different types of businesses .

Complete all necessary paperwork to register your business with the appropriate local and state authorities. This will normally include:

• A tax permit
• Local business license
• Fire inspection
• Health inspection
• Food serving license
• Liquor or beer license (if you plan to serve alcohol)

Check with your city and state to establish exactly what you need.

How to start a coffee shop with no money

Wes started Woods Coffee using none of his own money. Here's how he made it happen:

[su_quote]In those early days…we were on a very, very, tight budget. We didn't have the money, and so we needed to find the money, and we needed to be creative on how we launched the first store. So, the initial budget was $23,000—that's what we needed to pull this business off. We didn't have the dough, so we went out and asked someone to partner with us that had the money. They weren't coffee drinkers, but they decided that this would be a good investment, and it was.[/su_quote]

That's an excellent way to start a coffee shop with no money down! Of course, if you have savings or other sources of funding to work with, even better.

Cost of opening a coffee shop

Wes thinks it would cost $500,000 to start a coffee shop today.

In our interview with Joe's Fine Coffee, Joe mentions that he was able to start his coffee shop for just $100,000. You can find that interview here:

Our research shows that it costs about $275,000 to open a coffee shop. However, this will vary based on your location, business needs, and several other factors.

To determine your budget, you need to figure out what it'll cost to get your venture off the ground and calculate your ongoing costs. This will consist of the following three types of expenses:

Capital costs are things you only buy once (unless there is something from your equipment list that breaks down). These are things like:

• Espresso machines
• Cash registers
• Building (if you buy instead of rent)

Fixed costs are expenditures that stay the same from month to month. An example of this is rent.

Variable costs are expenses that fluctuate depending on how much business you do. These are things like labor costs because the more customers you have, the more employees you'll need to hire.

Don’t forget ongoing costs

High startup costs mean that you're going to need plenty of startup capital to get your business off the ground. Here's what Wes has to say about that:

[su_quote]Most entrepreneurs forget about working capital and the need for a reserve to get you through the beginning stages of when you start your business… In most people's cases, they have to reserve enough money to get them through the first year to pay themselves.[/su_quote]

Set aside enough money to cover your expenses for six months (if not longer). An excellent strategy to minimize how much money you'll need is only securing enough cash to take you to the next stage of your business.

This is known as “ the lean startup ” and will dramatically increase your chances of success.

Run your coffee shop as a side hustle

You can save money by holding down another job so you don't have to siphon funds from your fledgling business (that's what Wes did):

[su_quote]I worked for a good five years in another job so I wasn't a drag on the company and I was able to keep the money flowing into the company and able to make the company successful before I started drawing salary. So, we actually got to store number six before I ever started earning money out of the company. And I worked another job during the day, and then at night I'd make all the deals, and put these things together, and before you know it, we have six stores.[/su_quote]

How are you going to fund your venture?

With all this in mind, consider how you’ll fund your coffee shop. Your plan can include personal savings, loans, investors, or a combination of these.

Are you going to take a crack at crowdfunding or find a friend willing to invest in your idea like Wes did? Or, perhaps you have relatives who can loan you some startup dough?

You can always seek out venture capital or try to get a bank loan . Whatever funding source you turn to, you're going to need enough moolah to get through the inevitable lean times.

Pro Tip: If you think you need loans or investors, check out our blog on how to get a business loan .

Serving up a superior coffee experience is undoubtedly the most crucial aspect of your business. That's why you'll need to find an excellent source for your coffee beans, milk, syrups, equipment, and other necessary supplies .

In the beginning, it's probably best that you outsource the roasting of your beans.

When trying to find a supplier, look for:

• Superior product
• Price point that'll allow you to maximize your profits
• Exceptional assortment

Here's what Wes advises:

[su_quote]You certainly can hire somebody to roast your coffee for you. In our case, we wanted ultimate control over the process, the quality, and the consistency. And we can do that with our own coffee beans coming from specific countries.

How we control the roasting process is really important because we want to know that the process is done correctly, that it's fresh, and that it's done in the way we want it to be done.

So that's why we roast our own coffee. We didn't originally—that was a process that we had outsourced in the beginning years—but eventually, we were able to bring it in house and roast all of our own coffee, and that's been a huge advantage for us.[/su_quote]

As your profits grow, you might want to start thinking about roasting in your shop so that you have a unique product to offer your clientele.

Plan the layout of your coffee shop for both functionality and aesthetics. Consider factors like seating arrangements, counter space, and decoration. Check out some of these designs for inspiration .

Pro Tip: Want to get started with a coffee truc k or cart? Get all the info you need from our Food Truck Ultimate Buying Guide .

Purchase essential coffee shop equipment like an espresso machine, grinders, brewing equipment, refrigerators, and furniture. Make sure they meet industry standards and regulations.

[su_quote]It's really critical to have the right machines. [/su_quote]

Check out part one of our interview with Wes below.

Try to get high-quality equipment, even if it's not new. If you get the cheap stuff, you'll only end up regretting it later on.

Here's the list of equipment you'll need to make your small coffee shop a resounding success:

• Espresso machine
• Coffee grinders
• Drip coffee machine
• Coffee brewers
• Hot water dispenser
• Reach-in refrigerator
• Ice machine
• Bakery display case
• Three-compartment sink
• Frothing pitchers
• Frothing thermometers
• Tea and coffee mugs
• Espresso cups
• Cup, lid, and straw organizers
• Microwaves or ovens (if serving hot food)
• Point of sale (POS) system

As your business grows and your services expand, you might need other coffee shop equipment like coffee roasters.

One of the biggest lures of a gourmet coffee shop is the atmosphere. Create a relaxing physical space with the right décor, and make sure your café has lots of comfy seating, too.

Hire baristas, kitchen staff, and any other necessary employees. Ensure they are trained in coffee preparation, customer service, and health and safety protocols.

Stellar customer service is crucial when you own a coffee shop, so be selective when hiring new staff.

Although your baristas must know how to make beverages correctly, they should also know a little about the coffee itself. These are things like the flavor profiles of each specialty coffee and where the beans come from.

During training, you might want to teach employees about latte art, quality beans, and how to encourage customers to keep coming back.

This is need-to-know information for coffee connoisseurs, so your baristas must be armed with this knowledge.

Pro Tip: Learn more about hiring before you open your own café or coffee shop.

Create a menu that includes a variety of coffee beverages, tea options, snacks, and possibly light meals. Consider catering to different dietary preferences and restrictions.

When you open your coffee shop, you need to consistently serve the best coffee and snacks. If you succeed in doing this, you'll have customers flocking to you.

When it comes to creating your menu, keep in mind that you're not reinventing the wheel—you're taking the best food and drinks offered by the top coffee shops and finding ways to make them better.

There's no way a coffee shop can remain economically viable on coffee sales alone. That's why you need to offer bakery items. Having a delicious assortment of quality baked goods near the cash register will tempt the customer to buy.

Try to come up with at least a few menu items that'll dazzle customers with their originality.

Here's what Wes has to say on this subject:

[su_quote]It's how you can make something creatively different in this space that attracts people and maybe attracts a different market segment than you're normally pulling.[/su_quote]

Check out part two of our interview with Wes below.

Create a strong brand identity, including a memorable logo and a cohesive visual theme.

Develop a marketing plan that includes an online presence (website, social media), promotions, and possibly partnerships with local businesses.

You want to whip customers into a buying frenzy even before you open your doors.

One way to do that is a direct mail or email campaign sending out coupons for free coffee. Do a little research to find out what sort of marketing would be best for your coffee shop.

Here's what Wes has to say about that:

[su_quote]We actually don't spend a lot of money [on] marketing. It's changed over time. So when we first started, we were looking at what are other people doing, how are they marketing themselves, and we realized we didn't need to do a lot of marketing, we didn't need to put advertisements in newspaper(s), that was a thing, back 18 years ago… there was no Facebook, there was no website you could put up, and people would understand what you're doing. So, we actually realized that the best form of advertising for us was putting multiple locations within a certain geographic territory.[/su_quote]

When he first started out almost 20 years ago, his only marketing was opening up new coffee shops! Which, of course, is an atypical way to market yourself. Today, with the advent of social media, Woods Coffee has changed its marketing tactics:

[su_quote][Now], social media is big for us. We're pretty dominant in our space in this area on social media, and that's been a lot of fun. It's a great vehicle for us to show some of our creativity and how people understand who we are and what we offer.[/su_quote]

Obtain all necessary permits and licenses to operate a food and beverage business in your area. This may include health department permits, business licenses, and signage permits.

There are permits and licenses you're going to need before you can start serving customers. This is a long and drawn-out process, so make sure you start early.

Here's what you might need:

• Business and liability insurance
• Food and drink handler certificate
• Health inspection certificate
• Fire certificate
• Kitchen insurance
• Certificate of incorporation
• Business license
• Employment agreement
• Building permit

Conduct a soft opening to test your operations, gather feedback, and make any necessary adjustments before the official opening. These are normally days when family and friends are invited to try the menu.

This will give your coffee business a chance to work with the POS system and inventory management system.

Plan a grand opening event to generate excitement and attract customers to your coffee shop. Contact the local news or a PR firm to help you get the news out. Run paid ads with a promo.

Pro Tip: At the grand opening, encourage reviews by using a QR code to send customers directly to your shop's review page.

You’ll need to establish efficient operating procedures for ordering supplies, scheduling employees, managing inventory, handling finances, and maintaining equipment.

There are restaurant management systems that combine many of these into one system, or you can choose systems that work best for each process.

Pro Tip: Learn more about restaurant management systems .

Focus on providing excellent customer service, quality products, and a comfortable atmosphere to encourage repeat business and positive word-of-mouth.

Your customer service at a coffee shop is heavily impacted by a few things, including:

• Speed of service: Make sure to have enough staff to get people their coffee in a timely manner . To give you an idea, Dunkin serves customers in less than three minutes, while Starbucks takes about four minutes and 30 seconds.
• Correctness of order: A study by Restaurant Business Online found that over 25% of orders have issues and 42.3% of errors were because restaurants messed up. The rest were due to delivery issues. Make sure to get it right.
• Friendliness of staff: A polite, attentive staff goes a long way. One of the things many restaurants do that should be avoided is trying to dominate the order process. Let your customers order unless they communicate they need help.
• Consistency of drinks: Make it easy for your staff to make the drinks the same every time. Provide recipes and utensils that show how much of each product to use.
• Mobile ordering: Let people order online to save time.
• Delivery apps: Find ways to make sure your cold drinks are cold and hot drinks are hot when they are delivered to a customer. You can’t count on the delivery driver to get that right.

Although opening multiple stores was always a part of the Woods Coffee business plan, it happened much sooner than Wes thought it would.

That's because the opportunity to open a second coffee shop fell into their laps in the form of a perfect location they couldn't let pass by.

They seized this opportunity and opened their second store. It was also a way to show the world they were aggressive, growing, and owned their market.

Put a second store in a 6,000-resident town, and you’re going to get a lot of attention. The bold move drove sales in both stores, and they both grew dramatically!

You can do the same thing—just make sure you open your second spot in a carefully planned way. Wes told us having multiple business locations isn’t always the best approach:

[su_quote]It has to be part of your business plan. If you follow your business plan and have it laid out exactly what you wanna do, then follow it. You can't just change midstream. Some businesses are much more successful with just one location. In our case, it just happens to be part of our growth plan and part of our experience that we have multiple locations, and it was part of that original plan that we're executing today. But the idea of ‘How do you scale? How do you grow?’—it's really important. We don't put a lot of money into real estate and buying things. We'd really like to keep our capital fluid and moving. And if we can open more stores, we feel that's better for us.[/su_quote]

Opening a coffee shop FAQ

Donut shop coffee is typically an Arabica bean that pairs well with donuts. These can be anywhere from a light to dark roast, but they will normally be slightly sweeter than other coffee and work well with cream or milk.

A coffee shop bar is a section in a coffee shop where customers can order and enjoy alcoholic beverages in addition to coffee and other non-alcoholic drinks.

A café is similar to a coffee shop but will normally serve slightly more elaborate food than a coffee shop (without having either the size or the selections of a full restaurant).

Go start a successful coffee shop

If you do the proper market research, write and follow a solid business plan, and focus on continuous improvement, you should find success when you open a coffee shop.

Wes was able to open a coffee shop and grow it to 19 locations. That means you can, too!

What’s the signature drink you’ll use to build your multi-million-dollar coffee empire?

Naughty or Nice? Christmas Bonus Statistics Everyone Needs to Know (2023)

It’s the season of giving, and all the Yuletide joy got us thinking about the ultimate stocking stuffer in the business world: the Christmas bonus.

Veteran and rookie business owners alike might be wondering if they should cap the year off with a bonus, and employees certainly want to know if they’ll be on the receiving end. So we spent the month of November conducting original surveys about expectations and intentions for year-end bonuses.

[su_note note_color="#dbeafc"] How giving are employers during the Christmas season, and what can employees expect to receive? Read our findings from start to finish, or click any link below to jump to the specific topic that interests you most:

Key findings

Christmas bonuses bring tidings of comfort and joy, come december, cash is king, how much do businesses give, christmas bonuses last season, why some companies skip christmas bonuses, christmas bonuses in 2023.

• Conclusion [/su_note]
• Over 80% of respondents say year-end bonuses improve employee morale .
• The majority of respondents think a Christmas bonus equal to a week’s pay is adequate.
• 71% of Christmas bonuses come in the form of cash or one-time paycheck bumps .
• Over one-fifth of companies give bonuses of more than $1,000.
• 42% of companies give less than $100 in Christmas bonuses per employee.
• Insufficient revenue is the main driver for not providing Christmas bonuses.
• 51% of companies plan to give a Christmas bonus in 2023 .

The Christmas season is unmistakably commercial—and the strong link between commerce and the holiday can turn even the jolliest among us into Grinches.

Case in point: Two-thirds of survey respondents think businesses value the holiday season more than kids do . Christmas magic has entrepreneurially minded people under no illusions.

But does that disenchantment mean holidays in the workplace bring no joy? It doesn’t seem so. A healthy 84% of survey participants say employee morale increases after receiving a year-end bonus .

Expectations when it comes to those bonuses vary. According to our survey:

• 50% of people consider a week’s pay a good bonus.
• 21% are okay with a day’s pay or less.
• 29% consider a month’s pay or more to be adequate.

Our takeaway? Giving a bonus of some amount at Christmastime is a no-brainer. Happy employees perform better, and a bonus is a great way to juice morale—and performance—as you head into the new year.

UpFlip pays out Christmas bonuses, so we asked our CEO, Sergei Belous, for his take. He said:

[su_quote]Employees are the cornerstone of the success of any organization, and the least we can do for them is give Christmas bonuses as a token of our appreciation.[/su_quote]

Businesses that give Christmas bonuses like to keep it simple.

Just over 71% of survey respondents who provided year-end bonuses in 2022 gave their employees cash or added money to their paychecks .

Another 21% opted to give gift cards or days off , and one respondent’s company gave money, gift cards, and days off. That’s a Christmas miracle!

The remaining 8% gave something else . If you received something other than money, gift cards, or days off, we’d love to hear from you in the comments.

When it comes to dollar amounts, companies’ year-end bonuses vary widely: 42% give each employee less than $100 while 22% give more than $1,000 .

The remaining 36% fall somewhere in the middle, with 19% giving between $251 and $1,000 and 17% giving between $100 and $250 .

46% of surveyed business owners gave Christmas bonuses in 2022, but about one-fifth of them don’t plan to give them again in 2023 .

On the other hand, 53% of businesses didn’t give year-end bonuses in 2022, but one-fifth of them plan to change course by providing them in 2023 .

On the employee side of things, 24% of those surveyed reported receiving Christmas bonuses in 2022, but almost one-fifth of them don’t expect to see one again this year .

76% of respondents didn’t get a Christmas bonus last year . On the bright side, just over one-tenth of them expect that to change this year .

According to our survey, 48% percent of companies don’t generally give Christmas bonuses .

Companies that don’t give during the holidays aren’t necessarily Scrooges, though. Of those that don’t give Christmas bonuses, 62% percent say they simply don’t make enough money .

11% cite poor employee performance for not giving year-end bonuses , and another 11% say they don’t know what to give .

The remaining 15% cited other reasons for not giving , including not celebrating the holiday or living somewhere that already mandates the equivalent of a holiday bonus.

There are a couple of reasons to be jolly this year!

More than half of responding businesses— 51% , to be exact— plan to give their employees Christmas bonuses in 2023 . That includes 89% that plan to offer them for at least the second year in a row .

Unfortunately, 81% of the responding business owners who didn’t give a Christmas bonus last year won’t give one this year, either .

Our surveys show that more companies intend to give Christmas bonuses in 2023 than did in 2022. Unsurprisingly, the holiday bonuses they give are perceived to improve morale.

Thankfully, companies that don’t plan to give Christmas bonuses are actually in the minority.

There’s also agreement on what makes a good Christmas bonus: at least a week’s pay. That should help guide the 11% of business owners who are lost on what to give as a year-end gift.

And since the majority of employers base their holiday bonuses (if they provide them) on the year’s earnings, they should focus on growing their business .

Do you expect to give or receive a Christmas bonus? Let us know in the comments.

How to Start a $24K/Month Laundromat Business (2024)

Did you know the average laundromat makes over $238K, and up to half of that can go to the laundromat owners?

The laundromat industry in the U.S. is worth $5BN, with over 21,000 businesses in operation that employ over 50,000 people.

Do I have your attention? If I do, get ready to learn how to start a laundromat!

We have interviewed the owners of four different laundromat businesses, including Dave Menz, the CEO of Queen City Laundry, who owns four laundromats and makes over $1.8 million annually.

Dave will share his wisdom on finding a laundromat, getting financing, how to value the business, and how to negotiate a deal. We pull in insights from other successful laundromat owners, too. Get ready to learn how to start a laundromat.

Case Study: Queen City Laundry

Learn about the laundry industry, step 1: choose a business model, step 2: write a business plan, step 3: build relationships with distributors, step 4: get financing, step 5: find a location, step 6: get permits and insurance, step 7: set up your business, step 8: develop a marketing strategy.

• Final Remarks About Laundromat Businesses [/su_note]

Dave Menz got into the laundry business in 2010. He told us:

[su_quote] I grew up in poverty and people looking down at me. I fought out of poverty to middle class and then financial independence. I could do nothing if I wanted to, but I prefer to teach people to reach that same level. [/su_quote]

He bought his first laundromat and worked at it on nights and weekends. He bought two more before he made enough that he could quit his job and still live a comparable life. Dave told us:

[su_quote] I don’t love doing laundry, but I love the industry. I love the people, the impact on my community, and the opportunities it provides.

The laundromat industry is not for everyone, but for many it can be a phenomenal business. I see the antiquated nature of the industry as a positive because it makes it easy for you to stand out compared to a coin laundry business. [/su_quote]

His primary services are:

• Self-serve laundry
• Drop-off wash and fold
• Dry cleaning
• Pickup and delivery laundry
• Commercial laundry services

Since starting, Dave has bought four more laundromats. When he buys laundromats, he looks for locations he can fix up that offer services he can improve on to make them more appealing to local clients.

Dave maintains one company that owns the land his laundromats are on. This separate company rents the land to his laundromats, effectively making him his own landlord. This unique strategy has built him a $3.8 million net worth and makes him over $1.8 million in revenue per year. Find out how below:

He’s currently working on upgrading from coin machines to accepting cards and PhonePay in addition to the other services he offers.

Have you ever found yourself wondering how much money a laundromat makes? Or Is the average laundromat cost something I can afford?

Dave told us:

[su_quote] Laundromats are a vital community resource. That’s really why I fell in love with the business. [/su_quote]

Established organizations provide the information you need. Keep reading to find places that conduct market research and provide market analysis.

Check out the free industry overview by the Coin Laundry Association (CLA) . Also, download their most recent Laundry Industry Survey and Laundry Customer Profile, which presents the results of over 400 customer surveys.

For commercial laundry, the Textile Rental Services Association (TRSA) offers benchmarking reports . Don’t overlook the National Apartment Association (NAA), which provides insight into the industry’s multi-housing segment.

How much do laundromats make?

When you open a laundromat, you should assume that it will make around $300K in revenue annually. You can add additional sources of revenue by adding vending machines , laundry delivery, and other services.

[su_quote] Almost everything is paid upfront before services are provided. This makes running the business easier because you don’t have to chase customers for payment.

Businesses focus on [repairs] and collecting the money from a coin laundry machine. You can reimagine this to save you time, money, and help your customers better.

The laundromat business is not passive income, but semi-passive or flexible. [/su_quote]

Of course, emergencies are bound to occur if all you do is fix things when they’re broken. Take proactive steps to keep your laundromat running smoothly, and you’ll find yourself on the road to laundromat success.

One of Dave’s recommendations: Add an annual sewage drain flush to your maintenance routine to reduce breakdowns.

He does that for all his laundromats, and listen to what happened:

[su_quote] We were looking for a consolidation loan and were putting all the financials together, and I realized I am a millionaire. [/su_quote]

Inspired? Get ready to learn about laundromat profitability.

Are laundromats profitable?

According to Cents , the average U.S. laundromat profitability is 20 to 30% on approximately $300K in revenue assuming they are not using leverage. According to Dave, top-performing laundromats can operate with 50% margins or higher. That's two to eight times higher than the average real estate investment, which is 7 to 10%.

A laundromat's ROI changes depending on:

• Age of Machines: As washers and dryers age, maintenance costs increase.
• Business Expenses: Rent, water, gas, electric, and inventory can easily add up to $10K per month.
• Competition: The less competition you have, the more your new laundromat can charge. Adding full-service makes it so you can charge more.
• Location: Like home mortgages, a new laundromat will cost more to operate in places with higher property values.
• Pricing: While a coin laundromat might charge between $1.50 and $4 a wash, you can charge by the pound when people pay for full-service washing and drying.
• Services Offered: Providing services like full-service washing, drying, and delivery can increase revenue and reduce the employee costs as a percentage.
• Employees’ Pay: Even at minimum wage, payroll is the largest expense for most laundromat owners.
• Local Taxes: Local and state sales taxes can be up to 13% .

Ancillary services like dry cleaning, pickup and delivery, sneaker cleaning, wash and fold, and other luxury services can increase your profitability .

Rosie Wash Express Laundry achieves impressive 36% margins by offering additional services and a rewards program. Want to learn more? Check out our interview with the existing laundry business owner.

How much does a laundromat cost?

Entrepreneurs normally spend between $100,000 and $1,000,000 to start a new laundromat or buy a laundry business for sale.

Dave suggests that you should normally spend between two and five times revenue, but that you should base your business valuation on what it’s worth to you.

The startup costs to open a laundromat depend on:

• Size: Small laundromats will normally cost less than $300K, while larger laundry facilities will cost $500K or more.
• Equipment: The number of machines, capacity, and age will impact the price of a laundromat.
• Services: The startup costs will vary depending on whether you offer other services. An old store with no customers is worth less than one with a great customer base.
• Location: Every city has different property costs.
• Buy vs. Build: Buying an existing laundromat will normally have less startup costs than building a new laundry business. You’ll also earn revenue faster, which should reduce the overall startup costs.
• Future Operational Costs: You should include a budget of approximately $15K monthly for future operating expenses, loan payments, rent, and maintenance.

Where is the best place to put a laundry business?

The best location for a laundry business will have the following characteristics:

• Population Density: Laundromats do best in areas where there are at least 20K to 35K people in a one-mile radius.
• Low-Income Neighborhoods: Locations near apartments, colleges, low-income housing, and trailer parks tend to do better because low-income families often need to use a coin-operated business.
• Accessibility: You’ll want a location that is easily accessible by car, bus, or foot. Signage should be easily viewable and parking abundant.
• Low Competition: Lots of competition means lower profit margins and potential price wars.
• Good Neighbors: Businesses like auto part stores, cash checking, convenience stores, and grocery stores are good neighbors for laundromats because they provide lots of traffic that might need your services.

Get ready to learn step by step how to start a laundry business.

How to Start a Laundromat

Starting a laundromat means you’ll need to

• Choose a business model.
• Write a business plan.
• Build relationships with distributors.
• Get financing.
• Find a location.
• Get permits and insurance.
• Set up your business.
• Develop a marketing strategy.

First, you’ll need to pick a laundry business type, which means selecting your services, business structure, and business model.

Consider the different kinds of laundromat businesses:

• Coin laundry
• Private laundromat equipment for multi-tenant buildings
• Wash-and-fold service
• Commercial laundry for uniforms, linens, and facilities
• Pickup and delivery

Learn about each type of laundry service below.

Self-service coin laundry business

When you want to start a laundry business, you’ll find most business entities offer coin-operated machines that people operate themselves. A business venture that focuses on this strategy is normally going to have the lowest profit margin of companies that clean clothes.

That said, at Ferndale Laundry, the most revenue comes from self-serve machines. Owner Justin says:

[su_quote] There’s little to no maintenance or cost to me because they’re doing all the work. [/su_quote]

Check out our interview with Justin below.

You might also check out this video about a day in the life of a laundromat business owner.

Dry cleaning business

A dry cleaning business uses completely different laundry machines than standard washers and dryers. Dry cleaners normally charge by the garment. Common dry cleaning prices range from:

• Shirts : $2.99 to $8 • Pants: $6 to $11.99 • Sweaters: $7.50 to $12.99 • Dresses : $13.25 to $19.99 • Suits: $14.99 to $25.95 • Coats: $15 to $25.99 • Comforters : $18.99 to $42.99

Wash and fold service

Owning a laundromat that offers wash and fold services can be highly beneficial. It improves your customer experience because they can drop off their clothes on the way to work and pick them up on the way home.

Laundromat prices will normally be based on the pound. That means you make more money per wash and protect your machines by not overloading them, which saves your business entity from increased maintenance costs.

Commercial laundry facility

A commercial laundry facility provides uniforms and other items to service companies and hotels, picks up dirty uniforms and sheets, and washes them. This is highly profitable because you make money from both the rental of clothing and the cleaning.

Check out Cintas’s website for an example of commercial laundry and uniform company offerings.

Laundromat service for apartment complexes

Whether you choose to operate a coin laundry business or laundromat equipment rental business, you can make money by supplying quality equipment to apartment complexes. Check out information about multi-unit housing on NAA’s website.

Delivery service

Rosie Wash Express Laundry uses an app to manage its home delivery business, allowing customers to enter details and pay online. Delivery drivers receive GPS information to complete their routes.

Pro Tip: Get more information about owning a pickup-and-delivery business here .

Choose a business structure

In addition to deciding what kind of laundry services you’ll offer, you need to create a business entity for your laundromat. This requires selecting a business name that is available as a website domain, trademark, and social media handle.

The two most common ways to create a business entity are a limited liability company (LLC) or a corporation. There are other types of business entities you might want to consider, but most involve potential liability you don’t want to assume.

Both LLCs and corporations limit your potential losses to the initial investment as long as you don’t sign anything guaranteeing personal liability. You can also run both on your own or with business partners.

Dave uses numerous business structures to manage his business, including LLCs and land-rent agreements between his company that owns the land and his companies that own the laundromat.

Pro Tip : Learn how to register your business and how to get an employer identification number (EIN) from the IRS .

This plan should outline your strengths, competitors, goals, and workflow. A good plan can help you attract investors or earn grants.

Iron out your vision, objectives, and strategy into a laundromat business plan that will help you accomplish essentials like securing financing or partnering with other businesses. It’s totally worth your time.

Pro Tip: If you want some extra guidance on how to write a business plan that will appeal to investors, consider working with a company like Wise Business Plans , whose team of MBA-trained writers have experience writing business plans that successfully secure funding from banks and other lenders.

Dave told us that relationships with his distributors contribute to nearly 50% of his success. Some of the most common types of distributors are:

• Fly-by-Night Distributors: Laundromat owners who are doing it because their own distributor was bad. They may work from home and play middleman. They only work with small groups of manufacturers and normally deal with bad customers.
• Plain Janes: They are more established but they just do the bare minimum. They are typically very nice but don’t add much value to the industry.
• Rock Star Distributors: These professionals get you access to an extensive infrastructure and are well-established with a major building and service department. They normally have company vehicles that are branded and fully stocked. You’ll also have access to a full parts department with technicians who can predict problems based on your description of the issue you’re facing. They will train you as a laundry business owner and work with manufacturer reps. Plus, they’ll have a professional installation department.

But how do you find the best distributors? Do a Google search, contact manufacturers, or network with people . After you’ve found a prospective distributor, you’ll want to talk to them on the phone then visit their location.

You'll need money to cover leasing or buying a space, hiring employees, and buying equipment. Getting into the laundromat business isn’t cheap. You’ll want to estimate how much you need to start and operate the business, which you can learn how to do through Udemy .

Once you’ve established how much money you’ll need, you have to find a way to get the money. Some common funding options include:

• Self Financing: If you have a cool $1M lying around, you can open a laundrymat with your own money. Most people don’t have that much, though.
• Equipment Loan: You can secure an equipment loan with the equipment when you start or buy a laundromat. Learn more in our blog about business loans .
• Rollover Business Startup: Create a corporation and a 401K, then sell your shares of the corporation to your 401K. Use the proceeds for buying a laundromat or starting a laundromat business.

The Small Business Administration (SBA) offers free courses on financing options and funding programs . Consider alternative sources of funding, like crowdfunding or even a home equity loan.

Many small business owners finance their investment at least partially through a business loan. You can inquire about financing options with your business banker, or compare options from multiple lenders on National Business Capital .

You can find a range of financing options on their site, including term loans with flexible financing and business lines of credit. Many of these have no credit score requirement, either, so you can access funds for your business regardless of your personal financial situation.

Pro Tip: Want to know how to open a laundromat with no money? Check out our blog about seller financing to find out how.

Fact: 87% of laundromat customers live within one mile of their preferred location.

Taking the time to find an ideal location is the best investment of your time as a future laundromat owner.

Consider a location near any of the following:

• Apartment buildings
• College students
• Tourist areas
• Hotels and motels
• Large family housing developments

Dave offers some suggestions on how to find a business location in your local market, including:

• Check business listings.
• Network, talk to distributors, and use business brokers.
• Compile a list of attractive locations.
• Visit the locations.
• Value the business.

Self-serve laundromats are normally in small towns or outskirts of suburban areas, under 5,000 square feet, and unmanned. Large laundromats are typically over 5,000 square feet and in busy areas.

High-volume laundromats with lots of ancillary laundry locations are the biggest and largest laundry businesses and normally have four or five streams of revenue that diversify their income.

The CLA offers more information about site selection for a laundromat business.

Once you have found a strategic location, there are things to do before you open to customers. You’ll need to get business licenses, a state tax ID or sales tax permit, and relevant insurance. Some common types of insurance include general liability, commercial property, workers compensation, and crime insurance.

Licenses, permits, and tax forms

Regardless of the legal structure you choose, determine if your business may require any licenses, permits, or tax forms to operate legally. Use the SBA’s tool . Also, you might be required to collect sales tax. Now go out and do it!

Business insurance

During his first week of operations, Jeff, the owner of Rosie Wash Express Laundry, witnessed a customer fall down, crack his head on the floor, and start bleeding. Hopefully, that shows why every laundromat owner needs commercial property insurance and liability insurance.

Both will typically be included in small business general liability insurance that you can get from trusted providers like Simply Business . Even if you have an insurance provider you trust for your personal property, it’s a smart move to work with a company that specializes in small businesses for your laundromat.

Furthermore, if you plan to hire employees, you will need workers compensation insurance and unemployment insurance. Gain general knowledge about insurance for a small business here .

You can also check out CLA’s listing of insurance products that meet the specific needs of a coin-operated laundry business .

Get a business bank account and credit card, and purchase equipment. You'll also need to set up software and prepare marketing materials.

Get a business bank account

Whether you start a new laundromat or buy an existing laundromat, you’ll need a business bank account. You can get a business bank account from major banks, regional banks, or online banks.

Regional banks tend to provide better business loans, but online banks offer better interest rates on cash in your bank account. Learn more about business bank accounts .

Get a business credit card

A business credit card can help fund your laundromat startup cost. You may have to get a secured one at first.

Purchase equipment

You’ll need washers, dryers, and other equipment for your laundromat. This equipment is a major part of the cost to open a laundromat.

Expect to spend between $1K and $5K each for a commercial washer or dryer. Meanwhile, industrial washers and dryers can cost between $10K and $50K depending on the load size and power.

The machines’ capacity can range from 30 to 80 pounds. To learn more, check out this handy formula for calculating the capacity of a machine .

Dave explains that you want to find properties with value-add opportunities. Look at the space usage, the amenities you can add, the services you can add, and how the property can be upgraded to provide a different or better experience. He told us:

[su_quote] We turned a $500-per-week property into a $7,000-per-week business by making changes. [/su_quote]

As you’re shopping and pricing, consider that new equipment comes with a warranty. Read a white paper about replacing laundry equipment . Buy the right laundry equipment for your store by referring to the laundry equipment and services directories .

You might also want to include vending machines or a small convenience store in your laundromat to supplement income.

Technological innovations are fueling a revival of the laundry industry. Laundry apps are becoming increasingly popular, but what’s the bottom line?

• Dexter Pay: According to its website, Dexter Pay is an app “that allows laundry customers to pay for their laundry and track cycle progress via their smartphone or mobile device.”
• Speed Queen Value Center: Speed Queen is a popular laundromat equipment manufacturer that offers an app for cash users. Customers add physical cash to the value center machine, which uploads it to their payment app.
• Accounting Software: Keep track of income and expenses and run regular reports to understand how your laundromat business performs. Try accounting software such as Xero or QuickBooks .

You can attract customers with a good location, but you can optimize that even further with marketing such as a website, social media, and advertisements.

Dave explains that you’ll want to invest in

[su_quote] A market differentiator that makes your laundry business stand out against [its] competitors. [/su_quote]

He says some of the things that make a difference include:

• Clean bathrooms
• Air conditioning
• Payment systems
• Other services

You can use all of these to market your business and stand out in the laundromat industry. Provide a value proposition, charge more, and market the differences without putting your competitors down.

Digital marketing

Digital marketing includes email newsletters, social media, and search engine optimization (SEO).

Google My Business helps you:

• Track the number of visitors and impressions.
• Determine where visitors see an advertisement based on a code.
• Know if a new customer is the result of a conversion from your marketing campaign.

Facebook is another great site for marketing your business.

Another pro tip is to invest in an all-in-one marketing software like Semrush . The Site Audit tool demystifies search engine optimization for new business owners, while their Keyword Magic tool can save you tons of time on keyword research. Using this type of program also makes it much easier to track marketing campaigns across multiple platforms to ensure you’re getting the full value from the time and money you spend.

Printed materials

Print marketing includes business cards, flyers, brochures, t-shirts, and even uniforms! Try designing yours in Canva .

You might also run advertisements in local newspapers, or ValPack mailers, which reach 10K residents for $300 a month on a five-month subscription.

Attracting customers

Consider offering extra amenities, such as Wi-Fi. CLA published a guide to help laundry owners through the basics of setting up a secure network .

Other ways to create a welcoming atmosphere include cleanliness, professionalism, a children’s area, and televisions.

Final Remarks About Laundromat Businesses

We’ve discussed the coin laundry industry, startup and monthly cost to run a laundromat, and how to start a laundromat business. Along the way, we provided information on how to craft a great laundromat business plan, getting a business license, financing, choosing locations, and marketing your laundromat.

It’s up to you to decide whether you want to start a new laundromat or buy a laundromat for sale. What strategies will you use to take your laundromat business idea to the next level?

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My Name is PRETTY NGOMANE. A south African female. Aspiring to do farming. And finding a home away from home for the differently abled persons in their daily needs.

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The Importance of Reflective Leadership in Business

• 05 Sep 2023

Effective leadership is essential to business success. As an organizational leader , you not only guide decision-making but create your company’s culture, retain its talent, and move it toward bigger, better things.

Your leadership style —the behavioral patterns consistent across your decision-making—influences your impact on your organization and team. One of the most beneficial styles to adopt is reflective leadership.

If you want to learn more about reflective leadership’s role in business, here’s an overview of its components, why it’s effective, and how to become a reflective leader.

Access your free e-book today.

What Is Reflective Leadership?

Reflective leadership involves self-awareness, introspection, and continuous learning and growth to make better decisions, enhance leadership skills , and improve team performance .

“Reflective leadership requires the continuous practice of reflection over time,” says Harvard Business School Professor Nien-hê Hsieh in the online course Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability . “This allows you to regularly examine and re-evaluate your decisions and responsibilities to practice, broaden, and deepen your skills, and to apply this knowledge when analyzing present situations.”

Reflective leadership also enables you to help your team grow.

“Reflective leadership is about helping others on your team or in your organization,” Hsieh says. “It’s about helping them develop their own skills in awareness, judgment, and action.”

In Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability , Hsieh delves into the reflective leadership model , a framework for conceptualizing your responsibilities as an ethical leader.

The model has four components:

• Awareness: Recognize your legal, economic, and ethical responsibilities to stakeholders.
• Judgment: Consider biases and shared concepts that influence your decision-making.
• Action: Act on your decisions in an accountable, consistent way.
• Reflection: Reflect on all three components throughout the process to learn from past experiences.

“The reflective leadership model involves not only reflection on business decisions but also continuous reflection on your own personal beliefs, goals, and commitments,” Hsieh says in the course. “These aspects of self are often significant influences on your decisions and internal guides when navigating difficult situations.”

The Importance of Reflective Leadership

Before diving into the importance of reflective leadership, it’s critical to note the pitfalls of being an inadequate leader.

According to recruitment services company Zippia , 79 percent of employees leave their companies because they don’t feel appreciated by leaders, and upwards of 69 percent believe they’d work harder if recognized. In addition, only 33 percent report feeling engaged in the workplace.

Companies also lack focus on leadership development. Zippia reports that 77 percent struggle to find and develop leaders, and only five percent implement leadership development at all levels.

Since reflective leadership focuses on continuously improving and developing, it’s one of the more effective leadership styles. By regularly reflecting on your beliefs and values and incorporating them into your actions, you can make ethical decisions and enable your company to be more purpose-driven .

“Along with responsibility, leadership brings opportunities,” Hsieh explains in Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability . “These include opportunities to make ethical decisions where someone else wouldn’t, to influence others to do the right thing, and to make a positive impact on the world.”

Reflective leadership also helps you build authentic, supportive relationships with team members and create a workplace of ethics and accountability .

If you want to adopt a reflective leadership style, here are the competencies to develop.

How to Become a Reflective Leader

Be self-reflective.

Self-reflection is at reflective leadership’s core. According to Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability , you can practice self-reflection by:

• Reviewing, analyzing, and evaluating your decisions—in the moment and over time.
• Continuously deepening your awareness and self-knowledge.
• Developing a general framework for judgment.
• Improving your capacity for action and leadership.

Leading with self-reflection won’t just help you learn from past experiences but also encourage and enable your team members to adopt reflective mentalities.

Identify Your Commitments

Knowing your commitments is also essential to effective leadership.

“It’s important to identify and define your own commitments,” Hsieh says in Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability , “both to set a baseline for what you will and won’t do and to evaluate and clarify your thoughts, opinions, and feelings when making decisions.”

To create that baseline, Hsieh recommends asking the following questions:

• What’s core to my identity?
• What lines or boundaries won’t I cross?
• What kind of life do I want to live?
• What kind of leader do I want to be?

By identifying your commitments, you can better guide yourself and your team.

Consider Your Accountability

Becoming a reflective leader also requires accountability to successfully execute on your values and implement them into action plans.

This refers to the reflective leadership model’s “action” step—putting your decisions into practice in a way that’s accountable and consistent with your responsibilities.

“When leading reflectively, straightforward action planning may not be enough,” Hsieh says in Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability . “An accountable leader will go beyond just answering ‘How will we do it?’ to ask ‘How can I do it accountably?’”

Reflective Leadership Training for Businesses

By incorporating your values into your leadership style, you can learn from your experiences on a deeper level and develop into a better leader.

One way to gain the skills and frameworks to succeed long term is by taking an online course, such as Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability . Through a dynamic, interactive learning experience, the course provides the opportunity to apply the reflective leadership model to real-world business ethics challenges.

Are you ready to become a reflective leader? Apply to Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability —one of our online leadership and management courses —and download our free e-book on effective leadership.

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How to Practice Reflective Thinking

Understanding your present is critical to planning your future.

Sitting in silence and self-reflecting activates multiple parts of our brain and helps us increase awareness of what matters most to us. However, in the busyness of our everyday lives, it can be hard to find the time to stop and reflect. All self-reflection takes is a little bit of MAGIC: mirror, aspirations, goals, ideas, and commitments. The author created this method, based on their experience and coaching practice, to help people unlock the power of silence and reflective thought.

• Mirror: Start by imagining yourself looking into a metaphorical mirror, and reflect on your current situation. How did you get to where you are today, and how do you feel about your present circumstances? Start positively by recognizing everything that is going well. Then, identify ways in which you could improve.
• Aspirations: After reflecting on the present, it’s time to focus on the future. Visualize the person you want to see in your metaphorical mirror. What does success look like for you? If you could wave a magic wand, what would you really like to achieve in the next year?
• Goals: Once you have clarified your aspirations for the future, turn them into specific and tangible goals, with milestones and timescales to benchmark your progress. To do that, start with an action verb (increase, achieve, gain, sell). Then clearly specify what success looks like (becoming a manager, work on 2 high profile projects, reduce client complaints). Lastly, add a target date or deadline to aim for, chunked up into shorter milestones if necessary (over two months, in the next year, every week).
• Ideas: Once you have a set of clear goals which outline exactly what you want to achieve, you can then explore how these goals could be achieved, and start to create an action plan.Think about what you’ll have to give and what you’ll gain if you action a particular idea.
• Commitments: Finally, incorporate your ideas into a clear plan. A good plan contains specific step-by-step actions, with dates, deadlines and resources, and contingency plans for how you might overcome obstacles.

“I’m so pressed for time that I barely get the chance to think about what I want to do next.”

• RN Rosie Nice is the founder of MAGIC Coaching .  She runs coach training programs and helps organisations build a coaching culture, sharing the transformational results which coaching can bring. She is also the author of the book , The MAGIC Happens in the Silence , whihc is a guide to the art of reflective coaching.

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How to Write a Business Plan [Complete Guide]

Last Updated on – Aug 8, 2023 @ 3:22 pm

Preparing to write your business plan? You’re already one step ahead of other entrepreneurs who don’t see its value.

A well-thought-out and well-written plan for starting and running your business helps you focus on what you need to do to make your business idea work. It can also boost your chance of getting investments and loans to finance your business .

Did you know that half of small businesses fail in their first four years? Planning is such a crucial step to reducing the risks of managing an enterprise. Turn your business idea from something abstract and uncertain into a successful venture. It starts with drafting a good business plan.

Here’s your definitive guide to writing a business plan that speaks for itself.

What is a Business Plan?

A business plan is a written document that details what a business is, what direction it will take, and how you’ll get it there.

Practically speaking, the business plan evaluates your business’ viability. As the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) puts it , the document allows entrepreneurs to find out whether or not their business idea will bring in more money than how much it costs to start and run it.

More than just a document, the business plan helps business owners to figure out the key aspects of an enterprise, including the following:

• Business goals and strategies to meet them
• Competitive edge and how to leverage it
• Potential problems and how to solve them
• Funding required to start the business
• Equipment, facilities, and manpower needed for operations

Who Needs a Business Plan and What Is It Used For?

Every aspiring entrepreneur who will spend a great amount of money, time, and energy to earn a profit needs a business plan.

Business planning is a crucial part of starting an entrepreneurial journey, no matter how small or big a business is. Never skip this step—as they say, failing to plan is planning to fail.

Here are some examples of business types that benefit much from business planning:

Founders of startup businesses seek funds to begin their new venture. Business plans help them persuade investors and lenders to provide the funding they need.

For startups, a business plan explains the nature of the new venture, how it will achieve its goals, and why the founders are the best people to lead the company. The startup business plan should also specify the capital needed to jumpstart the new business.

Related: Fast-Growing Startups in the Philippines

Existing Businesses

Not only do startups gain advantage from a business plan—existing enterprises need it, too.

But business plans for growing businesses serve a different purpose. Usually, a business plan helps a middle-stage business raise funds for additional facilities, equipment, manpower, and others needed for expansion. This document also defines strategies for growth and allocates resources based on strategic priorities.

Growing businesses also use business plans to communicate their vision to various stakeholders such as customers, business partners, potential investors and lenders, employees, and suppliers.

For such needs, a business plan for existing businesses lays out the goals, strategies, metrics to evaluate success, responsibilities, and resource allocation.

Social Enterprises

Social enterprises may not be as profit-driven as other business types, but that doesn’t mean they need business planning any less.

A social enterprise needs to prepare a business plan to achieve its social objectives and keep empowering the communities it’s supporting. This document is what government agencies and donor agencies require and evaluate when approving grants for funding a social project .

A social enterprise business plan determines the social issue that a business idea will solve, its beneficiaries, products or services, target market, and sales projections, among many others.

Non-Profit Organizations/NGOs

Like social enterprises, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) can also use business plans to source funds for their campaigns and projects.

A nonprofit business plan discusses the problems an NGO is trying to solve through a certain project, as well as how it will do that and how much resources are needed.

It also helps the organization and its board members to prepare for risks by making projections on how likely the activities will push through and how the current sources of funds will continue to yield a certain level of revenue. Most importantly, the business plan defines the Plan B if the original plan ends up failing.

Business Plan Format and Its Components

How does a business plan exactly look like? There’s no recommended universal format for business plans. Ideally, yours is customized according to the nature of your business and what you’re going to use the plan for.

However, all business plans have sections in common. Here’s a quick walkthrough of the six components that make up a business plan.

1. Executive Summary

Like an abstract of a college thesis or a foreword of a book, the executive summary is meant to provide a brief overview of the document. It presents the highlights of a business plan in a page or two.

The executive summary the first thing that readers see, so keep it short yet engaging and compelling enough to make them want to view more details in your plan.

2. Company Profile

The company profile is your chance to introduce yourself and your business to people outside your company. It’s also called the company summary, company information, business description, and business profile.

This section quickly answers the five Ws and one H of your business: who, what, when, where, why, and how.

Think of it as your business calling card. Being the shortest section of the business plan, the company profile provides a quick overview of the business—who the owner and founder is, management team, business goals, business address, product or service, and what makes it unique.

3. Operations Plan

The operations plan explains how you’ll run your business, focusing on the different aspects of manufacturing your product. This section includes the following information, among many others:

• Type of business (sole proprietorship, partnership, corporation , or non-profit)
• How the product is made or the service completed
• Necessary materials, equipment, and facilities to manufacture the product or complete the service
• Any subcontractors needed
• Quality control system

4. Organizational Plan

Your people should play a major role in your business plan, just as how they’re important to your business success . The organizational plan includes a chart that shows how your company is structured according to key departments or functions such as administration, production/manufacturing, marketing, and finance. This organizational chart not only presents the levels of authority in a company but also clarifies who is responsible for which people and function.

Aside from the organizational chart, the organizational plan also includes these details:

• Number of employees to hire
• Responsibilities of each job role
• Qualifications of workers who will perform each role
• Salaries and benefits per job assignment

5. Marketing Plan

The marketing plan and the succeeding chapters are the heart and soul of your business plan, explaining the things that will make your business work. This section details how you plan to promote your product or service in the market.

Specifically, the marketing plan covers the following:

• How the product or service will work and how it will benefit customers
• Target market and its profile
• Strategies for packaging, advertising, public relations, and distribution
• Competitive advantage

6. Financial Plan

A critical section in your business plan, the financial plan helps you assess how much money you’ll need to start or grow your enterprise and identify your funding sources to get your business off the ground and sustain its operations. This is where you’ll provide financial estimates that cover at least one year of running your business.

Investors and lenders specifically look for these financial details in business plans:

• How much you’re going to borrow, what you’ll use the loan for, and how you’ll pay it back
• How much profit you’re expecting to make (through an income statement and balance sheet)
• How you can finance your business operations (through a cash flow statement)
• Whether to keep the business going or close it down to cut losses (through a break-even analysis)

Related: How to Write a Business Proposal

Should You Use a Business Plan Template?

Business plan templates identify what information to put into each section and how it should be structured.

They provide instructions to guide entrepreneurs through the process. This way, nothing is missed out while writing the plan.

Thus, using a business plan template is a great idea, especially if this is your first time to prepare a plan for starting or growing your enterprise.

Helpful as it as may be, a business plan template doesn’t make business planning 100% effortless. While it provides the outline that makes writing the plan easy and quick, you still need to do your homework.

For example, a template won’t compute the financial projections for you—it’s a task you have to complete either on your own or with the help of a professional.

So before you use a business plan template, manage your expectations first and be prepared to do a lot of math!

8 Free Business Plan Templates

Yes, you read it right—you can download free online business plan templates. Some of these templates are designed for a specific niche, while others offer sample business plans for a wide range of business categories and industries.

Start off by choosing any of these free templates that suit your business planning needs.

1. Business Plan Format by the DTI

DTI has a wealth of useful information for micro, small, and medium businesses in the Philippines. Of course, it’s free to access since it comes from the government.

On the DTI website, simply look for the Business Planning section and download the business plan format in a PDF file. This document not only lists down all the information to be included in every section of a business plan, but it also provides guide questions per section—making business planning easier for first-timers.

If you want a more detailed discussion of what should go into each component of your business plan plus sample scenarios, check the DTI’s Negosyo Center e-book that fleshes out things for small business owners.

2. Simple Business Plan Template by The Balance Small Business 

The Balance is an online resource for small business owners. It has a free business plan template that’s simple and easy to understand for beginners, with instructions on how to use it. Broken down into sections, the simple business plan template tells you what to include in each component of the plan.

Simply copy the free template and paste it into a word document or spreadsheet. From there, you can start drafting your business plan with the template as a guide.

3. Free Sample Business Plans by Bplans

This website features a collection of over 500 free business plan samples for various industries, including restaurants, e-commerce, real estate, services, nonprofit, and manufacturing.

Under each category are links to many sample business plans for specific types of business. Each sample comes with a plan outline, too. For example, under the Services category, you’ll find sample plans for businesses like auto repair shops, advertising agencies, catering companies, health spas, photography studios, and more.

4. Business Plan Samples by LivePlan

More than 500 free sample business plans are available at the LivePlan website, so you’re likely to find one that suits your business best. The samples allow users to know how other businesses structured and worded each component of their business plans. You can copy and paste the sections into your own plan.

To download a full business plan sample, you’ll have to sign up by submitting your name and email address through the website.

5. Business Plan Templates by PandaDoc

PandaDoc offers free business plan templates for NGOs, startups, restaurants, cafes, bakeries, hotels, and salons. These documents can be downloaded in PDF format.

But if you want a customizable template, you can download the PandaDoc template for a 14-day free trial. This template allows you to edit the document, choose a theme that matches your branding, and add pictures and videos.

The website also has free templates for executive summaries and business letters.

6. The One-Page Business Plan by The $100 Startup

If your business has a simple concept, then a one-page business plan template is ideal to use. This downloadable PDF file is a very simple outline made up of a few sections with questions that you have to answer in just a short sentence or two.

7. Business Plans by Microsoft

Microsoft provides a broad selection of templates for its users, including business plan templates in Word, business plan presentations in PowerPoint, and business plan checklists in Excel.

• Sample business plan template (Word) – Provides the steps in writing a complete business plan
• Business plan presentation template (PowerPoint) – Consists of slides for different sections of a business plan that highlight the key points for viewers
• Business plan checklist template (Excel) – Enumerates the important things to do when writing a business plan, using the Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, and Threat (SWOT) analysis framework

The advantage of using a template from Microsoft is having a professional-looking document, slideshow presentation, or spreadsheet. No need to do the formatting by yourself because the template is already formatted. All you have to do is enter the necessary information into the template to complete your business plan.

8. Social Business Plan Guidelines by the Ateneo de Manila

This free business plan format for social entrepreneurs comes from the Ateneo de Manila University’s John Gokongwei School of Management. In a glimpse, it provides the basic information you need to plan a social enterprise.

It also has more detailed business plan guidelines you can refer to. Simply click the link to the word document at the bottommost part of the page.

Related: 11 Best MBA Programs & Schools in the Philippines

How to Write a Business Plan

An outstanding business plan covers everything your stakeholders need to know about your business. So don’t just wing it—put a lot of thought into this critical document.

Let’s get down to the nitty-gritty of drafting a business plan, whether you’ll use a template or not.

1. Brainstorm about your business idea

You may have a very promising business idea, but it won’t fly unless you develop it into a clear-cut concept.

Brainstorm with your team about everything you can think of about starting and running the business. Then list them all down.

Be as creative as possible. No need to be too critical at this point.

While brainstorming, aim to answer these key questions:

• Why do you want to start the business? What has inspired you to go for it?
• What product or service do you plan to sell?
• Who will be your target customers? What are their problems that you’re hoping to solve through your product or service? How will you promote your offerings to them?
• What will be your business branding ? How will you position your brand in the industry?
• What is your competitive advantage? What makes your business unique?
• Where do you see your business within a year?

2. Validate your business idea

Research on the specifics of your business idea—paying special attention to your product or service, target market, and competitors.

According to entrepreneurship experts, it’s best to spend twice as much time on this step as spending the time to the actual drafting of the business plan.

Here are some ways to validate your business idea:

• Read studies and research to find information and trends about your industry .
• Conduct market research to gather insights from industry leaders, potential customers, and suppliers . You can do this through surveys, focus group discussions, and one-on-one interviews with your stakeholders.
• Collect data about your competitors , especially the product or service they offer and how they reach their customers. Consider buying from them or visiting their store to get a feel of their products and customer experience.

Gather all relevant information and analyze your findings to assess whether the business idea is feasible or not. You may need to tweak your business idea based on your evaluation of its feasibility.

3. Define the purpose of your business plan

It’s extremely difficult to carry out anything if you aren’t sure about why you’re doing it in the first place. Without a clear purpose, you’re like driving a car without knowing where you’re headed to.

When it comes to writing your business plan, you should have its purpose in mind from the get-go. It can be one or more of the following:

• Create a roadmap to provide the directions the business must take to achieve your goals and overcome challenges. This is ideal for bootstrapping or self-funding startups.
• Seek investments and loans to finance a business. If this is your purpose for making a business plan, it should be compelling enough to attract investors and lenders.
• Set your targets, budget, timelines, and milestones. When you put them all in writing, it’s so much easier to evaluate and measure your business’ actual performance versus your goals.
• Communicate your vision and strategic priorities with the management team. With this purpose, your business plan must establish specific goals for your managers so that they have something to commit to, you can track progress, and get them to follow through on their commitments. Also, having a business plan for this purpose ensures that everybody involved in running your business is on the same page.
• Minimize risks. Running a business in itself involves a lot of risks, and it gets riskier with a poorly researched business idea. A business plan can help entrepreneurs mitigate them by organizing activities and preparing for contingencies.

4. Create an outline for the executive summary

The first section of any business plan is the executive summary. You don’t have to draft it yet at this point, but it helps to write an outline for it before you proceed with the rest of the sections.

In a sentence or two, describe these key aspects of your business:

• Product or service
• Target market
• Competitors
• Unique value proposition (how you set your business apart from the competition)
• Management team
• Short-term and long-term business goals
• Possible sources of revenue

5. Describe your business

The next step is to write your company profile. Get your readers to become familiar with your business and realize why they should be interested in it.

If you have no idea what specifically goes into this crucial business plan section, you can check the company profiles of businesses in your industry. Usually, you can find them on their websites at the About Us or About the Company page. Take note of the information included and how they’re written.

Here are the must-haves of a great company profile:

• Brief history of the company
• Mission and vision
• Product or service lineup
• Target market and audience
• How the business will address the customers’ pain points
• What makes the business unique

6. Provide details about your operations and organizational structure

Anyone who will read your business plan needs to know what they should expect when they deal with you. They need to see a solid plan for your operations and the people who make up your team. So give your operations plan and organizational plan a careful thought.

For your operations plan, choose carefully the right legal structure for your business. Will you be a sole proprietor? Or will you partner with someone or form a corporation? Your choice will have an impact not only on your business operations but also on the taxes you’ll pay and your personal liability .  

As for the organizational plan, it’s where you put your organizational chart that shows a glimpse of the hierarchy within your organization. You can easily create this chart in Microsoft Word, Excel, or PowerPoint.

Also introduce the people who comprise your management team—their relevant experience, qualifications, and expertise . The organizational plan must also include information of the support personnel, as well as who reports to whom and who manages whom.

If you’ll be outsourcing some of your business functions, add them to your organizational plan, too. These may include consultants , accountants , lawyers , logistics specialists, and IT specialists. This way, you’re showing that you’re planning to fill in any expertise and skill gaps in your in-house team.

Also Read: Business Process Outsourcing to the Philippines [Complete Guide]

7. Compose your marketing plan

Make this section of your business plan as comprehensive and detailed as possible. You’d want to prove that you’ll take a strategic and aggressive approach to reach your target customers and promote your brand and product or service to them.

Divide your marketing plan into five subsections: objectives, product/service description, target market profile, competition profile, and promotional activities.

A. Objectives

Zero in on the what and the why of your marketing activities. Under the marketing objectives section, list down all your goals and the strategies you’ll implement to meet them.

Your marketing goals can be any of the following:

• Raise brand awareness
• Introduce a new product or service
• Regain or get more customers for an existing product or service
• Secure long-term contracts with your ideal clients
• Increase sales in a certain market, product, or price point
• Improve product manufacturing or product/service delivery
• Increase prices without affecting sales

B. Product/Service Description

Describe each product or service you’ll offer, including its features and benefits. You can use storytelling , images, charts, tables, or any visual element that best illustrates how each item will work to the benefit of your target customers.

C. Target Market Profile

Present as much relevant data as you can about your potential customers. Make sure to include the following:

• Demographic profile: age range, gender, income level, education, interests, etc.
• Buying behaviors
• Factors that influence their buying decisions: purchasing power, personal preferences, economic conditions, marketing campaigns, social factors (such as peer pressure and social media influencers ), cultural factors, etc.

D. Competition Profile

Your marketing plan must focus not only on your own business but also those of your competitors. List down the similar products or services that they offer to your target customers.

Also, provide an assessment of your competitors’ performance. Which areas are they doing well? How can you improve on their strengths and weaknesses? How can your business stand out? Is it your more competitive pricing? Better customer service? Superior product quality?

To come up with a good competition profile, take the time to research about your competitors. When interviewing your target customers, ask them about the brands they use or businesses they deal with.

You can also do an online search of your competitors. For example, if you’ll run a pet supplies store in Pasig, search for “pet stores Pasig” on Google. The search engine results page may show you the different stores that sell the same products as the ones you plan to offer. Read customer reviews online to get deeper insights on how these businesses serve their clients.

Consider doing a “secret shopping” in your competitor’s store. This way, you can experience firsthand how they treat their customers and how they market and sell their products or services. You might even be able to get information about their product lineup and pricing.

E. Promotional Activities

The last subsection of your marketing plan must discuss how you’ll promote your brand and products or services and connect with customers. Also, be ready to allocate budget for each marketing activity you identify in your plan.

Create a list of marketing activities you plan to implement. Will you reach your audience through SEO (organic online search), paid advertising, and/or social media? Or will you go the traditional route through print and TV advertising or joining expos, exhibits, and trade shows? The right choice depends on the nature of your business and the type of audience you’re trying to reach.

8. Develop your financial plan

The financial plan is the section where you’ll crunch the numbers. Unless you’re really good at math, it’s best to hire an accountant or business consultant who will work with you to develop a foolproof financial plan.

Put simply, a financial plan explains how a business will spend money and make more money. It also estimates the amount of time it will take for the business to earn a profit.

Here are the specifics of a good financial plan:

• Total capital requirement
• Business financing plan and any loan requirement
• Collateral to put up for a business loan
• Schedule for loan repayment
• Financial statements : cash flow statement, income statement/profit and loss statement, and balance sheet
• Break-even analysis
• Return on investment (ROI)
• Financial analysis

Ultimately, these financial projections answer the question, “Is your business financially feasible?”

9. Back up your business plan with supporting documents

Books and theses have an appendix section at the end that provides additional resources. Your business plan should have one, too. This final section consists of documents, surveys, studies, charts, tables, images, and other elements that provide supporting data.

Depending on the information you’ve presented in the other sections of the plan, your appendix may include these things:

• Market research data and findings
• Resumes of the management team
• Relevant financial documents
• Lease agreements
• Bank statements
• Licenses and permits

10. Review and refine your business plan

Your business plan is almost done at this point. Now all you have to do is go over the document once more to ensure you’ve covered everything and nothing crucial is left out.

Check your final draft and be sure it has the following:

• Sound business idea – If you’ve done Step 2 properly (validating business idea), you can be confident that you have a sound business idea.
• Comprehensive and in-depth look into your business in a professional format
• Thorough understanding of your target customers , their behaviors, interests, and needs
• Competent management team – The people who make up your team must possess the skills and expertise that complement yours.
• Business focus or specialization

Aside from yourself, ask a business partner, proofreader, and accountant or financial expert to review your business plan and spot any errors and inconsistencies. You’d want to make sure that it looks professional and is accurate.

11. Write the executive summary

Lastly, get back to the outline you created in Step 4 and write it based on your final draft. Make sure to craft an engaging executive summary that hooks people into reading the rest of the plan.

6 Actionable Tips on Writing a Business Plan

Anyone can write a business plan—but it takes more than great writing skills to create an exceptional one.

Here are some tips to help you prepare an effective business plan that goes beyond the ordinary.

1. Write with your audience in mind

When drafting your business plan, you’re writing not for yourself but for people who will play key roles in starting and running your enterprise. This is why it’s important that you know whom you’re writing for and keep them in mind while preparing your business plan.

If you think you can’t create a plan that caters to all your audience groups, consider having different versions of the document. For example, you can come up with a business plan for investors, another for lenders, one for employees, and so on. But keep the data consistent across all versions.

To write a business plan that suits a particular audience, you have to use the right language, highlight the parts that interest them, and adjust the format accordingly.

A. Use the Right Language

One of the most important rules in business writing: use the language that your target audience easily understands. If you’re writing for engineers, finance people, or lawyers, your language can be technical—meaning you can use jargons and terminologies familiar to them.

However, if you’re writing for investors who barely have technical knowledge, tweak your language in simple terms that are easy to grasp and appreciate.

Likewise, if you’re writing a business plan to communicate internally with managers and employees your company’s direction and strategies, it’s best to use more casual language than you would when writing for high-level, external stakeholders.

B. Appeal to Your Audience’s Interests

It also helps to understand what interests your audience because they will influence how you’ll write your business plan.

Your management team, for instance, will be interested in knowing your business goals and strategies so that they can help you steer the company in the right direction.

Investors and lenders look at the business plan differently—they’ll be more interested in your financial statements to determine your financial health, like if your business is worth investing in or has the ability to pay back a loan.

C. Adopt a Suitable Business Plan Format

There’s no one-size-fits-all format for business plans because it depends mainly on your audience, aside from the nature of your business.

Let’s say you’ll set up a restaurant, and you’re drafting a business plan to apply for a business loan. To convince lenders that your business is viable, details such as your restaurant’s location and possible renovations are crucial.

Meanwhile, if you’re writing the plan for potential big-time investors, you’ll take a different approach. A good restaurant business plan focuses on the business aspects that will lead to growth and profitability (Remember that investors are interested in how they’ll make money from partnering with you).

2. Keep it concise

How long should a business plan be? According to the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) , it depends on various factors such as the specific audience it’s written for and the nature of a business. The SBA cites surveys that found the ideal length to be at least 25 to 100 pages.

Sounds a lot? If you have a simple business idea and you’re writing a business plan for busy people who don’t have time to pore over hundreds of pages, then one page up to 20 pages should be fine.

However, you may need to provide more explanation (which will take up more pages in your business plan) if you’re planning to build a new kind of business, and a risky one at that.

The size of your business also affects the length of your business plan. Business plans for small businesses need not exceed 30 pages. Corporate business plans are expected to be longer.

What matters more than length is how concise your business plan is. Meaning, it provides all the necessary information—including solid research and analysis—using the fewest words possible. No place for wordiness here!

3. Document everything related to your business

Support your claims in the business plan with solid facts and proof. Investors, for instance, need an assurance that they won’t lose their investment when they trust you with their money. This is where documenting your business thoroughly plays a crucial role.

What kinds of documentation can you include in your business plan?

• Industry forecast or projections
• Licensing agreements
• Location strategy
• Prototype of your product or service
• Survey and FGD results
• Resumes of your management team

4. Show your passion and dedication to your business

Although business plans have straightforward, matter-of-fact content, you can still establish an emotional connection with your readers through your plan. After all, your readers are humans with feelings and motivations.

No need to be dramatic about it—you can show your passion and dedication while still sounding professional in your business plan. Write about the mistakes you’ve had (like a failed business in the past), what you’ve learned from the experience, the values you hold, and the problems of your customers you want to solve through your product or service.

5. Know your competition and how you’ll stand out

Your business won’t be the single player in your industry. Other businesses in the same niche have started way ahead of you, and some new ones will also compete for business in the future.

Write your business plan in such a way that you know your competitors so well. Identify all of them and what makes your business unique compared with the rest without belittling them.

6. Be realistic and conservative in all your estimates

In any aspect of your business, it’s better to underpromise and overdeliver than the other way around. This also holds true when writing a business plan. You wouldn’t want to set unrealistic expectations that will lead to disappointments and worse, losses, when you fail to deliver on your promise.

There’s no place for too much optimism in your business plan. Your budget allocation, timelines, capital requirements, sales and revenue targets, and financial projections must be reasonable, realistic, and conservative. These will lend credibility to your business plan and yourself as an entrepreneur. Because there are a lot of factors beyond your control, always assume that things will get completed longer and cost more ( consider inflation over time! ).

This is where your research prior to writing the draft comes extremely helpful. You have something solid and factual to benchmark against. For example, if your analysis based on the facts you’ve gathered indicates that you’ll be able to get 40% share off the market in your first year of operations, consider making your estimates a bit more conservative and attainable.

Related: The Ultimate Guide to Business Valuation in the Philippines

10 Mistakes to Avoid When Writing a Business Plan

Now, let’s explore the mistakes entrepreneurs often commit when writing a business plan. Listing them all down here to let you know what to avoid.

1. Prioritizing Form Over Substance

Spend most of your time and energy on building solid research and facts rather than obsessing about which font type or background color will look best for your document.

2. Overthinking

Many entrepreneurs take too long to complete their business plans because they worry too much about it. Don’t get intimidated by business planning—you don’t have to be an expert or a degree holder in business management or business administration to be able to write an outstanding business plan. Overthinking will just lead to analysis paralysis and get nothing done.

As long as you know your business well and are passionate about it, then writing a business plan won’t be as difficult as you think, especially if you’re using a template.

3. Submitting the Document Without Proofreading It

If your business plan is filled with typos and grammatical errors, readers will get distracted even if you’re presenting substantial information. It may also give your audience an impression that you’re careless—and who wants to deal with a person who isn’t professional and careful enough?

Even if it costs you money, pay a professional proofreader to check your work and correct any errors so that the message you wanted to convey through your business plan will get across.

4. Making Empty Claims

Any statement that isn’t sufficiently supported by solid research or documentation has to go. For example, if you want to claim to be the top player in your industry but you don’t have any evidence to back it up, rethink about including it in your business plan.

5. Writing an Overly Long and Wordy Plan

Make sure that everything you put into your business plan is relevant and serves your purpose. Otherwise, remove unnecessary statements that just add fluff to the document.

Also, don’t waste your readers’ time by using too many words—including highfalutin ones. Remember, your goal is to make your audience understand your business, not to impress them with beautiful or complex prose.

6. Using Too Many Superlatives

Even if you really feel that your business, business idea, or projection is incredible, amazing, the best, great, fantastic, or one of a kind, avoid using these superlatives because they aren’t appropriate for formal documents like a business plan.

7. Doing the Financial Projections on Your Own

Unless you’re an accountant yourself, it’s best that you get a professional to do the job for you. It will save you time and the headache of dealing with numbers and formatting your financial plan properly.

8. Overestimating Your Projections

The business plan is not a place to make impossible promises—while they look good on paper, you might run into trouble fulfilling them. To avoid this mistake, always do your research. Find out how other businesses do it and what the typical timeframes and financial projections are before you come up with your estimates.

9. Long-Term Business Planning

As much as possible, limit your projections to only a year. A lot of things can happen and make your business different from how you initially planned it. Stick with your short-term or one-year targets and estimates, then just tweak your business plan as time goes by.

10. Including Unfounded Rumors About Your Competitors

Not only do rumors make your business plan look unprofessional, but they also distract your readers from your intended message, which is to highlight what makes your business different from the competition. Avoid including details based only on hearsay. Everything in your plan must be backed up by solid, quantifiable facts.

Key Takeaway

A business plan is more than just a document that you prepare once and will never look at again. Rather, it’s a strategic tool that you should use from time to time to guide your business operations, get the buy-in of your stakeholders, and grow your business over time.

Once you’re done with writing your business plan, make the most of it for your business. Use it and modify it as often as needed!

Ready and confident to start writing your business plan? Share your thoughts and questions below!

Other Useful Business Resources from Grit PH:

• How to Sell a Business in the Philippines

About Venus Zoleta

Venus Zoleta is an experienced writer and editor, specializing in personal finance and digital marketing.

She has been a regular columnist for some of the biggest business & finance publications in the Philippines, such as MoneyMax.ph and Filipiknow.net.

Hoping to retire early, she started investing and bought a home in her early 20s. This crazy cat mom eats ramen like there's no tomorrow.

Education: University of the Philippines (B.A. Journalism) Focus: Personal Finance, Personal Development, and Entrepreneurship

Reader Interactions

March 3, 2020 at 10:00 am

I like it, and i want to learn more about for business

March 6, 2020 at 9:46 am

Hello Ms. Venus, Rise Against Hunger Philippines, N.G.O. , branching out into a new high ways… and i am newly hired as a social enterprise development officer… whose main tasks to launch a product line; an up-cycled tarpaulin bags.. manufactured by a group of community women (skills training’s, coordinated by life coached; aiming w-holistic transformation and sustainability program.. . with such a big tasks, i need a step by step guides, and if possible a coach for i cannot do it alone… thank you, henry reandino chua

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The importance of a business plan

Business plans are like road maps: it’s possible to travel without one, but that will only increase the odds of getting lost along the way.

Owners with a business plan see growth 30% faster than those without one, and 71% of the fast-growing companies have business plans . Before we get into the thick of it, let’s define and go over what a business plan actually is.

What is a business plan?

A business plan is a 15-20 page document that outlines how you will achieve your business objectives and includes information about your product, marketing strategies, and finances. You should create one when you’re starting a new business and keep updating it as your business grows.

Rather than putting yourself in a position where you may have to stop and ask for directions or even circle back and start over, small business owners often use business plans to help guide them. That’s because they help them see the bigger picture, plan ahead, make important decisions, and improve the overall likelihood of success. ‍

Why is a business plan important?

A well-written business plan is an important tool because it gives entrepreneurs and small business owners, as well as their employees, the ability to lay out their goals and track their progress as their business begins to grow. Business planning should be the first thing done when starting a new business. Business plans are also important for attracting investors so they can determine if your business is on the right path and worth putting money into.

Business plans typically include detailed information that can help improve your business’s chances of success, like:

• A market analysis : gathering information about factors and conditions that affect your industry
• Competitive analysis : evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors
• Customer segmentation : divide your customers into different groups based on specific characteristics to improve your marketing
• Marketing: using your research to advertise your business
• Logistics and operations plans : planning and executing the most efficient production process
• Cash flow projection : being prepared for how much money is going into and out of your business
• An overall path to long-term growth

What is the purpose of a business plan?

A business plan is like a map for small business owners, showing them where to go and how to get there. Its main purposes are to help you avoid risks, keep everyone on the same page, plan finances, check if your business idea is good, make operations smoother, and adapt to changes. It's a way for small business owners to plan, communicate, and stay on track toward their goals.

10 reasons why you need a business plan

I know what you’re thinking: “Do I really need a business plan? It sounds like a lot of work, plus I heard they’re outdated and I like figuring things out as I go...”.

The answer is: yes, you really do need a business plan! As entrepreneur Kevin J. Donaldson said, “Going into business without a business plan is like going on a mountain trek without a map or GPS support—you’ll eventually get lost and starve! Though it may sound tedious and time-consuming, business plans are critical to starting your business and setting yourself up for success.

To outline the importance of business plans and make the process sound less daunting, here are 10 reasons why you need one for your small business.

1. To help you with critical decisions

The primary importance of a business plan is that they help you make better decisions. Entrepreneurship is often an endless exercise in decision making and crisis management. Sitting down and considering all the ramifications of any given decision is a luxury that small businesses can’t always afford. That’s where a business plan comes in.

Building a business plan allows you to determine the answer to some of the most critical business decisions ahead of time.

Creating a robust business plan is a forcing function—you have to sit down and think about major components of your business before you get started, like your marketing strategy and what products you’ll sell. You answer many tough questions before they arise. And thinking deeply about your core strategies can also help you understand how those decisions will impact your broader strategy.

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2. To iron out the kinks

Putting together a business plan requires entrepreneurs to ask themselves a lot of hard questions and take the time to come up with well-researched and insightful answers. Even if the document itself were to disappear as soon as it’s completed, the practice of writing it helps to articulate your vision in realistic terms and better determine if there are any gaps in your strategy.

3. To avoid the big mistakes

Only about half of small businesses are still around to celebrate their fifth birthday . While there are many reasons why small businesses fail, many of the most common are purposefully addressed in business plans.

According to data from CB Insights , some of the most common reasons businesses fail include:

• No market need : No one wants what you’re selling.
• Lack of capital : Cash flow issues or businesses simply run out of money.
• Inadequate team : This underscores the importance of hiring the right people to help you run your business.
• Stiff competition : It’s tough to generate a steady profit when you have a lot of competitors in your space.
• Pricing : Some entrepreneurs price their products or services too high or too low—both scenarios can be a recipe for disaster.

The exercise of creating a business plan can help you avoid these major mistakes. Whether it’s cash flow forecasts or a product-market fit analysis , every piece of a business plan can help spot some of those potentially critical mistakes before they arise. For example, don’t be afraid to scrap an idea you really loved if it turns out there’s no market need. Be honest with yourself!

Get a jumpstart on your business plan by creating your own cash flow projection .

4. To prove the viability of the business

Many businesses are created out of passion, and while passion can be a great motivator, it’s not a great proof point.

Planning out exactly how you’re going to turn that vision into a successful business is perhaps the most important step between concept and reality. Business plans can help you confirm that your grand idea makes sound business sense.

A critical component of your business plan is the market research section. Market research can offer deep insight into your customers, your competitors, and your chosen industry. Not only can it enlighten entrepreneurs who are starting up a new business, but it can also better inform existing businesses on activities like marketing, advertising, and releasing new products or services.

Want to prove there’s a market gap? Here’s how you can get started with market research.

5. To set better objectives and benchmarks

Without a business plan, objectives often become arbitrary, without much rhyme or reason behind them. Having a business plan can help make those benchmarks more intentional and consequential. They can also help keep you accountable to your long-term vision and strategy, and gain insights into how your strategy is (or isn’t) coming together over time.

6. To communicate objectives and benchmarks

Whether you’re managing a team of 100 or a team of two, you can’t always be there to make every decision yourself. Think of the business plan like a substitute teacher, ready to answer questions any time there’s an absence. Let your staff know that when in doubt, they can always consult the business plan to understand the next steps in the event that they can’t get an answer from you directly.

Sharing your business plan with team members also helps ensure that all members are aligned with what you’re doing, why, and share the same understanding of long-term objectives.

7. To provide a guide for service providers

Small businesses typically employ contractors , freelancers, and other professionals to help them with tasks like accounting , marketing, legal assistance, and as consultants. Having a business plan in place allows you to easily share relevant sections with those you rely on to support the organization, while ensuring everyone is on the same page.

8. To secure financing

Did you know you’re 2.5x more likely to get funded if you have a business plan?If you’re planning on pitching to venture capitalists, borrowing from a bank, or are considering selling your company in the future, you’re likely going to need a business plan. After all, anyone that’s interested in putting money into your company is going to want to know it’s in good hands and that it’s viable in the long run. Business plans are the most effective ways of proving that and are typically a requirement for anyone seeking outside financing.

Learn what you need to get a small business loan.

9. To better understand the broader landscape

No business is an island, and while you might have a strong handle on everything happening under your own roof, it’s equally important to understand the market terrain as well. Writing a business plan can go a long way in helping you better understand your competition and the market you’re operating in more broadly, illuminate consumer trends and preferences, potential disruptions and other insights that aren’t always plainly visible.

10. To reduce risk

Entrepreneurship is a risky business, but that risk becomes significantly more manageable once tested against a well-crafted business plan. Drawing up revenue and expense projections, devising logistics and operational plans, and understanding the market and competitive landscape can all help reduce the risk factor from an inherently precarious way to make a living. Having a business plan allows you to leave less up to chance, make better decisions, and enjoy the clearest possible view of the future of your company.

Business plan FAQs

How does having a business plan help small business owners make better decisions.

Having a business plan supports small business owners in making smarter decisions by providing a structured framework to assess all parts of their businesses. It helps you foresee potential challenges, identify opportunities, and set clear objectives. Business plans help you make decisions across the board, including market strategies, financial management, resource allocation, and growth planning.

What industry-specific issues can business plans help tackle?

Business plans can address industry-specific challenges like regulatory compliance, technological advancements, market trends, and competitive landscape. For instance, in highly regulated industries like healthcare or finance, a comprehensive business plan can outline compliance measures and risk management strategies.

How can small business owners use their business plans to pitch investors or apply for loans?

In addition to attracting investors and securing financing, small business owners can leverage their business plans during pitches or loan applications by focusing on key elements that resonate with potential stakeholders. This includes highlighting market analysis, competitive advantages, revenue projections, and scalability plans. Presenting a well-researched and data-driven business plan demonstrates credibility and makes investors or lenders feel confident about your business’s potential health and growth.

Understanding the importance of a business plan

Now that you have a solid grasp on the “why” behind business plans, you can confidently move forward with creating your own.

Remember that a business plan will grow and evolve along with your business, so it’s an important part of your whole journey—not just the beginning.

Related Posts

Now that you’ve read up on the purpose of a business plan, check out our guide to help you get started.

The information and tips shared on this blog are meant to be used as learning and personal development tools as you launch, run and grow your business. While a good place to start, these articles should not take the place of personalized advice from professionals. As our lawyers would say: “All content on Wave’s blog is intended for informational purposes only. It should not be considered legal or financial advice.” Additionally, Wave is the legal copyright holder of all materials on the blog, and others cannot re-use or publish it without our written consent.

Why Business Owners Should Take Time to Reflect & Plan

Business owners have plenty on their to-do list each day. From marketing to product purchases, running a business is a time-consuming venture. Therefore, it’s easy to get caught up with the daily operations of your business. However, reflection and long-term planning are vital aspects to consider as a business owner. 

The following highlights why business owners should take time to reflect and plan and what could happen if they don’t. 

Risk of Not Taking Time to Reflect and Plan

If you don’t take the time to reflect on your business goals and plan for the future, your business may go in the wrong direction. With that said, your business may get off track, and you’ll lose customers and profits. Plus, you likely won’t gain as many new customers as you hope. With the right reflection and planning, you can envision where you want your business to go and take it there. 

Also, when you reflect on your business goals and plan how to achieve success, you’ll be a better leader. And if you have a team that looks up to you and trusts your leadership skills, this is everything! 

Benefits of Reflection and Planning

There are many benefits of reflection and planning in the day-to-day operations of your business. Here are some top benefits of proper planning and reflection:

Focus Creation

When you reflect on your business habits and goals and engage in continual planning, you’ll gain the focus you need to get the job done. If you’re unfocused, you may take your daily business operations in all different directions, which doesn’t make for a beneficial outcome. 

Risk Reduction

Also, when you engage in reflection and planning, you’ll reduce the risk of having your business fail. You’ll understand your strengths and weaknesses and use those to go forward in pursuit of opportunities while realizing the risks. 

Aids in Critical Thinking

Reflection and planning also help with critical thinking. When you improve your critical thinking skills through reflection and planning, you can keep your strategic priorities in mind and tweak those goals when necessary to do so. 

Improvement of Daily Decision-Making

When you reflect and plan in your business, your daily decision-making skills will improve. You’ll have more precise focus and direction, enabling you to take your business where it needs to go. 

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1.5: Chapter 5 – Making the Business Plan Realistic

• Last updated
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• Page ID 21279

• Lee A. Swanson
• University of Saskatchewan

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Learning Objectives

After completing this chapter, you will be able to

• Develop the second draft of the business plan by applying revision methods to improve the realism of the first draft

A first draft of a business plan will inevitably be unrealistic for a host of reasons. It is likely to include contradictions between sections of the written part. The financial and written parts will most likely not align, even though they must tell the same story, but in different terms. The sales projections might be unrealistic. The cash flow projections will probably be far from accurate. In general, work will be required to convert the first draft of the business plan into a realistic second draft.

Figure 10 – Making the Business Plan Realistic (Illustration by Lee A. Swanson)

How to Make the Plan Realistic

Replace assumptions with factual and expert information.

A first step is to replace the assumptions you included in your business plan and flagged with the distinct colored font (review the Writing the Draft Business Plan section) with information you got from a valid source. Of course, to establish your and your business plan’s credibility, always include the references to the sources you used.

Review and Revise Sales Projections

Business plan writers should critically review and revise their sales projections while using the strategies below to improve the realism of the projected financial statements.

When reviewing, and possibly revising sales projections, business plan writers should consider both the sales projection model they used and the assumptions they fed into the model to generate the monthly sales figures. Additionally, it is important to compare the resulting projected sales with industry norms and any available comparative data with similar companies.

Adjust Strategies to Make Projected Financial Statements Realistic

If you used the financial spreadsheet templates as they are meant to be used, you will not have typed a single number into your projected cash flow statements, your projected income statement, and your projected balance sheet . You should have entered all of your numbers into a set of schedules that, in turn, automatically transfer the relevant numbers to the projected statements through formulas.

The cash flow statement estimates all of the money flowing in and out of the venture in each month. The cash inflows include cash collected from cash sales during the month and accounts receivable collections resulting from sales made in previous months. They also include proceeds from any assets you sell, loan proceeds, and other cash investments made into your business.

The cash outflows occur whenever something is purchased, an expense is paid (including loan payments and taxes), and cash is invested somewhere such that it is no longer available to be used to pay current obligations.

The cash available at the end of each month is the previous month’s cash balance plus all cash inflows minus all cash outflows (the exception might be the first month when the initial investments—and, possibly, initial sales—are made, and possibly some expenses are incurred or purchases made). When you complete your first business plan draft, you will inevitably have unrealistic cash balances at the end of some, if not all months.

You can never have a negative cash balance at the end of a month . If you are projecting negative balances, your planned venture cannot survive unless you do things like implement strategies to increase projected sales, seek new investments in your business, and reduce planned operating expenses.

Likewise, an overly high end-of-month cash balance is a signal of possible poor cash management strategies or overly optimistic sales forecasting . Another consideration if your month ending cash balances are high is whether you have applied realistic assumptions. After all, it is very rare to stumble upon a business opportunity that generates high amounts of excess cash. If such an opportunity existed, other entrepreneurs would have or will be poised to enter the market and reduce the appeal of the perceived opportunity.

To eliminate negative cash balances and to manage cash so you don’t have negative or overly positive end-of-month cash balances,

• Determine what range of end-of-month cash balances is realistic for your type of business. For example, you might decide that, for your type of business, they should always be between $8,000 and $12,000.
• If you are short of cash, you might be able to increase cash inflows. For example, you could implement strategies (and, of course, include these in the written part of your plan) to increased projected sales at close to current planned prices, maintain projected sales levels while increasing prices, attract new investors to inject some cash in the business, use cash reserves to increase available cash, or to sell an asset that is no longer needed. Of course, you must be aware of the possible consequences from taking those actions. For example, increasing prices will lead to lower sales, and if the amount of the price increase is more than counterbalanced by the drop in sales, you might actually reduce the amount of cash you generate.
• As just noted, new investors can inject cash into the business. For this stage of business plan development, it is often best to focus on making the business plan realistic without worrying too much about where to secure the investments you need to start your business beyond the funding you are reasonably certain that you can get through personal money and from friends, family, and other ready sources (see the section on Starting Capital). Use this stage of development to help you determine the amount of money that you will need to secure from other sources, but adjust your plans and strategies to ensure that the amount of additional financing that you will need is realistic. It is in the next stage of business development that you will more seriously consider from what sources you can get the financing that you determined that you needed while in this stage of development.
• If you are short of cash, you might be able to decrease cash outflows by implementing cost-reduction strategies or reducing or deferring purchases. Again, all of these actions have consequences you must be aware of. For example, if you reduce your advertising expenses, you might suffer a large enough decline in sales to worsen your cash shortfall situation.
• If your projections show high cash balances in some projected high-sales months, some of that cash can be transferred to a cash reserve, used to pay down loans, used to purchase needed assets or to acquire resources to benefit the business, used to prepay expenses, and paid to investors as dividends.
• If projections show cash balances that are higher than is realistic, you should review your sales projections and your projected expenses and make any necessary adjustments to make them more realistic.

If your projected financial spreadsheet templates are set up effectively, your schedules should feed your numbers into your projected cash flow statement. From there, your projected cash flow statements should automatically populate your projected income statement and balance sheet.

Test the Realism of Projected Statements Using Financial Analysis Methods

The first steps to improving overall realism is to make your projected cash flow statement more realistic by (1) replacing as many assumed numbers in your schedules as possible with actual numbers; (2) improving the realism of your planned strategies and sales and other projections, and (3) adjusting your strategies and plans such that all month-end cash balances are within a target range. After that, you need to apply financial analysis methods, like ratio analysis, on the numbers in all of your financial statements to assess the realism of your numbers against industry standards and similar companies for which financial statements are available. That analysis should lead to further strategy adjustments to improve the realism of the planned financial positions for your venture during its first five years of business.

Synchronize the Written and Financial Parts of the Plan

Finally, you will need to rewrite parts of your operations, human resources, and marketing plans—and possibly the written introduction to your financial plan—to reflect all of the changes you made and to ensure that the written part of your business plan tells exactly the same story as does the financial part.

Chapter Summary

This chapter addressed the issue of making the first draft of the business plan realistic. To do so, replace as many of your assumptions as possible with factual and expert information, all properly referenced from valid sources to build and maintain your and your plan’s credibility. After that, review and revise the original sales projections to make them more realistic as informed by industry data and available numbers from companies similar to what you want your venture to be. Revise your strategies until all of the monthly closing balances in your cash flow statement fall within a realistic, reasonable, and predetermined target range. Perform financial analysis techniques to test the realism of your projected financial situation. Finally, rewrite your business plan so that the written and financial sections tell exactly the same story—one using words and the other using numbers.

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As Strategy and Operations Leaders, we spend countless hours working across teams building the plan, tracking delivery of key initiatives, and reporting on the operating metrics deemed critical to the business. Yet year after year, one of the most surprising things we hear about with Strategic Planning is the lack of reflection on the execution of the plan itself.

For all that time spent building, tracking, and reporting, you’d think there would be an equal amount of time paid towards reflecting on how we did. 💁

Yet, the amount of organizations that do not have defined rituals for closing out and providing context to whether an Objective was successful or not never ceases to amaze me.

At Elate, one of the things we encourage every company to do before you even roll out your Strategic Plan is establish the operating rhythm for how you update, review, and take action on your plan . What we’ve seen is that the mutually agreed upon rituals - established at the Leadership level and communicated to the organization - build the necessary muscle to ensure a Strategic Plan doesn’t sit on the shelf collecting dust.

However, the operating rhythm can’t just entail Objectives in flight. These rituals need to outline when we close our Objectives and how we do so in a way that provides visibility into what went well and what didn’t.

Not only will this provide perspective on how we delivered on key initiatives from the past quarter, but it will also provide valuable insight into how we continue elevating the way we build our strategy in the first place.

As an example, we want to be able to create a strategic plan with conviction, with a firm idea on the percentage of Objectives we typically deliver on successfully as a business. We recommend that companies aim for 80%+ Objective Success.

Well, if we can build a plan with confidence, knowing that four out of five Objectives will be successful, then it gives us the conviction needed to ensure that our strategy leads to execution of our Operating Plan.

We specifically recommend aiming for 80%, rather than 100%. When teams focus on 100%, it tends to lead to setting more easily attainable goals, rather than challenging goals that really move the needle . Additionally, if you aim for 100%, the focus becomes too fixated on achieving every single goal come hell or high-water. This oftentimes can lead to missing out on opportunities that surface along the way, which could end up leading to bigger outcomes for your organization.

For context, most companies we work with are delivering on less than 45% of their Objectives before leveraging Elate. This might sound low, but the reality is that there are a few contributing factors.

First, most companies fail to reflect back on their previous quarters , identify the reasons for success of their Objectives, and apply those learnings to future quarters.

Whether it is because there were too many Objectives set in the first place or the assumptions that were modeled into the Objectives weren’t based on historical data, the truth is that most companies can’t tell why they underperformed in a given quarter because they aren’t doing retrospectives .

So knowing that closing out and reflecting on your Strategic Plan is critical to ongoing success, what does that mean for your company?

Let me tell you.

If you've already carved out time dedicated to reviewing this quarter’s Objectives and the annual Themes set by your company, then you are ahead of the curve. If you haven't set time, there is still time to close out the year well.

While the end of the year is a bit different, we recommend that companies close out Objectives between two weeks prior to the end of the quarter and no later than one week following. This gives us a three week timeframe to accurately close out Objectives with context as to why it was successful or fell short.

We recommend that as Objectives are closed out, they are reviewed in the standing weekly or bi-weekly team meetings. However, one important ingredient to the recipe for building upon your Strategic Planning process is to do a reflection of the first three quarters of your company’s performance as you go about setting your plan for the following year.

This will help provide perspective on the percentage of attainment across the organization in reaching your Objectives.

Remember, while we recommend aiming for 80% success, the reality is that this won’t happen overnight. But by tracking the success of your plan quarter over quarter, you will start to identify trends. From the right number of Objectives to own by department, team and individual, to the way you build in percentage increases in things like revenue targets or other goals, you will find that the review process of past performance sets the stage for the future strategy.

So with a month left to go in the year, take the time to communicate to the rest of your team that closing out Objectives should be something top of mind. While we recommend starting two weeks before the end of the year, you don’t have to wait if you’ve already delivered one of your Objectives. You can always close them out earlier.

And don’t forget to celebrate these Objectives . 🎉

Obviously, it’s easy to celebrate the wins and what went well. But don’t lose sight of the valuable learnings that come from those that fall a bit short. If you build this rhythm of review into your company’s planning, then folks will be much more apt to be okay falling a bit short, if we know why we did and what we can do about it.

In our second most popular Aspiring Ops episode Creating an Environment for Talent to Thrive , Dr. Bill Murphy nailed it on the head when he said, "It can't always be about hitting that goal... it's about what having that goal makes you do."

Listen to the full clip below.

For those companies that have already set your strategy for 2024 and Q1 Objectives, then it might be worth leveraging the findings from how this quarter ends to potentially make any final adjustments needed to your 2024 Plan.

Again, it’s not about saying "look at all of these amazing things we want to do next quarter!" It’s about the conviction that you’re building a plan that can be delivered upon and aligns with your operating plan for the coming year.

Hope this was helpful.

New Elation Nation Video 📽️

I'm delighted to share another Elation Nation video, this one featuring Megan Longo , Chief of Staff at Buildertrend .

Megan highlights Advanced Reporting and shares how she has been able to save hours of time by automating leadership roll-up reports, providing her executives with top headlines, status updates, and OKRs from each team every week.

Megan credits Elate as her right-hand tool and system of record that has enabled Buildertrend to feel confident today about strategic planning. I hope you enjoy!

A few resources you might be interested in 📚

• Strategic Planning 101 Hub - Links and downloadable content re: strat planning
• Building Objectives Spreadsheet Template - step-by-step guide on building the right Objectives
• Strategic Planning & Execution Playbook - tips on strat planning, objective building, and more.
• Dynamic Planning 101 - I've discussed in previous editions, but the traditional way of strategic planning is broken. Dynamic Planning is our philosophy at Elate, and you can learn more about it here.

That's all for today. Hope you're having a great week.

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How reflection helps planners make wise decisions, a conversation with richard willson, author of "reflective planning practice: theory, cases, and methods.".

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Illustration by Muqamba/iStock/Getty Images Plus.

Jan. 28, 2021

By Julie Von Bergen

Richard Willson, FAICP, is a professor in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at Cal Poly Pomona where he has also served as department chair, interim dean. His planning career spans over 40 years, first as a practitioner and then as a planning academic who maintains a consulting practice. The book reflects what he has learned through his practice in transportation planning, his research on planning theory and practice, and his experience teaching and mentoring planners.

The current book builds on his 2018 book, A Guide for the Idealist: Launching and Navigating Your Planning Career. That book argued that personal planning effectiveness involves navigating idealism and realism. Reflective Planning Practice explains how to accomplish that navigation, using reflection-on-action and reflection-in-action.

It offers a reflection framework and seven case study practice reflection examples drawn from a wide range of planning practices. The image on the book's cover resonates with its content: just like riding a bicycle, effective planning requires attention to the long view — the horizon. Moreover, it presents many choices of direction and requires in-the-moment reactions and practical

PLANNING: Planners are often thought of as competent, technical, skills-based professionals. "Reflective" isn't one of the usual adjectives. Why should that change?

WILLSON: Planners must have top-notch professional skills, of course, but skills alone are not sufficient to address the particulars of any planning episode. Almost always, they face choices about how to proceed, what knowledge to employ, and whose interests to serve. I refer to these choices as "practical judgments," or forks in the road where planners need to recognize that a decision is required and then decide. Planning on autopilot — following standard methods and procedures — just doesn't work in complex planning problems such as climate change adaption, homelessness, or structural racism. Reflection helps planners make wise decisions, either reflecting on past events or even better, reflecting while engaged in a planning process.

Reflection is a seldom-discussed element of effective planners' practices. Yet it's not new — Donald Schön and others have been writing about reflection in the professions since the 1970s. I'm seeking to revitalize the idea in a way appropriate to our times.

PLANNING: Your book calls for recognizing the role of planner-as-person. How does that affect how practicing planners currently do their job?

WILLSON: The planner-as-person idea means planning with a level of personal authenticity. This view disagrees with the notion that planners should set aside their personal values and act as neutral professionals, such as when decision makers specify ends (vision, goals, and objectives) and professionals evaluate and recommend means (courses of action) to accomplish those ends. Since most planners advise elected officials, boards, or clients who are directly accountable to the electorate, communities, or investors, we don't get to impose our personal views, but I argue that ignoring them is the wrong path.

Planners who set aside their own views and personal identities often feel uncomfortable, ineffective, or give up on the lofty aspirations of the planning profession including the aspirational values embodied in the AICP Code of Ethics . Personally, I cannot separate who I am as an evolving person from my practice. Of course, being an authentic planner does not mean that I simply declare my "truth" and expect others to follow. It requires that I engage in communicative practices with others, learn from them, push sometimes and compromise other times, and make complex ethical judgments about how to proceed. Reflection supports wise practical judgments.

PLANNING: In your APA Blog post "Reflective Planning: Navigating Idealism and Realism," you mention that today's planning challenges (racial justice, climate change, and pandemic response among them) require a reflective response. How does that look in day-to-day planning practice? Can you give an example using one of these pressing issues?

WILLSON: Action is imperative when the problem is dire. The realities of structural racism or climate change demand that planners respond, but a reflective approach doesn't interfere with action. I don't think of reflection as do-nothing contemplating and navel gazing, or narcissistic self-justification. Everything I have learned in my practice and from inspiring mentors convinces me that reflection leads to effective strategy.

In response to structural racism, for example, some advocate planners want to dismantle existing government institutions while others want to reform them. Who is right? I don't think that can be answered without a careful understanding of particulars of place, history, institutions, community power, politics, and possible unanticipated impacts. Sometimes compromise is right; sometimes it is a sell-out. I'm advocating for reflection-in-action so that the opportunities for making positive change are greatest.

The realities of structural racism or climate change demand that planners respond, but a reflective approach doesn't interfere with action.

PLANNING: Harold Henderson's review of your book in the Winter issue of Planning magazine includes this quote: "Planners do not give up, even when it is clear that their efforts are insufficient." How does reflecting on an effort that wasn't totally successful help planners with the next project?

WILLSON: I have been working to change policies that are biased toward private automobile transportation for most of my career. I know that my work is not enough, as that travel mode still dominates current transportation systems, with social and environmental harm. I also know that my work has an effect. While my work has not achieved all of my goals, it's not a waste of time. I don't give up. I take inspiration that I am working for the good and that I am not alone in striving for positive change.

When I look back at my practice, I have learned at least as much from examples that didn't work out as the easy wins. In my early practice, I was naive about the machinations of power, about how implementation commitment declines with time, and how interventions in dynamic systems can be unpredictable. As well, my early economics-based approach was blind to lived experience and the complex elements that motivate human behavior.

My planning flops have helped me improve my practice. For example, the book includes a case study in which a climate action plan didn't meet its targets. Reflection on that experience prompts me to build better implementation agreements into plans. In another case, reflection in the moment helped me realize that technical studies would not resolve a community conflict about parking, and I switched gears to an incremental "talking cure" approach.

PLANNING: You're a professor of urban and regional planning. How do you incorporate reflective planning in your teaching?

WILLSON: Cal Poly Pomona requires that students take professional practice courses as well as community-based application studios. Both initiate reflective practices. The professional practice courses allow me to prompt student planner-as-person reflection regarding career paths and use cases to foster debate about practical judgments made in the course of planning episodes.

Moreover, I think reflection lies at the core of all education. It is embedded in all my courses, including technical ones. For example, in addition to teaching standard transportation planning methods, I ask students to reflect about structural bias in those methods. What is included and what is left out? Who is recognized and who is not? Are there baked-in biases that are invisible to most participants? And how can lived experience and quantitative methods be integrated to develop effective plans?

Reflective Planning Practice: Theory, Cases, and Methods is published by Routledge, a proud publishing partner of APA. Routledge offers APA members 30% off all its print titles. Get the code .

About the Interviewee

Richard willson, faicp.

Julie Von Bergen is APA's senior editor.

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Blog Business What is A Business Plan & How To Design It?

What is A Business Plan & How To Design It?

Written by: Midori Nediger Jul 11, 2023

A business plan outlines the goals of your business and how it plans to achieve them.

Real important – because without it, it’s like running a business in the dark. It’s like a roadmap that guides your company’s direction and helps everyone stay on track.

Gone are the days when designing a business plan from scratch was a time-consuming and challenging task. Today, business plan templates offer a convenient solution by providing pre-designed layouts that simplify the process.

In this blog, I’m going to break it down for you. I’ll share the six things you need to know to put together a compelling, engaging business plan. Ready to get started now? Venngage’s online Business Plan Maker  lets anyone create a winning business plan quickly and easily.

Click to jump ahead:

• How to format your business plan

Startup business plan templates

Simple business plan templates.

• How to write your business plan
• How to design an engaging executive summary
• How to use charts and graphs to present data
• How to communicate growth strategies in your business plan

How to present financial data in your business plan

How to format your business plan.

To format your business plan:

• Start with a clear title page.
• Include an executive summary.
• Provide a company description.
• Conduct a market analysis.
• Describe your product or service offering.
• Outline your marketing and sales strategy.
• Include organizational or business structure and management information.

A typical business plan is an in-depth document and covers every facet of your business (present and future). Creating a traditional business plan makes sense when you have a clear growth plan for the next three to five years, are in need of major funding, or want to attract long-term partners.  

A professional business plan typically has the following sections: 

• Table of Contents
• Executive summary
• Company description
• Market analysis
• Organization and management
• Service or product line
• Marketing and sales
• Funding request
• Financial projections
• An appendix

A business plan can span a dozen or more pages because it presents the big picture, as complete as possible, to reassure others to invest in you. Investment can mean a few different things – usually financial, but also as partners or employees. 

The sections that can take a lot of research and add to the bulk of your business plan are your market analysis, marketing and sales plans, and financial projections. 

These are the sections that demonstrate your business acumen, your long-term vision, and your accountability. Whereas, sections like the executive summary are meant to grab attention, inspire and get people excited about your business. 

Start with a business plan template

To get started on your business plan, save yourself some time and use a template.

Most business plan templates will include things like a cover page, table of contents and the main sections you need. It will also have pre-formatted pages with placeholder text and charts that you can swap out. 

It takes time to do market research, present growth plans, put together financial projections, analyze your customer base, create competitor breakdowns…the list goes on.

The last thing you want to do is spend precious time formatting the resulting document. 

Save time by building your business plan from an existing business plan template, and customize it with your own content.

With a clean, consistent structure and clear headings, this template is the perfect starting point:

Then you’re free to customize the template with helpful visual elements like charts, tables, and diagrams, that will make your business pitch impossible to resist.

A Venngage business plan template is designed to help you communicate visually  and explain complex ideas easily. The right business plan template for you depends on the length and detail of your business plan, your brand and style, and the different sections you want to cover.

If your small business doesn’t have a dedicated design team, but you still need to learn how to write a business plan to present to investors–build off of a pre-designed business plan template:

There are just a handful of our business plan templates that can be customized in the Venngage editor. Browse more business plan templates,  choose one that’s best for you and start editing right away.

Structuring your startup business plan involves organizing it into sections such as executive summary, company description, market analysis, product/service offering, marketing and sales strategy, financial projections, and operational plan.

Here are some business plan template examples:

Short Business Plan Template

Number your pages and include a table of contents

A table of contents is crucial to help readers navigate your document and quickly find specific sections that are of interest to them.

It’s a good idea to include page numbers, main section headings, and section subheadings here for easy reference.

Keeping these tips in mind will ensure that your business plan design feels clean and professional and doesn’t distract from your content. You want your information, not your formatting, to be the focus!

How to write your business plan 

Here are three tips for writing your business plan to ensure it’s easy to read, appears professional and is memorable.

Use bulleted lists, bold text, and a clear type hierarchy for ‘skimmability’

Business plans need to be understandable at a glance to attract funding . Investors are looking for information that will help them understand your business quickly and without much effort.

Take a look at this snippet of the business plan template from above:

What stands out to you?

To me, the large green headers pop out first, making it easy to scan through the sections to find what I want to focus on.

This is because there’s a defined type hierarchy, giving more visual weight to the headers over the body text.

Next, the unique selling points of this business–superior quality products, unique glass carving and brass inlays, and excellent service–jump out. Because they’re presented in an indented list , they’re easier to see at a glance, which will likely make them more memorable.

Finally, I’m drawn to the bolded stats–“top 30% of the industry” and “4 out of 5 households spent money on renovation”.

Key statistics like these can go a long way towards convincing your investors that you’re worth their time and money. If you’re going to include them within larger paragraphs, make sure they stand out by increasing their font weight.

To sum up: make your report skimmable. Draw attention to important takeaways with indented lists, bolded text, and a clear type hierarchy.

Consider using a one-column or two-column grid

If your business plan contains only text, stick with a single-column layout that reinforces the linear flow of the document. If your business plan includes some supporting data in the form of charts and tables, use a two-column layout to juxtapose text with its corresponding data.

Maintain page margins that set text at a readable line length

When we read long passages of text, the ease at which we read depends on how the text flows on the page. Something called line length (the number of characters in a horizontal line of text) plays a huge role in readability, and is something you should consider when formatting your business plan.

To dictate line length, designers and typesetters play with the width of page margins (the edges of a document that don’t contain any text or images) with the aim of maximizing readability.

It’s generally accepted that the ideal line length sits somewhere between 40 and 90 characters per line. Any longer or shorter and you’ll find that something feels “off” about your document.

How do you achieve this in your business plan?

If you use a single-column layout, use nice wide margins (1 ½ to 2 inches) to limit your text to less than 90 characters per line.

With a two-column layout, you might need to use narrower margins (possibly as little as ½ an inch on either side) to make sure there’s enough space for at least 40 characters per line of text.

The last thing to remember about margins and line length–don’t play around with them from page to page. Use consistent margins across your whole document.

How to design an executive summary

An executive summary is a snapshot of your business plan. It should be concise and hook your readers. It should reassure stakeholders that your business plan will be a worthwhile read.

How you choose to structure your executive summary is key. You can deliver a lot of excellent information that simply gets lost in a sea of text and paragraphs. Even if someone reads through it entirely, they may have missed something.

To make key information stand out, use vibrant headings, incorporate visuals throughout, and break up the layout of your text.

Not every investor looks for the same thing. Some will care more about who you or your executive team are, while another is interested solely in the financials of the business. Identifying each section makes it easy for readers to find exactly what they’re looking for.

You can also list out the key takeaways, briefly explaining them in the executive summary. If your reader finds everything they needed to know in the executive summary, they’ll happily move onto the rest of the business plan.

Use one feature color to tie your business plan together

Color should be used with restraint in professional documents like business plans. Instead of adding color solely for aesthetic purposes, think of color selection as another tool to highlight information you want your reader to focus on and to tie the document together.

You shouldn’t need more than a single color (ideally one of your brand colors ) to achieve this in a business plan.

In business plan charts, color should be used only to clarify trends and relationships. Use color to emphasize single important data points, differentiate between real and projected values, or group related data:

In the rest of your business plan, keep color to a minimum. At most, use it to make headers stand out or to highlight key points in long-form text, diagrams, or tables.

The nice thing about keeping document colors this simple? It’s hard to mess up, and without any complex design work, it creates a sense of cohesion and unity within a document.

How to use charts and graphs to present your data

Since your business plan should be backed by solid data, you might want to include some of that data as evidence, in the form of  charts, tables or diagrams . Even simple visuals can communicate better than long paragraphs of text.

I’ll touch on some specific types of charts commonly used in business plans next, but first let’s review a few general chart design tactics.

Use descriptive titles and annotations to spell out chart takeaways

Avoid generic headers whenever possible. Maximize your chart’s value and impact by providing takeaway messages right in the title.

In the same vein, add direct annotations to data points or trends that support your case.

Repeating key messages within a chart, in the title, annotations, and captions, may improve viewers understanding and recall of those messages .

Aid understanding of market size and market share with area charts and pie charts

A market potential analysis is a fundamental pillar of your business plan. Market size and market share are two major components of a market potential analysis.

These numbers are typically in the millions and billions (the bigger the better, really), but most people have trouble grasping the meaning of such big numbers . At a surface level we can understand that one billion is one thousand times larger than one million, but we often struggle to comprehend what that really means.

This is the perfect opportunity to add some visual aids to your business plan.

Use bubble charts to represent market size

Bubble charts are useful for showing general proportions among numbers. Check out this one from our redesigned version of AirBnb’s first pitch deck :

Without having to think about the absolute values of these very large numbers, we can quickly see how they relate to one another.

While bubble charts are good for making quick, general comparisons, they’re less useful when it comes to precise measurements. To help readers make slightly more accurate judgements of proportion:

Use pie or donut charts to represent market share and market composition

Pie and donut charts are the industry standard for showing market share and market composition, since they’re the most widely understood method for representing part-to-whole relationships.

The way Uber breaks down their market with a simple donut chart makes their biggest segment (a key takeaway) really stand out, while the subtler differences between the smaller segments are still evident.

When you present a market analysis, use pie charts, donut charts, or bubble charts to aid the reader understanding proportions and part-to-whole relationships.

Use histograms and bar charts to represent demographic distributions in market segmentation summaries

Another part of analyzing market potential is about identifying and understanding target customers. This means segmenting customers by geography, interests, demographics…really anything that might affect purchasing behaviour.

Two standard metrics that most businesses include in a market segmentation summary are customer age and gender. These data are easily summarized in a histogram, with bars that represent age group distribution.

Bar charts can then be used to contrast the key behaviors and lifestyle choices of the top consumer segments.

Histograms and bar charts are standard features of a market segmentation summary. Use them together to identify and present information about top customer segments.

Outline major milestones with a Gantt chart

Stakeholders will want to see that you have a concrete plan in place to help you reach your revenue goals. When formulating your goals, use the SMART principle to provide your stakeholders with a very clear vision of how you intend to achieve them. 

Use a Gantt chart (a sort of modified bar chart) to outline the major milestones and phases of your business strategy. Try to include a multi-year plan, broken down by quarter and by project or department.

You can create your own Gantt chart with Venngage.

How to communicate growth strategies in your business plan

No matter how impressive your product line or services, your business won’t just magically grow. You concrete marketing and sales plans in place, and effectively communicate strategies to your stakeholders.

Start by acknowledging your target market – who are you going after? This is what your marketing and sales efforts will revolve around after all.

Demonstrate an understanding of the competitor landscape. You will always have direct or indirect competition, and showing how your planning accounts for it is key. Then you can talk about actual plans and strategies you wish to implement.

Present your target audience with persona guides

A product may great on its own. But its value is determined when there is a clear and obvious market for it. You can point out shortcomings of your competition, but you also need to show that your target audience exists and how you’re serving them.

A persona guide provides a great deal of context to readers of your business plan. It’s the best way for them to understand who cares about your product or service, how it aligns with their lifestyle and needs, and why your marketing and sales tactics will work.

A persona guide needs to be detailed, and share an intimate understanding of your target audience. The more you can divulge, the more reassuring your research and overall business plan will be.

Even if you don’t have a substantial customer base, you can still create an ideal persona guide to show who you’re pursuing.

Highlight competitors and differentiate yourself with a SWOT analysis

Every business plan should include an analysis of the competitive landscape–an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of competitive businesses.

In terms of visuals, this competitive analysis is typically summarized in a SWOT analysis matrix .

You can also present the SWOT analysis as a table or a list. The layout is up to you, but you want to focus on strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in relation to your competition.

While the SWOT analysis framework provides valuable insights, it’s not the entire reflection of your competitive landscape. For example, it doesn’t make it easy to see at a glance the qualities that differentiate your business from your competitors.

To highlight those offerings that set you apart from your competitors, a comparison matrix is more effective. Take a look at these two templates:

With a direct competitor comparison, it’s easy to present the key differentiators between the existing options for a product or service, and your business.

Alternatively, a “ Magic Quadrant ” can be useful when you’re focused on comparing across two main metrics ( key differentiators ):

Finally, in a competitive market, there are going to be a lot of players who compete directly or indirectly with you.  A breakdown of them all may not be necessary. Instead, you can point visually to the space that you will address, that has been so far ignored up to now.

To do that, a prioritization chart can be used. By plotting competing businesses on a prioritization chart, you highlight experiences existing competitors focus on, and where your business falls. 

Use roadmaps to present your marketing and sales plans

To explain any long-term marketing or sales plan, you want visuals. It’s easier to break down strategies you’ll be deploying every month or each quarter, when you can actually show what you’re talking about.

Keep in mind, those reading your business plan may not be marketers or sales executives. Being able to lay out your approach in a way that’s organized, shows how much thought you’ve given to your growth strategies.

You can design a simple roadmap that points to what you’ll be doing throughout the year. The more detailed you can get, the better.

You can also present your product roadmap , with your marketing roadmap how the business will be growing overall.

You don’t need to use a traditional roadmap layout, either. Experiment with different formats as you may find one easier to work with than another. As long as the time period for different strategies is clear, your roadmap will be easy to understand.

Presenting financial data isn’t easy. You have to crunch a lot of numbers before you can share projections with confidence. You’ll also need to explain how you arrived at the numbers and prepare for your answers.

Understanding how to organize your information is key to walking potential investors and other stakeholders through your projections.

Use organizational flow charts and summary tables for budget breakdowns and financial summaries

The financials section of your business plan will get a lot of attention from stakeholders. Simple bar charts and pie charts won’t suffice, as they can’t present financial data in very much detail.

If your business has already been operating for some time, stakeholders will expect a detailed report of revenues and expenses. Tables are usually the best choice for this kind of financial summary, as they provide an unbiased view of the numbers and allow stakeholders to look up specific values.

If you’re interested in highlighting a particular trend, however, you may want to include a line chart featuring a smaller snapshot of your financial data:

If you’re just starting your business and you don’t have any detailed revenue data, you can still provide useful information about your budget. Outline higher-level budget allocation with an organizational flow chart .

Use line or bar graphs to visualize financial trends

You can use different types of graphs to also show how your business has performed thus far. 

You can share results over the course of a year with a line graph. This is effective to show an overall set of trends and growth rates. 

You can also compare previous years to highlight how your business has grown.

Your audience should be able to draw conclusions from your data within seconds. If there is simply too much information, or it’s hard to find important information, they will lose interest. 

Looking for a business plan software to help save time and reduce errors? Pick from one of these 7 best business plan software to get started.

A quick summary 

A business plan is the one key document that every young business needs to present their vision to potential investors and other stakeholders.

The quality of a business plan can make or break a young business Here’s a quick recap of what we covered for you to keep in mind:

• Get started with a template
• Use a table of contents and numbered pages
• Use lists, bold headings and aim for skimmability
• Consider using a one-column or two-column
• Maintain page margins
• Use headings to identify the most important information
• Use one thematic color palette for your design
• Use descriptive titles and annotations
• Use area and pie charts to explain market size and market share
• Use pie/donut charts to visualize marketing share and market composition
• Use bar charts and histograms to capture demographics data
• Highlight major milestones with a gantt chart
• Identify your target audience using persona guides
• Differentiate yourself with a SWOT analysis/competitor chart
• Use roadmaps to visualize your marketing and sales plans
• Use flow charts and summary tables for financial breakdowns
• Use line or bar graphs for financial trends and projection

You can always reference this post as you work on your business plan. I’ve also included additional blog posts you can reference for specific areas of your business plan.

More Resources for business planning and growth:

• Growth Strategy Checklist: Plan Your Business Goals With These 5 Templates
• What is a Marketing Plan & How to Create One [with Examples]
• How to Communicate Strategy To Your Team Effectively
• 50+ Essential Business Report Examples with Templates

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More From Forbes

How to self-reflect: 15 meaningful steps business owners can take.

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Busy entrepreneurs and founders don’t often have a lot of time in their day for objective introspection, where they intentionally try to become more aware of aspects of themselves that either drive or hinder their progress. 

However, it is especially important for business owners to reflect on how their behavior is affecting their relationships, the perceptions of those around them and, consequently, the outcomes of their own actions. Without taking the time to do this, you will miss opportunities to grow—not only as a leader, but also as a person.

The members of Forbes Coaches Council understand how important self-reflection is. Many of them encourage their clients to practice it to understand and improve the impact of their behavior and interactions at work and at home. Here are 15 self-reflective exercises that they recommend you try.

Members provide tips to help streamline and simplify the process of self-reflection for business owners.

1. Regularly Review Your Goals And Health 

Carve out time, at least monthly, not just to review goals and outcomes for your business, but also to assess your own mental, emotional and spiritual health. Then, based on your reflection, set personal goals for the next month and assess where you are once more. - Billy Williams , Archegos

2. Ask For Input From Others

Introspection after input is quite valuable. We all operate inside a particular view of the world. Taking time to ask questions about other’s perceptions and then being introspective about the input will allow you to grow as an individual and as an entrepreneur. - Janet Zaretsky , Empowered Women Enterprises, LLC dba Janet Zaretsky

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3. Mentally Rehearse How You Will Show Up

Taking a step back to self-reflect on a daily basis is essential to leading and loving. Creating this space daily is key. One proven activity is to spend ten to 30 minutes rehearsing mentally how you will show up personally and professionally in the day ahead. Visualize it, feel it and you will move the needle on your influence, impact and ability to stay connected to your values and vision. - Bree Luther , Inspired Science Coaching

4. Have A Ten-Minute Weekly Meeting With Yourself

Commit to having a ten-minute meeting with yourself every week. Weekly, ask, “What did I learn this week that made me more effective, and how do I know?” Monthly, ask, “What did I do this month to improve my impact, and how do I know?” Quarterly, ask, “What one change can I make that will improve key outcomes, and how will I know it works?” Yearly, ask, “What barrier should I remove this year?” - Sharon Richmond , Richmond Associates Consulting

5. Use This Five-Point Check-Up

I have regular five-point check-ups that I call my “ABCs.” Alignment: Is the company still aligned with who I am and my “why?” Boots on the ground: Remember where I came from, personally and professionally. Communication: Self-awareness and clarity support clear communications. Care: My indispensable triad is self-care, staff development and business development. Creativity: Flexibility and innovation foster growth. - Keda Edwards Pierre , True II Soul

6. Give Yourself An ‘Hour Of Power’

Every day, I wake before dawn to spend an hour giving gratitude for everything I am and everything I have, resetting my intentions (personal and professional), refocusing my goals and remembering my “why”—the vital reason that I am driven to my calling. This one practice has single-handedly transformed my life. Starting each day with grace, I am centered and ready to serve my clients. - Faizun Kamal , The Franchise Pros

7. Ink What You Think About

I advocate for journaling. Allow yourself to slow down your mind by writing down whatever thoughts are running through it in a brain dump without filtering or editing. Journaling makes words tangible. Reflecting on your day and noting what you are grateful for allows you to park unproductive thoughts, discover insights and solutions and identify areas of growth. - Debra Kasowski , Debra Kasowski International

8. Work ‘On’ Versus ‘In’ Your Business Once A Quarter

Entrepreneurs need to recognize and accept the importance of introspection by prioritizing it on their calendars. Once every quarter, set aside one day specifically for working “on” the business versus “in” it. Conduct a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis and do an activity that is unique to you. Doing something outside of work may clear your mind, giving you more space in your head to focus on the business. - Anna-Vija McClain , Piccolo Marketing

9. Practice Active Introspection

There are a number of ways to practice introspection that don’t require actual meditation. Activities like sports, hiking or just being in nature are ideal. Absent these opportunities, set aside even ten to 15 minutes before bed or when you first wake up to journal your thoughts and feelings somehow. For those on the go, voice recordings on your phone are a great alternative to an actual journal. - Dhru Beeharilal , Nayan Leadership, LLC

10. Have Fun Writing Down Desires And Outcomes

After getting clear on the impact you want to have, write it down, along with the actions and behaviors you routinely want to exhibit. Then, take 15 to 30 minutes at the end of every week to look back and write down your thoughts. Go-getters can be hard on themselves, so it helps to have a little fun and lightness in reflecting. I use these four areas: “Yay!”, “Oh No!”, “Aha!” and “Next Time.” - Tracey Thorsen , LAITHOS™ — The Leadership Impact Company

11. Consider Doing A Core Values Exercise

I was unfulfilled in my past role until an exercise revealed that I was at odds with my core values. By articulating three core values and acting on them, I’ve launched the business I was made to create. Now, I weigh each personal and professional decision against them, and when I align decisions with my core values, I show up my best in all areas of life. - Lisa Walsh , Beacon Executive Coaching

12. Read More Than Emails

Anytime I get out of my zone, it is often because I stopped or halted my reading. I don't mean reading emails, but rather intentionally reading business books, key industry literature and optional books, such as biographies. Nothing allows you a quicker release from the world around you than associating with other experiences and stories. The best way, to me, is through reading. - John M. O'Connor , Career Pro Inc.

13. Take Daily Walks

The busier you are, the more important it is to set aside explicit time to be able to quiet the mind and practice meaningful self-reflection. For me, this most often takes the form of daily walks with my dogs around the neighborhood park. The fresh air and the beautiful views are the perfect backdrop for me to let go of the day’s stresses and recenter myself. - Jonathan H. Westover, Ph.D , Utah Valley University & Human Capital Innovations, LLC

14. Look At Where You Failed And Where You Prevailed

At the end of the day, I always sum it up by looking at where I failed and where I prevailed. Founders are often guilty of only celebrating the wins, but this gives you a chance to be honest, assess where you made a mistake and still keep moving! - Maresa Friedman , Executive Cat Herder

15. Observe Your Breath

Every mental state has a physical counterpart that’s inseparably connected. When you feel rushed or not able to stop and self-reflect, observe your breath. It is the first and most directly controllable aspect of your performance state. To reach emotional calmness, let your breath work as a guide. - Ruben Crawford , Empowertale Ltd

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Reflecting On The Journey: Insights Into Business Plan Development

2,031 Words Published On: 27-10-2016

Hardest challenge faced in developing a business plan

Describe about the Personal Reflection On Business Plan Development?

Developing a business plan is an important step as it helps in considering important factors and future course of action for the business. A business plan is a written statement that has all the information that a business is expected to follow. A successful business plan is available developed on real life facts and assumptions. Therefore it is required to make in-depth research into various factors that may affects its profitability and credibility during the business application (Trevifio & Brown, 2004).

The hardest challenge that I faced when developing a business plan was specifying positioning. The positioning of the product needs to be done such that the customers notice the products and could easily place their orders using online medium. This way selecting the best method for positioning was a real hard challenge to develop. Positioning was done by selecting the most popular online websites that supports businesses including eBay and amazon. Thus the products were kept on sale through online medium. Also the positioning of the old books was made specifically for the low end product segment, wherein a discount of nearly 45% was offered to the customers. Along with that the free shipment of the product and flat courier service was offered to tempt the customers (Mintzberg, 1994). This way the positioning was featured by following issues.

The attraction of the customers towards new business is among the toughest job in the present day world. People are brand crazy and have their personal likes and thoughts on specific products. These customers can be attracted to new business only when they are offered something extra than others.

Competition:

The competition in the market is so hard that the customers are have great offers to surf before making purchase. The pricing, advertisement and backing of company brand name all has created so much completion for the new entrant that it is really hard to find a space in the market for new business set up.

Technology:

The technology used for placing orders and offering assistance to the customers is quickly changing. Due to this reason Amazon and ebay have become the best way to promote business The technology used by them is considered among the best and latest method of supporting business activities and meeting up to customer expectations.

Uncertainty:

A lot of uncertainty exists in the market. The trend of the customers changes every now and then. Therefore it is really hard to decide on the future of selling old books. Therefore its really hard to decide on investing in new business that is based on selling of old books.

A lot of investment is required while positioning a product online for sale. This is so because its really hard to predict the coming future demand from the customers. Therefore financing for inventory that places right products in right amount has to be decided in the business plan (Kickul & Neuman, 2000).

The reason behind the difficulties faced in developing a business plan includes the followings.

Attracting customers to new business

Unrealistic assumptions:

The business plan is actually based on assumptions. Now any of these assumptions can proved unrealistic in the real world. The customer trend, choice and market acceptance to new entrants all may face either no acceptance or more than just acceptance. Therefore the assumptions may prove to be unrealistic while developing a business plan.

Inadequate research.

A business plan requires a lot of research. Lack or inadequate research may lead to issues and problems in application and non-realistic decisions can be achieved. Hence the business plan developed requires more in-depth knowledge and research which has actually made the business plan more challenging to developed.

Balancing quality with growth:

It is rather a difficult task to balance quality with growth. Thus in a business we can only assume to maintain quality with growth but in reality its really hard to manage for finance, cut down profits and balance quality (Fisk, 2010).

The best way to overcome these challenges is by following a certain criteria for developing a business plan stated as below.

Stage I: Identifying the various options available to the business.

At this first stage the various options available to the business are identified. These includes the opportunities available in online selling, creating brand image, placing products and services in the market, fair pricing, offering huge discounts and offers etc. This way identification of the best option out of the various other options is done in this stage.

Stage II: Measuring the feasibility of each option to the business:

Measuring of each options separately and calculating its feasibility is another step. This way the options available to the business are measured in terms of benefit, profit and outcome that could be expected.

Stage III: Realizing the targets of the business.

The targets of the business need to be realized before making any selection out of the possible options available. This way the business terms, products, services, market capture etc. all needs to be realized.

Stage IV: Selecting the best option for the business:

The selection of the best options that suits the requirements should be done for the business. The business plan initiation should be made with due consideration of the opportunities available. All the factors and features should be considered while selecting and preparing for the business plan.

Stage V: Developing the business plan:

The process of developing a business plan based on the selected options should be initiated at this step. The business plan should be developed in details considering various factors that may affect the business. Various real life assumptions should also be made while developing the business plan.

Stage VI: Making a pilot application of the business plan:

The pilot application of the business plan will help in getting more near to reality. This will help in realizing that if the business plan is actually inconformity with the real world.

Stage VII: Considering feedback and suggestions.

The discussions, identifying customers’ expectations, considering feedbacks, thoughts and suggestions etc. all can help in deciding on the methods that could be used on the application of the business plan.

Competition

Stage VIII: Reaching out to the best conclusion.

The best conclusion can be reached out while carefully and fairly deciding on the feedbacks and suggestions that has been received through discussions.

Stage IX: Making appropriate changes in the business plan:

The suitable and most appropriate changes in the business plan needs to be done at this stage so that the business plan comes more near to reality. This way the assumptions that may prove incorrect should be removed and suggestions in pilot survey should be applied.

Stage X: Finalizing the business plan:

The finalizing of the business plan should be done at this stage after making all required changes in the business plan. The finalization of the business plan can be done by writing in details the information that will be followed. Also due consideration to all aspects needs to be given in the business plan (Crane & Matten, 2003).

The most important lesson that I learnt after developing a business plan as an entrepreneur is that it is very easy and simple to talk about business ideas and yet very hard develop. This is because of the following pre-requisites that needs to be considered while developing a successful business idea.

Writing down everything:

A business plan should be well written. It should cover everything that could bring out successful application for the business. Writing a business plan also helps in discussing the motives with experts so that the changes can be brought in through suggestions and feedback. Also it helps in describing the actual objective of the business and deciding proper plan of action that it has to follow.

Considering various factors seriously:

Various factors should be considered seriously in the business plan. This includes the factors that may affect the business like competitor response, customer trend, product pricing policy etc.

Making realistic assumptions:

Making realistic assumptions helps the business plan to stay in alignment with the real world. Thus whatever we assume may not prove correct but through the realistic assumptions we can formulate a business plan that actually considers real life issues and problems.

Taking important decisions in advance.

A business plan helps in deciding on the important decisions. This way it gives enough time to think, consider and reconsider on various issues and problem so that on time decisions can be taken which could actually help achieve the desired goal and targets for the business.

Making early plans for dealing with competitions.

Business plan if developed carefully could help in making early plans for dealing with the competition. This way the company could easily expect on the market response and decide on the actions that can be taken to fight back competitor’s policy.

Keeping target of achieving customer satisfaction:

Business plan helps in deciding on the customers response from the business. This way the target of achieving customers satisfaction during the actual application of business plan can be decided. Therefore the business policy, motives and plan can be developed such that the customer expectations can be met.

Focusing on improving business:

The focus on improving the business while meeting its objectives can be targeted through the business plan. Therefore the various stages of business can be identified and the most suitable action plan that will help achieve estimated goals and targets can be achieved.

Estimating goals and targets for the business:

Estimating of goals and targets for the business can be done by developing a business plan that considers all factors. The business plan therefore could help in deciding the target growth and development that a business should achieve within a limited time frame.

Considering for unforeseen contingencies:

The business plan should make arrangements for the unforeseen contingencies that may rise due to any reason. The unforeseen contingencies can include requirement for finance, changing customer trend and behavior, increasing competition in the market, competitive pricing by the competitor etc. Thus to fight back the real life situations the action plans should be developed well in advance so that the business could deal easily with this issues and problems that may rise in future. Through business plan enough consideration and time can be given on deciding the action plan that could be followed in a particular situation (Chopra & Meindl, 2001).

Conclusion:

In the end, the business plan should reflect the future course of action that a company may follow so that the desired outcome is finally achieved. The business plan should be developed on real notions and assumptions so that the application becomes easier. A successful business plan is that which considers all the factors that has been learnt while preparing business plan. The best thing that I learnt from the business plan formulation process is that everything needs to be planned and considered so that the desired outcome is achieved. The options for unforeseen contingencies and applications that may affect the business should also be kept open. The various factors that could affect the business should be identified. Finally making real life assumptions can help in deciding the best course of action that the business could follow while the application of the business plans (Atkinson & Miller, 1998).

Atkinson, B. & Miller, R., 1998. Business Economics. Harlow: Princeton Hall.

Chopra, S. & Meindl, P., 2001. Supply Chain Management: Strategy, Planning and Operation. 1st ed. New Jersey: Princeton Hall.

Crane, A. & Matten, D., 2003. Business Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Fisk, P., 2010. People, Planet, Profit: How to Embrace Sustainability for Innovation and Business growth. Kogan Page.

Kickul, J. & Neuman, G., 2000. "Emergence leadership behaviors: The function of personality and cognitive ability in determining teamwork performance and KSAs". Journal of Business and Psychology, 15, pp.27-51.

Mintzberg, H., 1994. The rise and fall of strategic planning: Reconceiving roles for planning, plans, planners. Toronto: Free Press.

Trevifio, L.K. & Brown, M.E., 2004. Managing to be ethical: Debunking five business ethics myths. Academy of Management Executive., 18(2), pp.69-81.

Waldman, D., 2006. Cultural and Leadership predictors of corporate social responsibility values of top managment: A Globe study of 15 countries. Journal of International business studies., 37(6), pp.823-97.

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Why business reflection matters and how to do it in 7 easy steps

With 2021 coming to an end, it’s time for online course creators to wind down and start thinking about the next year. And it’s also a perfect time to spend some time doing end-of-year business reflection to help you set new goals and celebrate last year’s wins.

Why is reflection crucial?

Business reflection matters for many different reasons. But here are three of the most important ones for all online entrepreneurs:

Ensures you are on track

Running a business can get hectic. And when things are tense, and you’re focused on managing and running your business, it’s very easy to lose the vision of the bigger picture. Self-reflection ensures that you stay on track.

As you grow and improve, there will be new opportunities that come your way. Some of them will be life-changing, while others might not be worth your time. Serial entrepreneur and coach Dr. Jeff Cornwall writes that it’s a common trap entrepreneur find themselves in, stating: “Often they have lost track of their own goals and aspirations as the business takes on a life of its own. Many talk about becoming servants of the business rather than the business serving their needs.”

If you do business reflection sessions every quarter, you’ll be able to accommodate those new opportunities without going off track from your original business vision.

Improves business performance

Researchers at Harvard Business School have found that reflecting on our work and experience increases work performance. Many entrepreneurs learn from their failures and mistakes, and consistent business reflection helps them do that better. It’s a way to keep yourself accountable and ensure that you’re moving forward and getting better.

Allows you to celebrate

While business reflection is mostly focused on learning from your mistakes and improving in the future, it can also be useful to help you remember what you accomplished. It’s very easy to get lost in new goals and new challenges, forgetting to celebrate the wins in your business.

When you spend time on self-reflection on your small business, you have an opportunity to mark important wins, however small they might be. That will help you build your confidence and believe that you can achieve things even if they seem hard right now.

7-steps to productively reflect on your business

If you want to learn how to do your business reflection the right way, here is a very simple seven-step process to help you get started:

Step 1: Reflect on your goals

The first thing you’ll want to do is find the best way to reflect on your past business goals. Some people might find it helpful to do it digitally, using tools like Notion or simple Google Sheets. Others might prefer paper notebooks over digital files. Find the method that works for you and set aside enough time for this activity.

Many entrepreneurs utilize the morning pages , which is a concept created by Julia Cameron, in their daily lives to stay on top of their business and goals. Taking this daily practice and using it for your business reflection can be a great way to self-reflect productively if you’re doing it for the first time.

Step 2: What were the wins? Mark them

Once you’re ready and set up for your business reflection, start by marking all the wins from last year, however small they might be. It will probably be hard at first, so here are some questions you can ask yourself to get the brain flow going:

• What new products/courses did you launch this past year?
• What were the projects you worked on and completed?
• Did you reach a certain milestone you set yourself?
• Have you reached your financial goals? If not, how far away were you from your initial goal?
• Has your online course received praises from students?
• Have you gone to do interviews on other podcasts or written guest blogs?
• Was your business mentioned on a list, or was it featured in the local magazine/newspaper?
• Have you met someone who made a huge impact on you and your business?
• Did you hire help for your business?

Every small detail that pushed your business forward this past year matters, and you should mark them as your successes. It’s very easy to forget about all the small things when you get lost in the process of running your business. So, use this opportunity to congratulate yourself.

Step 3: What were the losses? Evaluate them

The next step won’t be so pleasant, but it’s equally important to conduct a successful business reflection. Just like you made a list of your wins before, now it’s time to look back and write down all the losses your business experienced and why. Here are some questions you might want to ask yourself:

• Did your new product/course launch didn’t go as well as planned?
• Have you missed out on a certain opportunity because of X, Y, Z?
• Did you receive negative feedback from your students?
• Did you release fewer products/courses this past year than expected?
• Was your revenue lower than expected?

Once you’re done listing your losses and things you wish you did better, it’s time to evaluate them. Ask yourself these questions:

• What stopped you from fulfilling your goal that failed?
• Was it something you need to do better, or would it be easier if you got help?
• What exact steps do you need to take, so it doesn’t happen next time?
• How have you addressed the situation when it happened, and how do you wish you had addressed it instead?

Reflecting on your failures will ensure that next time, you’re better prepared when something goes wrong. Failure is a natural part of entrepreneurship, and it’s the best way to become better, so don’t shy away from your failures.

Step 4: Learn, don’t judge

With a whole list of mistakes facing you eye to eye, it might be hard to be kind to yourself and refrain from judgment. Imposter syndrome will be strongest in moments like these. So, it’s important to realize that you need to embrace your mistakes and learn from them instead of judging yourself and putting yourself down.

This is where the morning page strategy comes in handy when doing your business reflection. It can serve you as a “brain dump” to write out any negative emotions that come to you during this process. Write them all down, preventing them from occupying your mind. After a while, you’re going to see that negative feelings will die down, and you’ll have space for positive ones once again.

Step 5: Prepare for yearly goals in advance

Formulating concrete, achievable goals takes time. It might take you a few brainstorming sessions to nail them down perfectly. So, take your time and give yourself enough space for setting New Year’s or yearly business goals.

Also, always write down your goals. Even if you know what you want to accomplish, make sure you mark them digitally or on paper. Research has proven that people who write down their goals are more likely to accomplish them. And if you’re serious about improving your business next year, start with this simple step.

Start your preparation for next year in November if possible. November is busy for most small business owners, but it’s also a great time to start looking at what you want your business to look like in the New Year. Write your goals down, and then leave them be for a while. Sit on them and then return to them when the busy season has ended, and you’re ready to transition into the next year.

Step 6: Simplify your goals

The success of your goals is very straightforward—the simpler, the better. If you did prior steps of your business reflection, then you’ll be fairly tuned in with what you want from your business in the future. Then, use that vision to remove the goals that are not important in the next year.

For example: Let’s say you have an online course teaching people to draw fashion illustrations. One of your goals for your business might be to be the #1 resource for learning fashion illustration in the US. That’s a wonderful goal to have. However, it’s very broad, and long-term focused.

For your yearly business goals, you want to have a list of more concrete and achievable goals. So, think about the next step for your business to take to fulfill the long-term goal of being the primary fashion illustration resource in the US. What can you do in the next year that will bring you closer to that broader goal?

Once you have it, write it down. And then go over every single goal on your list and do the same. Simplify, clarify and make your goals measurable.

Step 7: Track

Use a system that allows you to track and be on top of your goals daily and weekly. Always knowing where you are when it comes to your business goals will allow you to reflect on your business when the time comes. And it also will help you stay on track and make sure that you’re accomplishing your goals in time.

You can use tools like Notion , simply keep a sheet for tracking goals on Google Docs or go with a paper planner like Passion Planner . They have a built-in self-reflection system in place and a way to be on top of your work goals daily.

Progress over perfection

Remember, when it comes to your business, progress is always more important than perfection. Naturally, when you’re doing business reflection, you’ll want to have a perfect review of your business. But even if it doesn’t look perfect, it’s still valid and valuable.

However, with time you’ll start noticing that the more disciplined with goal tracking you are and the more consistent with your self-reflection you get, the more of your goals will get accomplished. Simply because you’ll always be on track, putting your business first.

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Karolina Wilde , Karolina Wilde is a freelance writer. Her work has been published on Better Marketing, The Ascent, and Sexography reaching over 25,000+ readers. In her free time, you can find her podcasting, reading, or creating TikTok videos.

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Business Reflection: Why it’s Important and How It Can Propel Your Business Success

You are a little more than halfway through the year. Doesn’t that just twist your brain into a pretzel!

I recently carved out some time for business reflection to review how my year has gone so far. I looked at my progress on my financial goals, and what I’ve accomplished so far, how my energy is holding up, and what I’ve enjoyed doing most.

Business reflection and the many insights that come as a result are a huge asset to your success. Do you do this for yourself regularly?

It’s so powerful to pause, look back, and use that point of view to plan for the future.

I’ll be honest, I’ve been through a few rounds of burn out, strengthening boundaries, and re-configuring this year as a new mama. Can you believe my little mini-me turned one this month? Time flies. Even with lack of sleep, allll the regressions, and isolation with quarantine at the beginning, our little family unit is doing quite well.

As I looked back, here is what I discovered

What Hasn’t Gone As Planned:

• I haven’t posted or blogged as much as I intended to.
• I’ve had to step back from some client work to conserve my energy.
• I’m still finding a balance with my hours. Specific time set for work can kill creativity, so I’m learning what works for me while still having a set schedule.
• Baby naps aren’t the same time or length on the days I watch her (who knew!) 😉
• I’m a little short on my financial goals.
• The Collective is growing, but slower than I anticipated.
• My bar for exhaustion comes a lot quicker these days.

What I’m Proud Of:

• I’ve set boundaries with clients who were delaying projects.
• I’ve protected my limited energy so that my clients get the best of me.
• I’ve set a waitlist with reasonable expectations.
• I’ve prioritized self-care.
• I launched The Collective in March.
• I’m close to my financial goals still.
• I am still posting, even if it’s not as much as I wanted to.
• I started a guest series on IG TV with some awesome experts who are bringing their wisdom and personalities to the business table. Stay tuned!
• I’m delegating more (this is super hard for me) !
• I’m still relatively organized 😉
• I’ve been featured in quite a few podcasts (some still to be published) this year.

What I know to be true always: if you aren’t able to be present, then you are doing a disservice to your clients. (Same goes for your friendships, relationships, and families!)

Inspiration.

Here are some highlights of the incredible conversations I’ve had this year if you’re needing some inspiration today! Most of them are 20 mins or less.

1) Soul Centric Biz Spotlight with Kammie K. Owner, (and longtime friend), Kammie Kobyleski, and I talked about:

• Intuition and how we can learn to trust it
• Why action is the key to creating and maintaining, momentum
• The unique and different ways that we each visualize day-to-day

2) Create Your Daily Momentum with Queen BAE Goals. Owner, Lavelle, and I did a deep dive into:

• My start in business (and how it was slowwww and bumpy)
• What I’ve learned about “failures” after navigating a lot of learning curves
• Why you shouldn’t rush the process

 Guest Appearances

1) How to Focus Your Business Message Without Boxing Yourself In with Ed Troxell

2) Designing Simple Marketing Systems to Create Momentum   with Ed Troxell

3) Intuitive Momentum with Dee Montie. How to get the ball rolling in your business by accessing intuitive wisdom and taking guided action.

4) Crafting a Stronger Business on Create Talk Explore. Navigating the “new” normal after Covid.

5) Gaining and Maintaining Daily Momentum with Monique Floyd. How to stop hiding in your business – not just what you consider “professional.”

Momentum Guests

1) How to Create Inner Space with Kammie Kobyleski

2) Leaning Into Life Purpose   with Dee Montie

3) Sales Mistakes Your Might Unknowingly Be Making (and how to fix them) with Dr. Nadia Brown of The Doyenne Agency

4) Move With Your Fear to Feel Worthy of Momentum, Abundance and Confidence with Monique Floyd

Your Turn For Business Reflection

As you move into the second half of this year, I invite you to do some business reflection. Some key areas to focus on:

• Financial goals
• Progress you’ve made
• What tasks you’ve enjoyed doing most
• What tasks do you wish you didn’t have to do?
• How is your energy holding up?
• How would you like the second half of this year to feel?
• What would you like to do differently as you move forward? The same?

Decide if you like the progress you’re making and brag on yourself a bit! Then, use that information to make a plan for the remainder of the year.

If you’d like support as you move forward, join me in The Collective !

momentum_coach

Guiding intuitive entrepreneurs to find momentum. 🙌🏼 conquer tech fears 🔥 build standout brands 📈 elevate customer service ✨ spark captivating offers

Live on the podcast this month is @loriannkuntz.co discussing the power of financial reporting. Now I *know* this is an area that makes a lot of small business owners cringe. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve heard biz owners express their resistance to looking at their money. I love talking to LoriAnn because she never makes financials feel unreachable. She and her team share simple tools for tracking your income flow (in and out) so you feel in control of your money. Dropping a link in the comments to listen in to this important conversation! ...

Ever get stuck in the visibility phase of launching that group, sending that newsletter, posting that post? Yup, me, too. Here’s what I like to remember! PS notice the misspelling in the photo? In my captions? That my caption is over my face? All mistakes, yes. And yet this post is a blip in time and the intent of the message is still there. So … #liveandletgo #striveforprogressnotperfection ...

A good reminder today. I know someone needs to hear it! 🙌🏼 ...

Now I’m blushing! ☺️ ...

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Highlights of Business Plan

Published Jan.11, 2013

Updated Apr.23, 2024

By: Shawn Jensen

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Table of Content

What is the best business plan?

The business plan is that component of your startup that decides whether the startup would boom or collapse. Considering its far-reaching impacts, it is necessary to make an accurate, detailed, and workable business plan.

There is no fixed criterion for the best business plan. Usually, a business plan is considered best if it covers:

• Financial Highlights
• Management Highlights
• Marketing Highlights
• SMART Business Goals
• Operations & Strategic Plan

To have the best and most promising business plan for your business, you need to have education and experience in the relevant field. If you don’t possess the former or latter, you must consider hiring a professional firm to create a business plan for your business.

If you need an idea of highlights of a business plan, you can visit business plans available free of cost on our website.

What is the most important step in developing a polished business plan?

It is only by thorough and factual research that you can make a polished business plan. It includes research on how the businesses are launched in your locality, what are the registration procedures, and the business climate. Next, you have to explore market analytics via secondary analysis or conducting surveys.

Following this, you have to investigate your likely customers, competitors, and stakeholders. Then, the new procedures, technology, and software available in your area to manage the business operations. Thereafter, you have to decide on the strategy to optimize your production, explore the methods to recruit a talented workforce, and keep them productive, trained, and motivated all the time.

What are the management highlights in the business plan?

Management highlights in the business plan are the policies and strategies that revolve around practically operating your business. Management of a business is a complex task that involves boosting the overall productivity of the business while also maintaining the finances.

A business has several types of operations going along, and hundreds of egos have to collaborate to regulate those operations. It is only by efficient management that the employees, resources, and customers are grouped to coherently achieve the business goals.

Management is always a hierarchical process so that surveillance, performance assessment, and reward allocation can be done most efficiently.

The overall management of a business is divided into the following branches:

• Sales Management
• Production Management
• Program Management
• Human Resource Management
• Strategic Management
• Financial Management

On our website, you can explore highlights and components of business plan for startups in different niches.

What are the financial highlights of the business plan?

Gaining more and more customers is the ultimate goal of every business no matter what the niche is. To ensure that you get the desired target audience, you need to design customer-centric marketing highlights in business plan. Your marketing highlighters in business plan should elaborate on the following aspects.

• Micro and macro trends in the market where you are situated
• Analysis of other businesses that are operating in vicinity
• Criteria on basis of which you will measure and compare your marketing goals. They can be CSAT score, customer retention rate, average ratings, etc.
• Insight into the psychology and purchasing power of your customers
• Your sales strategy and concrete measures to advertise your venture

Sales strategy is extremely important as it pertains to convince a person to spend his hard-earned dollars to procure what you sell. The designing of sales strategy is tricky as you have to convince without overwhelming your target customer with call to action.

What are the marketing accents in the business plan?

Gaining more and more customers is the ultimate goal of every business no matter what the niche is. To ensure that you get the desired target audience, you need to design customer-centric marketing highlights in the business plan. Your marketing highlighters in the business plan should elaborate on the following aspects.

• Analysis of other businesses that are operating in the vicinity
• Criteria on basis of which you will measure and compare your marketing goals. They can be CSAT scores, customer retention rate, average ratings, etc.

Sales strategy is extremely important as it pertains to convincing a person to spend his hard-earned dollars to procure what you sell. The designing of a sales strategy is tricky as you have to convince without overwhelming your target customer with a call to action.

Financial highlights in business plan relate to drawing financial projections for your business from the time you launch it to at least 5 years ahead. It outlines the cash flows i.e. from where the money will come and where it would go. Moreover, it presents a pictorial display of data so that you could assess the brake even point, and set your pricing strategy, discount policies, and budget that is to be spent on different aspects.

While doing financial planning, you have to ensure 100 % accuracy. Otherwise, you might end up with complicated balance sheets and wrong business ratios.

Your financial plan helps you define the trajectory of your business. Any minor glitches can result in making wrong decisions. Therefore, it is recommended to never experiment with making a financial plan and hire a professional for the task.

Via this financial highlights business plan example, you can learn the generic overview of financial highlights. For getting customized  tailored to your needs, you can contact us from here .

The components and examples of business plan financial highlights are as follows:

• Important Assumptions
• Break-even Analysis
• Profit Monthly
• Profit Yearly
• Gross Margin Monthly
• Gross Margin Yearly
• Projected Cash Flow
• Projected Balance Sheet
• Business Ratios

How do I prepare a business plan for beginners?

If you want to develop a business plan for your venture but are inexperienced in the field, you have to spend some days learning the process. 

In this highlights business plan, we are listing the steps following which you can make a flawless business plan.

Stepwise Guide for Beginners to Prepare a Business Plan

1. Research & Exploration

The first step is to figure out what aspects are in the highlights of a business plan. For that you may consult business plan highlights samples.

2. Understand Legal Constraints

Find the state requirements to launch the business in your preferred area.

3. Consider Taking Online Course

Making a business plan is a systemic process. It is advisable to take an online course to learn how to evaluate the relevant terms and figures.

4. Outline the In-Flows

Know what you have to invest in your venture.

5. Construct Management Plan

Make a concrete management plan with responsibilities and job duties that do not overlap.

6. Know Whom to Recruit

Set criteria for judging candidates and hiring the right ones.

7. Plan for Finances

Decide how much to spend where and at what time.

8. Do Market Research

Know every stakeholder, market statics, and dynamics.

9. Advertise

Reach out to the people to whom you want to sell.

Establish your brand.

Get Flawless Business Plan Made by OGSCapital Experts

If you don’t know how to make a 100% accurate business plan highlights template, let OGS takes care of your worries. Here is why OGS is your promising service provider:

16 Years of Industrial Experience

Throughout the years, we have completed hundreds of projects for designing business plans, feasibility studies, due diligence, compensation plans, financial projections, and more for the following sectors:

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To gauge our expertise and experience, you may visit OGSCapital from here and read business plan highlights examples.

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At OGSCapital, It’s All About You!

At OGSCapital, our philosophy is to develop workable solutions for you. Customer satisfaction is our topmost priority. Prompt replies, incorporation of revisions, and guidance-centric communication make our work more beneficial to you than us!

Here is what our clients say about us!

• What do business plan highlights mean?

Business plan highlights are the guiding principles and strategies to identify and achieve organizational goals, prepare for potential risks, and capitalize on opportunities and solutions.

• What are the highlights of a good plan?

Highlights for business plan include major strategies related to business operations, management, finance department, marketing, and growth.

• Apart from the business plan, what other factors are relevant when starting a business?

Apart from the business plan, having a clear idea of how you would finance your venture, get investment, earn profits, and spend those profits to earn even more, is a must.

• What is the best business idea plan?

It is a subjective debate that depends on your location, your target audience, your resources, and most importantly your aptitude. To know which business idea plan is best per your interests and specifics, you may explore different startups and their plans.

• What is the right length for a business plan?

There is no fixed criterion. The right length for a business plan is the one that precisely covers financial, management, and growth highlights in a business plan.

Download Sample From Here

OGSCapital’s team has assisted thousands of entrepreneurs with top-rate business plan development, consultancy and analysis. They’ve helped thousands of SME owners secure more than $1.5 billion in funding, and they can do the same for you.

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How to Write a Business Plan Conclusion?

• Vinay Kevadia
• June 18, 2024

Completed writing your business plan?

Let’s wrap it up with a conclusion that ends your business plan on an exciting and positive note. Not to forget—a conclusion that convinces the readers about your business’s potential to succeed.

In this blog post, you will learn exactly how to write a conclusion of a business plan and get an example to guide you.

Let’s get started.

What is a business plan conclusion?

A business plan conclusion is the final section concluding very concisely the points discussed in your business plan.

It reinforces the business’s strengths and feasibility and reassures the readers of potential business success. It clarifies the reader’s benefit of associating with your business and convinces them of a profitable investment opportunity.

A conclusion is about 3-4 paragraphs long and is designed to drive action and leave a lasting impression on reader’s minds.

Business plan conclusion vs. executive summary

Many people confuse a conclusion and an executive summary to be the same. However, they are not. Let’s see how.

• An executive summary is a broad overview of your entire business plan. The conclusion, on the other hand, is a concise summary reinforcing the key takeaways of your plan.
• While an executive summary introduces the readers to your business idea, a conclusion convinces them to take the desired action.
• An executive summary is a preview of what the plan will be about. The conclusion, on the contrary, is a review of what the plan has discussed.
• An executive summary is concise. However, conclusions are more concise covering only the aspects that can drive decisions and actions.

Clear enough, right? Let’s move ahead.

Why is a business plan conclusion important?

Although a conclusion is not mandatory, it is an important aspect of a business plan. It communicates your passion and commitment to a business idea and convinces the readers of your ability to succeed.

A conclusion synthesizes the key insights of your business plan focusing on aspects such as market analysis, business strategy, competitive advantage, and milestones. It reinforces your plan’s vision and establishes your strategic position amongst readers.

A well-crafted conclusion will drive desired actions from the readers. It can seal the deal and fulfill your objective of writing a business plan .

How to write a conclusion for your business plan?

From what information to include to where to place the conclusion—this section will guide you to write an impactful conclusion for your business plan.

1. Choose the right placement

There are two places for you to place your conclusion. It can either be after your executive summary or at the end of the document.

The location changes depending on who you plan to present your business plan with.

If you prepare a business plan for investors, placing your conclusion after the executive summary will increase the likelihood of it getting read.

However, the conclusion should be placed at the end for business plans that are prepared for internal use and business partners. Conclusion in this case reviews and emphasizes the company’s strengths.

2. Place the right information

The information in your conclusion changes depending on your audience and the intent of the business plan.

For instance, if you’re a new business trying to secure funds, your conclusion can synthesize the key details about the following:

• Funding demands
• Benefit to the investors
• Target market and target customers
• Solution for the problem
• Marketing strategy
• Team members and their expertise
• Financial projections
• Competitive advantage
• Launch plan

However, if you’re a small business trying to grow or use this plan for internal use, consider covering key insights from the following aspects:

• Mission statement
• History and the milestones
• Data supporting growth
• Industry trends
• Financial summary
• Long-term goals and objectives

These are the details you can cover while writing your conclusion. However, including every bit of these in your conclusion is unnecessary.

Think from your reader’s perspective. Determine the information that would excite them about your business and form your conclusion accordingly.

3. Include stats and visuals

Now that you’ve decided on the placement and information to be included in your conclusion, it’s time to make your conclusion zesty.

How? Get the facts and stats that would support the claims you make in your conclusion.

For instance, if you’re promising growth, show market research that supports your claim. Again, if you’re promising a certain return on investment, include the statistics that can make investors believe you.

Sway away from vague statements and assumptions. And, if you feel that the statistic would be best absorbed through visual charts or graphics, don’t be afraid to add one.

4. Add a CTA

If you want the readers to take action, guide them. Add a crisp clear call to action(CTA) and explain how the readers would benefit from taking that action.

For instance, 

• Join us as a silent partner by investing in Beanco.
• Invest $2 M and secure a 20% stake in equity.
• Support our growth by sharing references.

Don’t beat around the bush. If you are making a funding request, be unapologetic. And even if not, your CTA should suggest how a reader can support your growth.

5. Review and proofread

Once your conclusion is ready, re-read and proofread it for any grammatical or spelling errors. Fix the flow and remove fluff to make your conclusion crisp and persuasive.

Get your friends and business partners to read the conclusion and check if the message you are trying to send is crisp and clear. If not, make the necessary adjustments.

Business plan conclusion example

Use this business plan conclusion as a reference and tailor yours keeping in mind the needs, objectives, and audience for your business plan.

Launching EcoRide Electric Scooters will revolutionize urban transportation by providing an eco-friendly, efficient, and affordable solution for city commuters. Our innovative design and advanced technology will set us apart in the rapidly growing market for sustainable transport options.

We are poised to make a significant impact on urban mobility, and we want [Investor’s Name] to be a foundational part of our journey. By investing in EcoRide Electric Scooters, [Investor’s Name] will benefit in the following ways:

• Joining a groundbreaking startup with a vision to reduce urban pollution and traffic congestion, led by a passionate team with over 20 years of combined experience in the automotive and tech industries.
• Supporting the development and deployment of cutting-edge electric scooters, contributing to a cleaner, greener urban environment.
• Gaining equity in a high-potential startup with a scalable business model and the potential for significant returns as we expand to new markets.

Together, we can transform urban transportation, reduce carbon footprints, and create a sustainable future for city dwellers. If you share our vision for a cleaner, more efficient urban commute, partner with us.

Let’s conclude your business plan

Now that you have understood the process and referred to an example, let’s conclude your business plan.

Identify the information you must highlight, encapsulate it into a powerful conclusion, and pair it with an even more powerful CTA.

However, remember that the conclusion just seals the deal. It’s the business plan that will hook your readers till the end. With Upmetrics’s AI business plan generator , you can create truly engaging business plans in just about 10 minutes.

So, improvise your business plan, sum it up with a convincing conclusion, and send over your business plan to your potential investors to secure funding.

Build your Business Plan Faster

with step-by-step Guidance & AI Assistance.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long should a business plan conclusion be.

A conclusion of your business plan can be anywhere between 2-3 paragraphs long. In this ideal length, you must outline the key takeaways of your plan, clarify the next step to the readers, and explain to them the benefit of supporting your business.

What is the most important part of a business plan conclusion?

A CTA is the most important part of the conclusion, especially if you are trying to raise funds. However, if you are writing a plan for internal purposes, focus more on synthesizing the key essentials of a plan.

Can I include new information in the conclusion?

A conclusion does not introduce any new information. It simply reinforces the business’s position and convinces the readers to take the desired action for one last time. For instance, offer funding for your business.

Is it necessary to include a call to action in the conclusion?

It is very important to add a crisp clear CTA while concluding your plan. You can’t expect the readers to invest in your business or help you grow if you don’t clarify the steps to take action.

About the Author

Vinay Kevadiya

Vinay Kevadiya is the founder and CEO of Upmetrics, the #1 business planning software. His ultimate goal with Upmetrics is to revolutionize how entrepreneurs create, manage, and execute their business plans. He enjoys sharing his insights on business planning and other relevant topics through his articles and blog posts. Read more

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Costco Plans to Stop Selling Books Year-Round

The decision, which will be implemented in January 2025, could significantly impact publishers.

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By Elizabeth A. Harris and Alexandra Alter

In a blow to publishers and authors, Costco plans to stop selling books regularly at stores around the United States, four publishing executives who had been informed of the warehouse retailer’s plans said on Wednesday.

Beginning in January 2025, the company will stop stocking books regularly, and will instead sell them only during the holiday shopping period, from September through December. During the rest of the year, some books may be sold at Costco stores from time to time, but not in a consistent manner, according to the executives, who spoke anonymously in order to discuss a confidential business matter that has not yet been publicly announced.

Costco’s shift away from books came largely because of the labor required to stock books, the executives said. Copies have to be laid out by hand, rather than just rolled out on a pallet as other products often are at Costco. The constant turnaround of books — new ones come out every Tuesday and the ones that have not sold need to be returned — also created more work.

A Costco representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.

The decision could be a significant setback for publishers at a moment when the industry is facing stagnant print sales and publishing houses are struggling to find ways to reach customers who have migrated online.

While Costco isn’t as critical a retail outlet as bookstore chains like Barnes & Noble, it has provided a way for people who might not otherwise seek out books to see them and perhaps grab a new thriller or a cookbook while shopping for socks and paper towels. Shoppers could also browse books at Costco in a way that is difficult to do online.

Costco had already stopped selling books in some markets, including Alaska and Hawaii. Publishing industry executives say other big box retailers remain committed to carrying books and have seen some success with the category.

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Apple's genius AI plan

The company's new AI features for the iPhone actually work

On Monday, as part of its Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple unveiled software features for its various products, including the iPhone and the iPad. The most anticipated part of the show was getting details on how the company would integrate artificial intelligence into its phones and operating systems.

During the presentation, Apple executives showed off how the tech giant's AI system — which they pointedly referred to as Apple Intelligence instead of artificial intelligence — could help with searching texts and photos, creating images, fixing grammar and spelling, summarizing text, and editing photos.

After the announcement, tech pundits , extremely online billionaires, and cheap seats the world over complained that the features were small potatoes . CNET's Katie Collins wrote that Apple's most interesting new features were long overdue, summing up her reaction as "finally." Bloomberg's Mark Gurman called them " minor upgrades ." My colleague Jordan Hart said they weren't the silver bullet Apple needed to reinvigorate the company. And Elon Musk registered his disappointment by sharing a stupid meme . In sum, many people are underwhelmed by Apple's practical integration of AI. Sure, maybe summarizing long emails and making transcripts of calls sounds boring compared with conjectures that AI could be used to detect cancer earlier , but guess what? Apple's scale and specificity of vision also make it the first Big Tech company to get AI integration right.

Apple is using AI to do what the technology has proved it can do: be an assistant. Yes, the virality of OpenAI's ChatGPT-3 put AI's potential on display. But using AI to power a robot that does your chores or to answer open-ended questions is still extremely imperfect. Chatbots lie, they hallucinate, they tell my colleagues to eat glue . Google's rollout and subsequent rollback of offering AI answers to people's search queries is just one sign that the current iteration of the tech isn't ready for all the use cases Silicon Valley is dreaming about — to say nothing of the venture capitalist Marc Andreessen's claims that AI will be able to "save the world," "improve warfare," and become our therapists, tutors, confidants, and collaborators, ushering in a "golden age" of art.

Related stories

Apple's updates are an appeal for everyone to get a grip. They are a clarion call for other tech companies to be practical with what they promise consumers and to deliver AI products that make our lives incrementally easier instead of confusing us with overpromises. Apple's use of the best of AI is also the best way for normal people to develop an understanding of what it can do. This is a way to build trust. Sure, maybe one day AI will figure out how to destroy civilization or whatever, but right now it's best at finding that photo of your dog dressed as a pickle you took back in 2019. And for the vast majority of people, that's perfectly fine.

What does AI do?

The fact that people are disappointed in Apple says more about the hype around AI's capabilities than it does about Apple . Musk has since 2019 been promising that Tesla will make a self-driving robocar, and for even long he's been overselling his driver-assistance technology as "autopilot." OpenAI's internal arguments turned palace intrigue turned media fodder are mostly centered on concern for the speed at which AI's supposedly fearsome power will reshape humanity, not the limitations of its current practical application. The biggest models, the most powerful Nvidia chips, the most talented teams poached from the hottest startups — that is the drumbeat of AI news from Silicon Valley and Wall Street. We've seen tech hype cycles before; they're mostly about raising money and selling stock. Only time will tell if the investments Wall Street and Silicon Valley are making in AI infrastructure will actually produce commensurate returns. That's how this game goes.

Apple's updates are an appeal for everyone to get a grip.

But in all that noise, the reality of what AI is good (and bad) at right now has gotten lost — especially when it comes to the large language models that undergird most of the new AI tools consumers will use, like virtual assistants and chatbots. The tech is based on pattern recognition: Rather than make value judgments, LLMs simply scan a vast library of information they've hoovered — books, webpages, speech transcripts — and guess which word most logically comes next in the chain. There is an inherent limitation in that design. Sometimes facts are improbable, but what makes them facts is that they are provable. It might not make sense that Albany, not New York City, is the capital of the state of New York, but it's a fact. It might make sense to use glue, an adhesive, to stick cheese on pizza, if you're a robot with no context for what "food" is. But that's definitely not how it's done. Such as they are, large language models can't make this value judgment between pattern and fact. It's unclear whether they'll ever be able to. Yann LeCun , Meta's lead AI scientist and one of the " godfathers of AI ," has said that LLMs have a "very limited understanding of logic" and that they "do not understand the physical world, do not have persistent memory, cannot reason in any reasonable definition of the term and cannot plan." He has also said they cannot learn anything beyond the data they're trained on — anything new or original — which makes them mentally inferior to a house cat .

In other words, they're not perfect.

Enter Apple, a company known for a culture of perfection. It was slow to embrace the hype surrounding AI, and, as I mentioned, for a while it refused to use the term "artificial intelligence," instead preferring the long dethroned, snoozefest name " machine learning ." Apple started developing its own generative AI after ChatGPT-3 launched in 2022 , but it revealed the new features only when it felt they were good and ready. This tech is what will power features like Genmoji, which allows you to describe a custom emoji to fit whatever's going on and then creates it — say, one of you crying while eating an entire pizza. It will also power more-practical applications, like writing an email to your boss when you're sick or pulling up that link your mom sent you in a text message. Right now, these basic call-and-response applications are the things at which LLMs excel.

Apple's rigorous standards serve as a way to firmly establish AI's present capabilities — or limitations, depending on how you see the glass.

If you want to use the latest Apple products to get into the freakier and more fungible world of talking to a chatbot, Siri will call up ChatGPT for you and let you run wild. This is Apple making a clear delineation between where its reliability ends and where a world of technological inconsistency begins. For Apple, this distinction makes sense. It wants its products to be associated with cutting-edge technology but also efficacy and productivity.

The distinction, however, does not serve the rest of Silicon Valley or their venture-capital investors. Anyone fundraising or investing in this technology would prefer you see the capabilities and value of AI as a moving target — specifically moving up, to the right, and fast. Apple's rigorous standards serve as a way to firmly establish AI's present capabilities — or limitations, depending on how you see the glass. The alternative is what we're seeing at other companies, where users are guinea pigs, used to working with tech that makes them question what they see. Societies around the world are already grappling with a crisis of faith in institutions; faulty AI just spreads that mistrust wider and faster. It's another stone in the wall between people's faith and what they read on the internet. In that way, Apple's cautious approach may be a service for the rest of the tech industry. By slowly acclimatizing its constellation of users to AI that makes their lives better instead of frustrating them, Apple makes the tech feel like a natural upgrade instead of an unreliable, scary intrusion.

Sure, Apple's AI may not be sexy or scary, but at least it doesn't seem stupid. Ideally, that means it won't make our world any stupider either.

Linette Lopez is a senior correspondent at Business Insider.

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