Business plan template

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<p>Your Business Plan Template is the document that lenders, investors and other interested parties are going to want to see to gather an opinion on your business’s prospects.</p>
<p>The template itself has help links within it that offer explanations and guidance. This article will outline how to progress through it.</p>
<h3>Step One – Enter your business’s profile</h3>
<p>First fill out these tables to give an overview of your business. The three sections include your business’s:</p>
<ul>
<li>Its structure and the dates it was established and registered.</li>
<li>Contact details. Your business address, email and mobile.</li>
<li>Online/social media. Any social media platform addresses, and your website and blog if applicable.</li>
</ul>
<p>For example, let’s say you plan to start up a winter sports equipment hire store. You’re going to operate it as a sole proprietorship with a website, blog and Twitter and Instagram accounts. This section is where you should enter these details.</p>
<h3>Step Two – Outline your business’s executive summary</h3>
<p>The executive summary will ask you to detail your business’s:</p>
<ul>
<li>Current position in its life cycle.</li>
<li>Growth plan explaining how you intend to increase capacity, capability and growth.</li>
</ul>
<p>Using our rental store example, you’re in the start-up phase of your business and you plan to focus on skiing and snowboarding initially, before branching out with hire equipment for other winter sports.</p>
<h3>Step Three – Summarize your business background</h3>
<p>In this section you’ll want to outline your business’s:</p>
<ul>
<li>How long has your business been in operation and what is its track record?</li>
<li>What goals and objectives do you have for your business?</li>
<li>What products or services do you sell?</li>
<li>Intellectual property (IP). Do you have any intellectual property?</li>
<li>Locations and outlets. Where is your business located?</li>
</ul>
<p>Filling in these details using our example, let’s say you have no track record at this stage. Your initial objectives are to break even and make a profit. You offer skis, ski boots, ski poles, snowboards, snowboard boots, helmets and other related items for hire. You haven’t yet created any IP and you have one store in Whistler, B.C.</p>
<h3>Step Four – Write down your business strategy</h3>
<p>Here you will aim to explain your business strategy, specifically your:</p>
<ul>
<li>What are the steps required and the resources you’ll use to improve your business?</li>
<li>Strategic impact. Are there any threats or opportunities in the months ahead?</li>
<li>E-commerce and technology. How will your business use these to progress and develop?</li>
<li>Core values. What are they and how will they help you achieve sustainable success?</li>
<li>Credibility and risk reduction. How will you enhance your business’s credibility and lower its risk?</li>
</ul>
<p>For our ski rental example, your store may look at offering package deals that include lift passes. One threat will be the length of the ski season, but an opportunity could be to offer mountain bikes for rent outside the ski season.</p>
<p>You’re planning to put an online hiring system in place to develop your business’s ecommerce, while maintaining one of your core values – efficient customer service. You’re also working on encouraging word-of-mouth referrals from your regular customers, to enhance your business’s credibility in the Whistler area.</p>
<h3>Step Five – Detail your team</h3>
<p>For this step, outline the team that will help your business achieve success. Look at your:</p>
<ul>
<li>Management structure. Do you have any managers and, if so, what are their roles?</li>
<li>Current team. List your current team members, their positions and expertise.</li>
<li>Retention and recruitment policies. Explain how you plan to keep your key staff and recruit talent.</li>
<li>Mentors and business support. Do you have other support outside your business?</li>
</ul>
<p>Your team at the ski rental store is minimal, with two staff members – one an expert at skiing and ski equipment, the other a skilled snowboarder. You offer bonuses to your staff if they get a certain number of customers to rent additional gear. You’re also keeping an eye out for prospective staff that could work in the off-season selling summer sports equipment.</p>
<p>Your only other outside support is your accountant and business mentor.</p>
<h3>Step Six – Write down your SWOT and critical success factors</h3>
<p>In this section, you’ll want to outline your:</p>
<ul>
<li>SWOT summary. After noting your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, explain your chosen strategy, such as O-W, where you’ll aim to maximize your opportunities and minimize your weaknesses. Also detail your business’s critical success factors.</li>
</ul>
<p>Your winter sports equipment rental store’s location is a strength. Being new to the scene is a weakness. There’s an opportunity to add summer sports equipment, and the established competitors are a threat. You decide to choose an O-T strategy.</p>
<p>Your critical success factors include gaining repeat customers (who’ll rent from you for the entire season), building your brand and offering unbeatable customer service.</p>
<h3>Step Seven – Outline your market research</h3>
<p>What market research have you done? Which methods have you used? How will you continue using market research as you progress?</p>
<p>Using our example, your market research was primarily based on surveys completed up on the slopes when skiers and boarders were taking lunch breaks. You plan to have a short in-store satisfaction survey and online in the future.</p>
<h3>Step Eight – Elaborate on your market analysis</h3>
<p>In the market analysis section, discuss your:</p>
<ul>
<li>Market opportunity. Lay out your business opportunity and potential revenue.</li>
<li>Market structure. What type of business structure do you have and how does it fit into the marketplace?</li>
<li>Market size and outlook. What’s the potential value and number of consumers in your market? Back this information up with evidence.</li>
<li>Future markets. Do you have any plans to try to enter future local, national or international markets?</li>
<li>Target market. What’s the size and potential of your target market? What factors influence your target market’s buying habits? How will your business meet these market requirements?</li>
</ul>
<p>Your winter sports equipment rental store has an opportunity to take a share of the rental market for skis and snowboards with more tourists expected in future years. The Whistler area gets close to three million visitors a year, so the potential value for your business if it adopts year-round sports equipment is huge.</p>
<p>At the moment, you plan to focus on Whistler with the possibility of expansion to another ski resort in British Colombia sometime in the next five to 10 years.</p>
<p>Your target market is responsive to flexible hiring options and excellent customer service.</p>
<h3>Step Nine – Analyse your competitors</h3>
<p>Enter your two main competitors and outline, as well as you can, their:</p>
<ul>
<li>How will you combat their strengths?</li>
<li>How will you target their weaknesses?</li>
</ul>
<p>In our example, your two main competitors’ strengths are their larger size and greater variety of rental equipment. You’re planning to combat this strength by offering only the best quality rental equipment.</p>
<p>They may both share a weakness in thinking they’re immune to new competitors on the scene. You can target this weakness by surprising them with innovative marketing and specials designed to attract some of their clientele.</p>
<h3>Step Ten – Outline your financial plan</h3>
<p>The financial plan section should detail your:</p>
<ul>
<li>Start-up costs. Summarize these costs here.</li>
<li>What are your sources of funding?</li>
<li>Break-even date. Calculate and write down this important date in the life of your business.</li>
<li>Profit and loss forecast. Enter your estimated sales, costs and profit or loss for the first three years of your business.</li>
<li>Cash flow forecast. Supply a detailed cash flow forecast for your upcoming year in business, while summarizing your cash flow for the next three years.</li>
</ul>
<p>The start-up costs of your equipment rental store include $30,000 worth of gear and equipment, $3,000 deposit for the rental lease, $5,000 in store fixtures, $5,000 for marketing and launching your business, and $1,000 for setting up phones and computers.</p>
<p>Your funding comes from your own personal savings, your family’s investment and a small loan from your bank. You’ve worked out your break-even date to be six months after you open, while forecasting a loss for your first year – before profits are realized in the following two years.</p>
<p>Cash flow will be an issue in the off-season and you’ll need to research some opportunities for balancing your revenue more evenly over the whole year.</p>
<h3>Step Eleven – Explain your marketing strategy</h3>
<p>Here’s where you can detail your marketing strategy, including your:</p>
<ul>
<li>Launch budget. Your budget should be part of your start-up costs mentioned in the finance section above. It should reflect the total cost of your launch marketing tactics.</li>
<li>Marketing budget. The budget for your ongoing marketing strategy should use tactics that are financially sustainable within your forecasted cash flow.</li>
</ul>
<p>You’ve set aside a budget of $5,000 for launching and marketing your  equipment rental store. Half of that money will be used for marketing purposes, with plenty of direct marketing toward people in the streets near your new business.</p>
<h3>Step Twelve – Write down your business ownership strategy</h3>
<p>This section may not be applicable for you if you have a partnership or sole proprietorship. If you run a corporation, detail the:</p>
<ul>
<li></li>
<li>Other shareholders.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Step Thirteen – Check your business complies</h3>
<p>In this section, go over your:</p>
<ul>
<li>Legal and regulatory considerations. Ensure you’ve carried out what you need to as a sole proprietorship, partnership or corporation.</li>
<li>Outlay your business insurance arrangements to show that you’re mitigating the risks to your business’s continuity.</li>
</ul>
<p>Continuing with the rental store example and operating as a sole proprietor, you’ll have to check if you need to:</p>
<ul>
<li>register for GST/HST</li>
<li>trademark your business name and brand</li>
<li>apply for a business number.</li>
</ul>
<p>You’re also planning to enquire about contents insurance for your adventure sport equipment.</p>
<h3>Step Fourteen – IT and equipment</h3>
<p>Finally, write about your:</p>
<ul>
<li>Business premises. Do you lease or own? Detail your premises situation here.</li>
<li>Explain your IT requirements and how you plan to manage them. List any solutions for specialist human resources or security issues.</li>
<li>Detail your equipment requirements and how you plan to manage them. Outline any solutions you have for machinery, vehicles and equipment costs.</li>
</ul>
<p>In our example, your premises are leased and your IT requirements are minimal for now (until you get your website and social media up and running).</p>
<p>Your equipment requirements are focused around the winter snow gear that your business rents to its customers.</p>